The pseudo-Darwinist conspiracy
Why do we still believe that competition is the only way forward?
All articles
Digital media and urban spaces
By the end of 2012, it is predicted that networked devices will account for a fifth of internet traffic, logging and processing in various ways the ‘behaviour’ of the street. Barbara Anderson FRSA argues we all share a responsibility to shape how these technologies will shape our lives.
Over the last few years, we have seen a huge variety of familiar objects and surfaces – from televisions to bus shelters – transform into networked sensors that gather, process, store and display information.
Cities are now producing and collating information about our activities, movement and behaviour. Leading development projects pre-suppose a fully sentient environment. This means every resource – from private buildings to public spaces and their individual parts– will have an IP address (the unique identifier for a networked device) and potentially an interface that makes the information generated visible and accessible. The vision of the future is one where responses are dynamic, and constants become variable: for instance, where a building’s membrane can respond to CO2 levels, or a road can respond to traffic.
Inhabitants of these new environments are engaging in their curation: the way in which digital assets are created, preserved and maintained. Browsing one minute, searching the next, we move seamlessly from private to shared information environments, offering insight into packages of urban experience. We can rate an interactive work of art, or get the inside track on where to get shirts ironed fast and cheaply. In London, we can even use a smartphone at a Tube platform to find out which carriage will deposit us closest to our exit at the next station. Read more »
Time to celebrate recovery?
The stigmatisation and misunderstanding of addiction can only be overcome when recovering addicts are prepared to share their stories, according to Beth Burgess. She argues until more people join her, the vicious circle of secrecy and shame will continue.
The British have a very special way of rooting for the underdog. We cheer for giant-killing football teams, celebrate the unlikely winner and still revel in the evacuation of Dunkirk. It is in our stories, our culture and our history to want to see the smaller and the poorer, conquer. We delight in rags-to-riches stories, survival against the odds and tales of redemption. So why don’t we do the same with recovering addicts?
Addiction is an illness but while you see cancer survivors and people with missing limbs running marathons and sailing around the world, recovering addicts do not celebrate like that. In fact we do not celebrate much: as addicts we hide away, getting treated secretly and anonymously for our ‘shameful’ problem. It is not seen as inherently shameful to have any other illness, so why this one?
The stigmatisation of addicts is so great that even when you have beaten the illness and are in recovery, you are still not encouraged to stand up and be proud of being a survivor. Perhaps it is also in our stories, culture and history to stigmatise addicts. That may be because we fail to understand them. Read more »
Illuminating Indigenous Ideas
The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are often characterised as helpless victims of 21st century expansion and development. Patrick de Flufy argues that this characterisation is inaccurate and ignores the complex reality on the ground.
From the isolated tribes that get contacted by the outside modent world, to cultures destroyed by resource exploitation and a seemingly inexorable acculturation, virtually all indigenous peoples of the Amazon are being enormously affected by the vast forces of modernity, over which they often have little control.
But this is just one side of the story. The peoples of the Rio Corrientes are an example of the other. Forty years ago, the Achuar, Urarina and Kichwa communities living on the Corrientes had very little contact with the outside world. That was when the first petrol companies struck oil there, quickly erecting large installations and pipelines, but building them in a slovenly manner with no respect for the local environment.
There have been regular oil spills ever since. For Pucacuro, the village nearest to one of the earliest and largest installations, two large spills into their fishing lake, in 1978 and 1980, have meant a slow poisoning by the lead and cadmium that accumulated in the fish. As a result, many of the young people of Pucacuro are experiening a range of health problems including brain damage and thyroid problems. Even today eating local fish can result in illness. Read more »
Driving young people out
Learning to drive is increasingly expensive and out of the reach of many young people, whose chances of securing work – already reduced – are further diminished if they cannot drive. David Homewood FRSA argues that insurance companies need to be encouraged to find ways of overcoming this barrier.
As the fall out of the credit crunch bites and the cost of living rises, it is becoming increasingly clear that today’s young people face very different economic conditions to, not just compared to their parents, but to every generation since the Second World War. As youth unemployment and housing costs rise, travel becomes even more important.
Yet, if anyone wishes to start driving these days they, or their parents, are looking at a total cost of at least £5,000, and more often £10,000, in their first year. This is as much as the cost of a year at university. Of course, both are important when trying to get a good new job; the difference is that a student is able to get help to pay for university – grants and low cost loans repayable only after having got a reasonable job – but there is no help towards the cost of starting to drive.
The cost of a provisional licence (£50), driving lessons (20 hours for £500), extra insurance to drive your parent’s car (£200), the driving tests (£93), a full licence (£50), and the purchase of a second hand car (perhaps £1,700), road tax (£130), car maintenance, MOT, and 900 litres of petrol to do only 20 miles a day on average (about £2,000), totals about £4,700. Read more »
Creative and collaborative
In the last year the headlines highlighted large-scale, sometimes violent, rejections of the status quo. Tessy Britton FRSA argues it was also a year in which citizen-led creative and collaborative local projects came into their own.
As regular citizens, we have a number of well-established routes to participating in society. We participate through being consumers, supporting the economy, circulating money while trying to provide valuable livelihoods for ourselves and others. We participate through generosity, giving what we can spare and volunteering to help others, both at home and abroad.
Many of us choose to get involved in social governance. We may take on formal roles and responsibilities, become school governors, stand as a local councillor, act on committees and community forums. And, of course, we can vote. Less formally, we may also get involved in public consultations and – when we feel our concerns have not been are sufficiently listened to – we can challenge decisions more directly through campaigning and protesting. So, with so many opportunities to participate, why are we seeing people engaging in their communities in new, more collaborative ways, and what can we learn from this?
An example of these new creative behaviours might broadly be described in this simple scenario: a person has an idea of how their street or community might look or feel different. They might think that a few benches in their street would create new opportunities for neighbours to get to know one another better through informal contact. Historically, they could take their idea to the local authority or their ward councillor, where it would be supported or not. Read more »
Follow the RSA on Twitter
Become a Fan of the RSA on Facebook