My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
In 2022, via the @IrishExaminer, I've been lucky enough to pursue my grá for the chats on a full-time basis.
From Ireland's neurodivergent community, its DIY arts scenes and the Irish language; to astronauts, particle physicists and gosh-dang, mother-heckin' Super Mario.
We defunded high school #arts and #music programs so now we have adults that think an #ai algorithm can make art rather than meaningless sensory noise.
The sheer lack of grasp on why anyone enjoys art or where it even comes from is a condemnation of our whole culture, honestly.
"unstoppable favourite" this is exactly why I'm against awards and prizes in creative work. It turns out into a sport. And the ones that don't get awarded are seen as less worthy, something which is almost never the case. It makes audiences focus on what is deemed good, and stupid then seeking and funding what they like #arts#awards#design#creativeWork
One third of local councils are cutting support to the #Arts, one third are cutting support for parks & leisure... and a wide range of other service reductions or halts are expected.
The progressive destruction of local #democracy, accountability & social provision is now accelerating...
The hollowing out of our local government & the ever increasing centralisation of power & responsibility is unlikely to be reversed by the next Govt.
The value of municipal governance has been completely lost
Ragamala! An all-night festival of Hindustani and Carnatic Indian classical music held at the Chicago Cultural Center. We only stayed for one session but we got to see Gaurav Mazumdar on sitar and Amit Kavthekar on tabla. They were students of the great Ravi Shankar and Zakir Husain respectively.
Neoliberal economics is killing the arts
By Tim Lutton, originally published by Red Pepper May 28, 2024
"...As a society, we must resist art-as-capital, where it is reduced to pure exchange value in a market of commodities. There, any politically-charged and counter-hegemonic content is rendered powerless, constituted as a stable harmonisation of the dominant socio-political order and drowning out all contradictions.
...In the present era, the tendency towards total marketisation of artistic production accompanies perpetual austerity and an atomised rentier economy that is shrinking public and social life. Without a rupture from neoliberal capitalism in general, the means to make new, generative and disruptive art disappears, and much else that is meaningful in our lives will follow after. The rest is silence."
Legends and animals from the Cook Islands feature in new mural (www.rnz.co.nz)
A 560-metre plain grey seawall has been transformed into the longest mural in the South Pacific.