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#biopolitics — Public Fediverse posts

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  1. Making hostile spaces The dispersal of non consumers

    * At an intersection of numerous car parks, retail industry and an amusement industrial complex in Coffs Harbour there is a small green space with benches and birds. People and birds rest there and have their lunch.

    Some time ago the amusement & drink giant piped ongoing unpleasant, loud music over the small green island and the abundant car parks.

    The intention of the outdoor speakers distributing noise pollution is/was to engage in then 'dispersal' of ‘loitering' non customers.

    This loud and repetitive ‘music’ is also known as "aggressive" or "defensive" architecture. This design in mostly public spaces is intended as a form of 'organised abandonment' (Ruth Wilson Gilmore) of the poor and the unhoused.

    Often the exclusionary design acoustic ('steady-state spam’) is combined with other anti homeless devices (anti-homeless spikes furniture) which function to keep members of the public out of public spaces.

    With increasing inequality, that is non spending consumers, the system is increasingly employing hostile practices. Privately owned public spaces such as walkways, plazas, arcades and small parks have to ensure the safety of their customers and staff. Non-consumers have no place in this scheme.

    * "Woolworths has installed outdoor speakers at its Darwin city store to play the supermarket's 'Fresh Food People' jingle on repeat in a bid to deter loitering.” >>
    abc.net.au/news/2026-08-25/dar
    * "The NSW Police Force is currently running an Australian-first trial in Moree (an area with a high Indigenous population) using rooftop drones to "fight crime" in the area, controlled by people hundreds of kilometres away at Bankstown Airport." >>
    abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/aut
    #HostileArchitecture #PublicSpaces #inequality #privatisation #ShoppingCentres #dispersal #FirstNationsPeoples #biopolitics #surveillance #CCTV #PervasiveTechnologies #UAVs #NoisePollution #IndigenousPeoples #DesignApartheid #governance #CoffsHarbour

  2. Automation and repression — why the two go hand in hand
    Revolts, triggered by inequality

    * "It's taxes or pitchforks!"
    "This is the real underlying threat posed by automation: tremendous social upheaval, public unrest, and political collapse stemming from widespread unemployment and grotesque inequality."

    "More automation will require more redistribution to cushion the disruptive effects of automation, so as a country automates more, the tax burden will keep increasing on "capitalists"

    Acemoglu, Shadmehr and Gitmez "have modelled how workers would try to coordinate in an uprising, and how a capitalist state would try to prevent an uprising occurring, in an environment in which automation and inequality are increasing."

    "They say the novel finding of their paper is that automation and repression complement and reinforce each other...The economy will ultimately converge to repression and the 'pitchforks' will be met with 'guns' from the capitalist state". >>
    abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/aut

    * "We characterize the trade-off between the regulation of automation, redistribution and repression.Our main result is a complementarity between automation and repression. We show that, starting in a democracy, capital accumulation and thus greater automation encourages the capitalists to support a coup against democracy and set up a repressive system." >>
    ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3

    * Daron Acemoglu & A. Arda Gitmez & Mehdi Shadmehr, 2026. "Automation and Repression," NBER Working Papers 35336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. >>
    nber.org/system/files/working_
    #inequality #technology #automation #redistribution #surveillance #DataCenters #AI #biopolitics #tax #ExtremeWealth #repression #BigTech #SocialUnrest #coup #repression #state #DemocraticErosion #regulation

  3. " There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That's how the light gets in."

    Leonard Cohen,1992, Anthem song

    “He was just somebody who fell through all the cracks..."

    A young man who came to Australia to study computer science died in the bushes near the bustling tunnel entrance to Sydney’s St James station. "Roughly 100,000 people went in or out of St James station during the time ..."
    >>
    theguardian.com/australia-news
    #biopolitics #Sydney #education #housing #visas #homelessness #VulnerableHomelessness #precarity #cracks #SystemicFailures

  4. "One for mum, one for dad, and one for the war" ?

    “Sometimes it looks like when the right side of politics says that people should have more children … they’re really saying that we should have more white babies.” >>
    theguardian.com/australia-news

    #reproduction #children #British #Australia #FarRight #FamilyPlanningSupplyChains #GlobalFertilityChains #biopolitics

    Image: Pram parking inside a restaurant

  5. Australians who need care because of age or disability shouldn’t be reduced to an algorithm >>
    theguardian.com/commentisfree/

    When automated decision-making (algorithm) is in charge to ration care it could suggest forced euthanasia

    Euthanasia Program and Aktion T4, The goal of the Nazi Euthanasia Program was to kill people with mental and physical disabilities. >>
    encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content

    #SocialServices #care #governance #algorithm #efficiency #SystemicNeglect #abandonment #GlobalTrends #biopolitics #violence #HumanOversight #euthanasia #AktionT4 #necropolitics

  6. Hipster Eugenics: More genetically 'superior' kids

    While the Nazis aggressively enforced a system of blonde haired and blue-eyed people, many parents today desire gene-edited babies with blond hair, blue eyes and a selection of genetically 'superior' traits.

    Hipster Eugenics: Better Babies for Billionaires
    geneticsandsociety.org/biopoli

    ‘Hipster eugenics’: why is the media cosying up to people who want to build a super race?
    theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2

    Gene editing is being sold on the promise of healthier babies — but what are the ethical concerns?
    abc.net.au/news/2025-09-22/eth

    "The Collinses are prominent figures within the pronatalist movement, which advocates for higher birth rates as a means to address demographic and economic challenges."
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_a

    Nazi Ideas about the Aryan Race
    encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content
    #eugenics #HipsterEugenics #parenting #parents #DesignerBabies #ART #pronatalism #longtermism #tranhumanism #IQ #FarRight #racification #PhenotypicAppearance #blonde #genetics #CRISPR #PrecisionBreeding #SocialDarwinism #biopolitics #ethics