#jeremybentham — Public Fediverse posts

“To coin a phrase”*…

Elliot Thornley nods to Shakespeare as the prodigious coiner of words (and phrases) that he was…

And then reminds us that Jeremy Bentham was no slouch with a neologism himself…

It’s pretty amazing. Shakespeare really shaped the English language!

So did Jeremy Bentham. He’s best-known for inventing utilitarianism and the panopticon [see here], but he also coined the words:

• Minimize
• International
• Percentage
• Pluralism
• Monetary
• Locating
• Marginalize
• Codify
• The prefix ‘self-’
• Maximize
• The prefix ‘post-’
• The prefix ‘infra-’
• Exhaustive
• Insurable
• Collaborator
• Alleviating
• Unaffordable
• Exclusionary
• Inexclusively
• Antagonising
• Deontology
• Disambiguation
• Eudemonic
• Evidentiary
• Characterizable
• Perusable
• Preferability
• Remediation
• Astuteness
• Uncalculating
• Uncoerced
• Unbridgeable
• Subvariety

You can find even more Bentham coinages at my source [lots more].

And as if all that weren’t enough, Bentham kind of invented jogging:

Bentham appears to have been a regular jogger—or, as he put it, ‘circumgyrater’. According to the journalist George Wheatley, who stayed with the eighty-one year-old Bentham in March 1831, before both breakfast and dinner Bentham would take ‘a few turns in the garden, which … he calls circumgyrating’, which Wheatley described as a ‘trotting or taking up a kind of trotting step’.

— Joanna Pruchniewska

So not only are you quoting Bentham, you might be mimicking him too…

The second-greatest coiner of English words? “You are quoting Bentham.”

More coinage (and source of the image at the top): “Coined Words Acknowledged.”

* idiom

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As we commend contrivers, we might recall that it was on this date in 1940 that another colossal coiner of phrases appeared: the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short “A Wild Hare”– the first “official” Bugs Bunny cartoon– premiered (though long-time readers will recall that Bugs [or at least, his prototype] made his inaugural screen appearance two years earlier).  Directed by Tex Avery, “A Wild Hare” was nominated for an Academy Award.

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“He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication”*…

We’ve looked before at digital regimes that seem a little too close for comfort to Jeremey Bentham‘s notion of the Panopticon. Surveillance has continued to intensify. 404 Media’s Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox bring us up to speed…

It’s nearly impossible not to be watched these days. It can start right at home with your neighbors and their Ring cameras—a company that sold fear to the American public and is now integrating AI to turn entire neighborhoods into networked, automated surveillance systems. 

Head out a bit further and you’ll likely be confronted by Flock’s network of cameras that not only track license plates, but also track people’s movements with detailed precision. And as the Trump administration raids cities across the U.S. for undocumented immigrants, tech giants like Palantir are powering tools for ICE, including one called ELITE that helps the agency pick which neighborhoods to raid.

To better understand what exactly we’re looking at in this dystopian hellscape, 404 Media’s Jason Koebler and Joseph Cox joined r/technology for an AMA. 

Understandably, people are worried about violations of their privacy by companies and the government. And many wonder, is there any way to go back once we’ve released all this AI-powered, surveillance tech?…

The (lightly edited for clarity) transcript is a bracing– but critically-important– read: “From Flock to ICE, Here’s a Breakdown of How You’re Being Watched,” @jasonkoebler.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy and @josephcox.bsky.social in @404media.co.

* “Bentham’s Panopticon [at top] is the architectural figure of this composition. We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery… He is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication. – Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

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As we feel seen, we might recall that it was on this date in 2000, that the dot.com bust effectively began. Between 1995 and its peak five days days earlier, on March 10, 2000, investments in the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose from 1,006 to 5,048—a 400% gain fueled by the conviction that the internet would render every prior valuation framework obsolete. It did not.

On March 13, 2000, news that Japan had once again entered a recession triggered a global sell off that disproportionately affected technology stocks. Soon after, Yahoo! and eBay ended merger talks and the Nasdaq fell 2.6%; still, the S&P 500 rose 2.4% as investors shifted from strong performing technology stocks to poor performing established stocks. The market held steady on the 14th. Then, on this date 26 years ago, the broader market begin to drop… and kept dropping. By the end of the stock market downturn of 2002 (the “second chapter” in the correction that began in 2000), stocks had lost $5 trillion in market capitalization since the peak. At its trough on October 9, 2002, the NASDAQ-100 had dropped to 1,114, down 78% from its peak. It took 15 years for the Nasdaq to regain its March, 2000 peak.

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Velkommen til dit panoptikon-supermarked, hvor kameraer optager dig men ikke gemmer - måske? #JeremyBentham #socialkontrolovervågning #dkpol

https://tv2.dk/reel/2026-02-25-nyt-kamera-i-supermarked-vaekker-opsigt-6389907595112

“When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.”

– Shabana Mahmood, Home Secretary of the UK

https://archive.ph/6fk8h

(For those of you not in the UK, these are the so-called “centrists.”)

Via @fkamiah17

#panopticon #fascism #Labour #UK #ukPol #ShabanaMahmood #JeremyBentham #BigBrotherIsWatchingYou

#CienciaYTecnología 🧿| El ciudadano actual es observado, vigilado y perseguido desde que despierta hasta que se duerme; incluso durante el sueño no escapa a ello.

https://www.desdeabajo.info/rotador-incio/item/ojos-sin-parpados.html

#Cárcel #Controlsocial #JeremyBentham #Privacidad

#vegan #quotes #animals #jeremybentham

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
-- Jeremy Bentham

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #JeremyBentham #Happiness #Morals

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Panopainting #Books

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
-- Jeremy Bentham

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #JeremyBentham #Happiness #Morals

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #LavaFlow #Galapagos #Geology

#MassimoPigliucci - #Philosophy of #Ecology & the #Environment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWPVm6QXoIU

#PhilosophyOfEcology #Science #PhilosophyOfScience #Theory #Information #Debate #Ethics #Morality #Suffering #Resources #Policy #Climate #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #LongTermism #JeremyBentham #Bentham #Epistemology #CloserToTruth #RobertKuhn

#Datreveno #JeremyBentham

Je ĉi dato en 1748 naskiĝis Jeremy Bentham, juristo kaj filozofo, kiu influe preparis la principojn por utilismo, esperante doni la plej multan feliĉon al ĉiuj, sed kiu paradokse deziris ke individuoj havu liberecon de parolo, sed ankaŭ estu observataj de ĉiuj aliaj, ne komprenante la efikon sur socio kaj individua konscio, se privateco mankus al ĉiuj. https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham
Bildo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeremy_Bentham_by_Henry_William_Pickersgill_detail.jpg

A very good Radio 4 Boring Talk about Jeremy Bentham’s “Auto-Icon” by its (his) curator, in which you will discover that everything you thought you knew about it was wrong: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001j5j6?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile #Radio4 #JeremyBentham #Utilitarianism

Brave Sir Bentham, Utilitarian Knight:
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/475
#ExistentialComics #philosophy #JeremyBentham #utilitarianism #webcomic