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848 results for “pyOpenSci”
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💬Le parti au tournesol 🌻 a souvent servi de succursale du macronisme. Les données compilées, entre autres, par Julia Cagé et Thomas Piketty, sont limpides : plus on grimpe dans les revenus, plus la propension à voter pour les Écologistes augmente. Interrogée par l’Humanité en 2024 sur le dépassement du capitalisme, Marine #Tondelier avait botté en touche. « Faudra m’expliquer ce que l’on fait à la place ».
Tout cela fait système.
https://www.hors-serie.net/emissions/verts-la-rupture/ -
💬Le parti au tournesol 🌻 a souvent servi de succursale du macronisme. Les données compilées, entre autres, par Julia Cagé et Thomas Piketty, sont limpides : plus on grimpe dans les revenus, plus la propension à voter pour les Écologistes augmente. Interrogée par l’Humanité en 2024 sur le dépassement du capitalisme, Marine #Tondelier avait botté en touche. « Faudra m’expliquer ce que l’on fait à la place ».
Tout cela fait système.
https://www.hors-serie.net/emissions/verts-la-rupture/ -
Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/10/mashable-tiktok-ai-text-summaries-are-rolling-back-after-wild-errors/ -
Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/10/mashable-tiktok-ai-text-summaries-are-rolling-back-after-wild-errors/ -
Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/10/mashable-tiktok-ai-text-summaries-are-rolling-back-after-wild-errors/ -
Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/10/mashable-tiktok-ai-text-summaries-are-rolling-back-after-wild-errors/ -
Mashable: TikTok AI text summaries are rolling back after wild errors. “TikTok was offering AI-powered text summaries of videos, but that’s no longer happening. Business Insider reported that the feature, which went live recently, is being heavily scaled back due to its propensity for strange, inexplicable errors.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/05/10/mashable-tiktok-ai-text-summaries-are-rolling-back-after-wild-errors/ -
I uploaded the Sun Dwarf class to the Moon Shadows project page for my #bx #dnd #ose #osr campaign setting. Of the 5 varieties of dwarf in the Moon Shadows setting, the sun dwarves are considered the most common and the most typical dwarf. They are stout and sturdy warriors with a keen eye for craftsmanship and a propensity for using protection runes.
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I'll never understand these people.
They're negligent and stupid enough to have killed their child, and stubborn and arrogant enough to not regret it.
Antivaxxers, so-called alternative medicine advocates, and various other anti-scientific groups are a threat to civil society — and perhaps an existential one given their propensity for supporting populists.
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"If Joe Rogan is any indication, February 2026 may go down as the month that the Epstein files saga cemented itself as a lasting political liability for President Donald Trump and Republicans. ...
Rogan is representative of a large swath of voters who delivered Trump his 2024 victory: distrustful, low-propensity, and anti-system voters."
~ Christian Paz
#Epstein #Trump #EconomicElites #pedophiles #coverup #ApprovalRating #YoungVoters
/12https://www.vox.com/politics/479159/epstein-trump-bondi-rogan-conspiracy-files-release-young-men
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"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage propensities.
– Saki (H. H. Munro), from “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909)
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"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage propensities.
– Saki (H. H. Munro), from “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909)
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"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage propensities.
– Saki (H. H. Munro), from “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909)
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"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage propensities.
– Saki (H. H. Munro), from “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909)
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"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage propensities.
– Saki (H. H. Munro), from “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909)
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"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)
They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.
There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"
#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis
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"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)
They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.
There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"
#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis
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"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)
They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.
There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"
#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis
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"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)
They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.
There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"
#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis
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"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)
They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.
There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"
#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis
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New paper on ordinals
This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.
Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.
Enjoy!
#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic
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New paper on ordinals
This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.
Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.
Enjoy!
#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic
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New paper on ordinals
This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.
Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.
Enjoy!
#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic
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New paper on ordinals
This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.
Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.
Enjoy!
#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic
-
New paper on ordinals
This blog post is now a paper, which came out unexpectedly soon: ‘Ordinal Numerals as a Criterion for Subclassification: The Case of Semitic’.
Abstract: This article explores how ordinal numerals (like first, second and third) can help classify languages, focusing on the Semitic language family. Ordinals are often formed according to productive derivational processes, but as a separate word class, they may retain archaic morphology that is otherwise lost from the language. Together with the high propensity of ‘first’ and, less frequently, ‘second’ to be formed through suppletion, this makes them highly valuable for diachronic linguistic analysis. The article identifies four main patterns of ordinal formation across different Semitic languages. Together with innovations in the lowest two ordinals, these can be correlated with more and less accepted subgroupings within Semitic as a whole. Concretely, they offer support for the widely accepted West Semitic, Northwest Semitic and Abyssinian (Ethio-Semitic) clades as well as the recently proposed Aramaeo-Canaanite clade and provide new evidence for the further subclassification of Abyssinian that matches other recent proposals. However, no evidence was found to support the debated Central Semitic or South Semitic groupings. Given the accurate identification of accepted subgroupings and high level of detail, this approach holds promise for the classification of other language families, especially where other linguistic data are scarce.
Enjoy!
#Akkadian #Amharic #AncientSouthArabian #Arabic #Aramaic #GeEz #Hebrew #linguistics #ModernSouthArabian #news #ProtoSemitic #Ugaritic
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Do near death experiences have a scientific explanation?
There are many smart people in the scientific community who consider near death experiences (or recalled experiences of death RED), to be caused by purely physiological reactions.
A recent, much shared, paper1 hypothesised exactly this, proposing that NDE’s result from a combination of physiological and psychological threat responses:
NDEs can result from impaired cerebral blood flow causing systemic hypotension, hypoxia and hypercapnia resulting in acidosis, and from increased neuronal excitability causing dysregulation of key neurotransmitter systems.
[…]
NDEs might be partially shaped by top–down processes and facilitated by non-pathological cognitive traits such as dissociation propensity.The evolutionary roots of NDEs are thought to be linked to survival and coping mechanisms, with serotonin probably mediating calming effects through 5-HT1A receptors and contributing to hallucinogenic aspects through 5-HT2A receptor hyperactivation.
—Martial, C et al (2025).
Now, a new paper just published, aims to provide an antithesis to these arguments.
A Neuroscientific Model of Near-Death Experiences Reconsidered (pdf).
We cite important NDE elements that remain unexplained
by that model, as well as empirical data that are incompatible with it. We respectfully
suggest that, taken together, these points generate sufficient doubts to merit reconsideration of the completeness of that overarching model and suggest that a more comprehensive treatment of the literature would strengthen our understanding of NDEs and
their etiology.–Bruce Greyson and Marieta Pehlivanova
Warning… this is an academic, scientific paper with much medical terminology. Nevertheless, it makes very interesting reading even for a layperson.
As the authors of this paper conclude; it is important to remain open to other than materialist/physiological explanations for NDE’s.
Explanations that are currently unknown or misunderstood.- Martial, C., Fritz, P., Gosseries, O., Bonhomme, V.,
Kondziella, D., Nelson, K., & Lejeune, N. (2025). A
neuroscientific model of near-death experiences.
Nature Reviews Neurology, 21(6), 297–311. https://
doi.org/10.1038/s41582-025-01072-z ↩︎
- Martial, C., Fritz, P., Gosseries, O., Bonhomme, V.,
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"Bourgeois economists are incapable of confronting the falsity of their understanding of competition: For the bourgeoisie, the fall of serfdom and mercantilism seemed to have abolished class distinctions, producing what they understand as the natural order of competition among free individuals. This order is supposed to be the correct way for human society to be organized, the realization of our innate propensity to truck and barter. In this vision of bourgeois society, every subject is both producer and consumer; there is no class. Anything that disrupts this picture is an intrusion of the non-economic into the sphere of the economic. To the extent that they are willing to acknowledge it, monopolization compels the bourgeoisie to admit that the unequal distribution of power continues to exist under their rule. Rather than accepting the falsity of their understanding of competition, however, the bourgeoisie understands monopolization solely as a regression to a prior mode of direct class rule. They admit that competition, as they understand it, no longer exists, but they believe that it once did, and that what exists today is no longer genuine competition.
Against this, Horkheimer understands pre-monopoly capitalism as characterized both by competition that reached all members of the population and by the unresolved problem of power. Whether by “birth or deceit, brutality or shrewdness, expertness in engineering machinery or human relations, by marriage or adulation,” there have always been groups that have managed the competitive processes within capitalism. Racketization is a reversion to more direct forms of domination, but these forms were always present, hidden behind the apparently rational market system, and this “was already clear to everyone except for the professors in the times of so-called liberalism.”"
https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Competition/
#FrankfurtSchool #RacketTheory #CriticalTheory #PoliticalEconomy #Monopolies #Competition #Horkheimer #Capitalism
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"Bourgeois economists are incapable of confronting the falsity of their understanding of competition: For the bourgeoisie, the fall of serfdom and mercantilism seemed to have abolished class distinctions, producing what they understand as the natural order of competition among free individuals. This order is supposed to be the correct way for human society to be organized, the realization of our innate propensity to truck and barter. In this vision of bourgeois society, every subject is both producer and consumer; there is no class. Anything that disrupts this picture is an intrusion of the non-economic into the sphere of the economic. To the extent that they are willing to acknowledge it, monopolization compels the bourgeoisie to admit that the unequal distribution of power continues to exist under their rule. Rather than accepting the falsity of their understanding of competition, however, the bourgeoisie understands monopolization solely as a regression to a prior mode of direct class rule. They admit that competition, as they understand it, no longer exists, but they believe that it once did, and that what exists today is no longer genuine competition.
Against this, Horkheimer understands pre-monopoly capitalism as characterized both by competition that reached all members of the population and by the unresolved problem of power. Whether by “birth or deceit, brutality or shrewdness, expertness in engineering machinery or human relations, by marriage or adulation,” there have always been groups that have managed the competitive processes within capitalism. Racketization is a reversion to more direct forms of domination, but these forms were always present, hidden behind the apparently rational market system, and this “was already clear to everyone except for the professors in the times of so-called liberalism.”"
https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Competition/
#FrankfurtSchool #RacketTheory #CriticalTheory #PoliticalEconomy #Monopolies #Competition #Horkheimer #Capitalism
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"Bourgeois economists are incapable of confronting the falsity of their understanding of competition: For the bourgeoisie, the fall of serfdom and mercantilism seemed to have abolished class distinctions, producing what they understand as the natural order of competition among free individuals. This order is supposed to be the correct way for human society to be organized, the realization of our innate propensity to truck and barter. In this vision of bourgeois society, every subject is both producer and consumer; there is no class. Anything that disrupts this picture is an intrusion of the non-economic into the sphere of the economic. To the extent that they are willing to acknowledge it, monopolization compels the bourgeoisie to admit that the unequal distribution of power continues to exist under their rule. Rather than accepting the falsity of their understanding of competition, however, the bourgeoisie understands monopolization solely as a regression to a prior mode of direct class rule. They admit that competition, as they understand it, no longer exists, but they believe that it once did, and that what exists today is no longer genuine competition.
Against this, Horkheimer understands pre-monopoly capitalism as characterized both by competition that reached all members of the population and by the unresolved problem of power. Whether by “birth or deceit, brutality or shrewdness, expertness in engineering machinery or human relations, by marriage or adulation,” there have always been groups that have managed the competitive processes within capitalism. Racketization is a reversion to more direct forms of domination, but these forms were always present, hidden behind the apparently rational market system, and this “was already clear to everyone except for the professors in the times of so-called liberalism.”"
https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Competition/
#FrankfurtSchool #RacketTheory #CriticalTheory #PoliticalEconomy #Monopolies #Competition #Horkheimer #Capitalism
-
"Bourgeois economists are incapable of confronting the falsity of their understanding of competition: For the bourgeoisie, the fall of serfdom and mercantilism seemed to have abolished class distinctions, producing what they understand as the natural order of competition among free individuals. This order is supposed to be the correct way for human society to be organized, the realization of our innate propensity to truck and barter. In this vision of bourgeois society, every subject is both producer and consumer; there is no class. Anything that disrupts this picture is an intrusion of the non-economic into the sphere of the economic. To the extent that they are willing to acknowledge it, monopolization compels the bourgeoisie to admit that the unequal distribution of power continues to exist under their rule. Rather than accepting the falsity of their understanding of competition, however, the bourgeoisie understands monopolization solely as a regression to a prior mode of direct class rule. They admit that competition, as they understand it, no longer exists, but they believe that it once did, and that what exists today is no longer genuine competition.
Against this, Horkheimer understands pre-monopoly capitalism as characterized both by competition that reached all members of the population and by the unresolved problem of power. Whether by “birth or deceit, brutality or shrewdness, expertness in engineering machinery or human relations, by marriage or adulation,” there have always been groups that have managed the competitive processes within capitalism. Racketization is a reversion to more direct forms of domination, but these forms were always present, hidden behind the apparently rational market system, and this “was already clear to everyone except for the professors in the times of so-called liberalism.”"
https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/blog/2025/Competition/
#FrankfurtSchool #RacketTheory #CriticalTheory #PoliticalEconomy #Monopolies #Competition #Horkheimer #Capitalism