Digital Ecologies, Infrastructures and Degrowth | Automation and Creativity | Postcapitalism and Political Ecology | Postgrowth computing.
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2026-08-17T20:00:28Z Event JSON
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"content": "{\"name\":\"Sy Taffel\",\"about\":\"Digital Ecologies, Infrastructures and Degrowth | Automation and Creativity | Postcapitalism and Political Ecology | Postgrowth computing.\\n\\nSenior Lecturer in media studies and co-director of the Political Ecology Research Centre at Massey University, Aotearoa.\",\"picture\":\"https://o.mastodon.nz/accounts/avatars/109/259/055/317/802/039/original/faed02f28a39151e.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://o.mastodon.nz/accounts/headers/109/259/055/317/802/039/original/6b60601dde29b476.jpg\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \",\"fields\":[[\"my website\",\"https://sytaffel.com/\"],[\"PERC\",\"https://perc.ac.nz\"]]}" ,
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Last Notes npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'There appears to be an assumption that the country will always have enough water for its economic needs,” ... “Nothing could be further from the truth.” npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'For decades, the recipe was simple: grow the economy, and poverty would gradually disappear. But the promise that economic growth would “lift all boats” has not been kept. While national incomes expanded, wages stagnated, work became more precarious and public services were cut. At the top, fortunes ballooned; at the bottom, families turned to food banks. Growth has become decoupled from shared prosperity. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Look what just arrived in the post! npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'We're not here to chase emissions reduction as the end goal' NZ PM Chris Luxon npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'A postgrowth future isn’t anti-technology, anti-digital or anti-progress. It asks us to take seriously the scientific evidence that seven of nine planetary boundaries have been overshot, and to recognise that this will have catastrophic societal impacts if radical action isn’t taken. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel An opaque automated system that quickly and efficiently makes bad decisions about who gets benefits is an unbelievably bad idea. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'AI systems are using CC-licensed works in ways that are causing many to question whether the existing CC license suite still aligns with their goals. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…5w5c Thanks Bill, this is an excellent, concise summary. I'll be sharing it with my students next semester npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Big tech enormously underreporting emissions. Again. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…vvev @nprofile…5w5c most of the spend on a lot of these AI 'investments' is buying NVIDIA servers, which contributes pretty much nothing to the host country. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel “Open Source” is not enough. Open source code can still be harmful to you and your digital existence, can put you in danger without you realizing it. We need something better. Something more. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…gydw Hypothetically it should be possible for 8 billion people to have a reasonable standard of living while remaining within planetary boundaries... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel We just had a meet the new VC session... In which our incoming overlord told us that we need to think hard about the commodification of university education. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'the AI bubble really is very bad news, it’s worth fighting seriously, and a serious fight against AI strikes at its roots: the material factors fueling the hundreds of billions in wasted capital that are being spent to put us all on the breadline and fill all our walls with hi-tech asbestos.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Continuing their war on anything that makes Aotearoa a pleasant place to live, the National party and their pals who own businesses look like they're lining up having a decent break over summer as another thing we 'can't afford' and so should cut. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel In news that should surprise absolutely no one, it turns out that deep sea mining is really, really bad for life on the seabed. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel The amount universities pay to publishers like Elsevier to access academic work - including our own - is an absolute disgrace. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…glz5 Jeremy Gilbert put out a really good podcast about Adam Curtis recently. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'without more support from the trillion-dollar companies that profit from open source, many woefully underfunded, volunteer-driven critical open-source projects will no longer be maintained at all.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel New on the list of digital devices no one asked for... Meet the digital piss scanner. Sending profound data-driven insights about your wee to a friendly corporation near you! npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…glz5 Maybe not a great example (although New Statesman is generally considered a left liberal publication), but Sanders criticism of Harris and the Democrats for abandoning the working class was pretty widely reported... And has seemingly gained a lot of traction since then with Mamdami etc. adopting a very different stance. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…glz5 Is it a reference to this stuff? https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/11/kamala-harris-perils-of-identity-politics npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'It is high time to stop pretending - and claiming - degrowth is one thing, one huge all-encompassing framework that will fix the world. Instead, let’s focus on what it is that degrowth brings that the rest of political programs have missed so far: the ideology of growth, in all its socio-cultural, economic, material and political iterations, is the curse of our time. It is the most blatant expression of capitalism in the neoliberal globalised age, rooted so deeply into the political and cultural hegemony of our societies that it goes unnoticed, and is taken for granted, even by many of the most radical struggles. Centering growth provides a sharp tool to dismantle intersecting systems of oppression by targeting the core mechanism of capital accumulation.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…6t6n I almost totally agree... in fairness, they do say outside of work, so couriers wouldn't be a good example. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…dn53 @nprofile…ch7a npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…dn53 This looks alarmingly close to a Jordan Peterson Youtube video - which is largely where the whole Marxism and Postmodernism are all about absolute relativism rubbish that's in the article you linked to comes from. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…dn53 'If curricula and ideas and knowledge are colonised, that means they have been shaped in part by considerations that are political, economic, social, cultural or otherwise tangential to the ideals of academic inquiry. ' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel I find it oddly comforting that tech corporations are now straight up advertising their vision of dystopian individualism where all your friends have been replaced by their chatbot. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…60lz Equally, given the success of the Greens as a party that's solidly to the left of Labour and which has had some success in local and (to a very limited degree) national elections, is there room for another party occupying that space? npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Worth a read if you want a fairer assessment than Google's greenwashed environmental report... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Woking through Google's 2025 Environmental Report, here's my summary... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…60lz Those numbers seem pretty dubious though? npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…jhx4 @nprofile…6p7r There are AI various models that are really useful for tasks ranging from climate modelling to camera autofocus and noise reduction. They can usually be trained and run locally and require a tiny fraction of the resources required for LLMs. Being able to distinguish between these things is important when discussing digital degrowth/postgrowth digital futures. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'Rather than merely accounting for carbon emissions and npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Pity the poor, poor, struggling billionaires... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…jc9n @nprofile…at2c $113M for hospice care can't be found, but we still have the $2.9 billion dollar tax cuts for landlords that were brought in last year. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'The tax giveaway to landlords is estimated to cost the country $2.9 billion. To put this in perspective, that is more than the amount paid in Treaty settlements since 1985, which is about $2.7b. In other words, in one year, the current Government awarded landlords more money than has been paid out to Māori in 40 years as compensation for historical wrongs.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'An app is just a website that we've wrapped in the correct DRM that makes it a felony to protect your privacy while you use it' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'Welcome to Garbage In/Garbage Out (GIGO). Formally, in AI circles, this is known as AI model collapse. In an AI model collapse, AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability. This occurs because errors compound across successive model generations, leading to distorted data distributions and "irreversible defects" in performance. The final result? A Nature 2024 paper stated, "The model becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality."' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel The NZ government is committed to a 50% GHG cut by 2030 under our Paris NDC, and the PM says he's committed to meeting this. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'The Government knows there’s nothing similar between household borrowing and government borrowing. But it also knows that you don’t know that. (Because no one ever explains this properly.) So why use this metaphor if it’s so misleading? npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…y54t I was under the impression that pretty much all mirrorless cameras have been using AI autofocus for years. That's why you can choose whether to focus on people, animals, etc. 1st camera that I used with this was released in 2018. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…6t6n if a platform is defined as software that enables other developers to extend functionality with SDKs, APIs etc, then those things would be out, but so would a bunch of things that most people call platforms. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…6t6n There are several competing definitions of platform I commonly encounter in the platform studies literature... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Here's the NZ #socialmedia members bill text. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…6t6n @nprofile…6xvq Absolutely, and while sweeping legislation to regulate corporate social media towards not being toxic cesspools would be preferable, this isn't on the cards. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…6xvq Societies (try to) prevent kids from doing all sorts of things that are deemed harmful to them. Going to see certain movies, drinking alcohol, smoking etc. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel If you're interested in #climate and particularly arctic climate data, @nprofile…nl6d has some excellent #data visualizations at www.zacklabe.com npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Just had a journal article review decision come back where I was reviewer 1 and I think review 2 was chatGPT. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Hihi | Stitchbird npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Toutouwai | North Island Robin npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…s06p just in case you didn't see this recently released report... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 2024 will be hottest year on record, with the 1st eleven months averaging 1.6C over pre-industrial levels... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…sxdw 'Watts previously made similar comment about overseas purchases being "not realistic" at a conference earlier this year, but later appeared to backtrack and acknowledge there was no way to meet the 2030 target without overseas help. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'We don’t want to be the outlier that proves the rule, we want to be a new set of rules leading the way to a much more open and diverse tech ecosystem' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…y54t I think it's important to flag this this is a longstanding tenet of conservative/right wing thought... npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…y54t Really sorry to hear this Ewen. Hugs. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @nprofile…s06p Apologies if this a stupid question Dave, but why do you prefer Only Office to NextCloud's build in office applications? npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'We drown in corporate propaganda about the high-minded quest to build human and superhuman intelligences. Look past the hype, and you will recognize a grand capitalist project that pursues labor automation alongside the imposition of hierarchies and disciplinary mechanisms that preserve, expand, or re-legitimize forms of social control.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple, the most valuable company on the planet. Apple contributes nothing to their work, but it will get to steal a third of their wages...' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @npub1mpw…4h3u It's in response to users going ballistic because it's exactly what the new terms they've forced onto people threatened to do npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/adobe-promises-to-never-train-generative-ai-on-user-content-amid-outcry/?utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social&utm_brand=ars&utm_source=twitter npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'Regulatory and legal actions globally show that #EdTech companies have breached data protection laws, and schools and local authorities bear the consequences of overburdening legal obligations as the responsibility falls on them as data controllers. It is striking that many countries have taken legal action against EdTech companies, especially #google but there has been little such action in the UK as yet.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'Economic growth is appealing because of its simplicity. It dismisses the complexity of justice, equality and sustainability by converting everything into a single economic value and concentrating only on its increase. In this sense, abandoning the gross domestic product as the measure of social progress is a prerequisite for addressing solutions to structural problems that have been marginalized under the growth imperative. This is what #degrowth calls for.' npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @npub16uk…pv7k Yep. I'm dealing with this at the moment with an 8 year old who needs a Chromebook next year. The teacher who does IT at the school wasn't aware Google stores data overseas. Let alone the fact that Google's education platform is illegal in countries like France. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel 'The extent of US #EdTech's reach into schools has been under scrutiny in New Zealand and overseas, around the gathering of students' personal information and what is done with it, the habituation of children to certain types of technology, and the big foreign firms' hold on the education market. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel @npub1y0e…mm9n @npub1pyg…f8nf what's the good use of a nuclear bomb? npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel The IEA recently updated their Net Zero roadmap designed to demonstrate what a global pathway to avoiding over 1.5 degrees warming involves. Here are my key takeaways: #climatechange #climate #netzero npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel In Aotearoa we have some of the least affordable housing on the planet. npub1202fmx3pchp6s2j28yfhdj8tcmkvzn2xh5ss8gefn2pg3kqj3m4qpyg3ag Sy Taffel Someone needs to tell the techbros and their journalist friends that there are these things called dishwashers. They're literally machines that wash dishes. They don't need reinventing.
