"In a #consensus decision-making process, the decision and the buy-in land at the same time. Rather than making a decision and then getting everyone on board, you get everyone on board, at which point the decision is clear."
by Mandy Brown: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/consenting-to-decisions/
So excited to see this #Consensus View on a naming system for #Dengue #lineages!
With prevalence increasing globally and more #sequencing being done, this was really needed
It includes tools to #identify new lineages
International authorship have agreed on naming convention to aid #genomic #surveillance for
The authors have done an amazing job of reaching consensus here
Emails Reveal How #Minnesota #Governor #TimWalz Struggled to Deal With #Unrest, #Reach #Consensus With #Critics After #Outage over #Police #Murders of #GeorgeFloyd and #DaunteWright
They show how Walz struggled to balance the #need for #order in the streets against his #credibility with #activist #allies, while simultaneously trying to bridge the #ideologicaldivide between #progressives in his #party and #conservatives.
After Easter Radical Anthropology goes to the pub!
MONDAY April 28
from 6pm
A poetry reading by our Alternative Radical Poet Laureate, #PaulDave 'Larkin's Toilet' on themes of Englishness and Comedy Communism. LIVE at the
Two Chairmen pub in Dartmouth St, SW1H 9BP. Just come upstairs, FREE to all. If you can't get there, join on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
TUESDAY May 6
6:30pm
Arba Bekteshi 'Romani and Egyptians in Albania's Informal Recycling Economy'
ZOOM ONLY with an early career urban anthropologist, cultural researcher, and artist. ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
TUESDAY May 13
Menstrual Hut Coalition 'Where have all the menstrual huts gone?' LIVE from 6pm upstairs in The Two Chairmen pub, Dartmouth St, London SW1H 9BP. On the past, present and future of menstrual huts. Come for food, drink and healthy discussion, or join on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
TUESDAY May 20
Vivek Venkataraman 'The meanings and dividends of Man the Hunter' 6:30pm ZOOM only with a leading international hunter-gatherer scholar. ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
Recording
https://vimeo.com/1086362131
Check venue for each event and if LIVE or ZOOM only (ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak)
#poetry #Englishness #ComedyCommunism #lunarchy #menstruation #Moon #MenstrualHut #MantheHunter #anthropology #huntergatherers
#RomaniandEgyptian #recycling #urbananthropology
SEE VIMEO LINKS BELOW for last terms' talks
Radical Anthropology Spring seminars
started on Jan 14, 2025
6:15 for 6:30pm,
LIVE @UCLanthropology
14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW
or on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/events/research-seminars/radical-anthropology-seminars
Perspectives on human origins: language, body art, hunting, architecture
Jan 14 Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis 'When Eve Laughed'
https://vimeo.com/1047955270
Jan 21 Camilla Power 'Neanderthals, Homo sapiens and the ‘Human Revolution’'
https://vimeo.com/1050011589
Jan 28 Annemieke Milks
'Hunting lessons: how forager kids learn(ed) to hunt'
https://vimeo.com/1053040279?share=copy
Feb 4 Paulina Michnowska 'Notes from the forest – storytelling with the Penan of Borneo'
https://vimeo.com/1055179553
Feb 11 Sasha Farnsworth 'Architecture meets anthropology: Womb temple – Lunar rebirth'
https://vimeo.com/1057043706?share=copy#t=0
Feb 18 Chris Knight 'How we got stuck: the hunter Monmaneki and his wives teach Graeber and Wengrow a lesson'
https://vimeo.com/1061208125?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-email&utm_campaign=44349
Feb 25 Erica Lagalisse and Chris Knight in conversation 'On anarchist anthropology'
https://vimeo.com/1063172694?share=copy
Mar 4 Christine Binnie
'Neonaturist body painting: a red RAG to patriarchy'
https://vimeo.com/1074465398
Mar 11 Chris Knight 'On Women and Jaguars: why perspectivism got it so wrong'
https://vimeo.com/1073597720
Mar 18 Kit Opie 'Primate mating systems and the evolution of language'
https://vimeo.com/1075096840
Mar 25 Ivan Tacey 'Serpentine cosmopolitics: a cross-cultural analysis of the Rainbow Serpent'
https://vimeo.com/1075098313
May 20 Vivek Venkataraman 'The Meanings and Dividends of Man the Hunter'
https://vimeo.com/1086362131
Jessica Valenti pointed out last year that
“the anti-abortion movement is pressuring journalists to stop using the word ‘#ban’
when describing abortion legislation…
Marjorie #Dannenfelser, the president of "Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America", [began] to replace the term ‘national ban’ with ‘national #standard’
or ‘national #consensus’.”
Code.
Also known as ‘doublespeak’ (George Orwell), it is designed
“to distance you from the truth.”
Let’s move on to 2023,
where #Vance implied that Democrats support abortion
“up to the moment of birth,”
something that doesn’t happen.
He opposed, unsuccessfully,
Issue 1, “a ballot measure that enshrined reproductive rights into Ohio’s constitution” with a 56% vote.
In the wake of that loss, he equated abortion with murder, and a fetus with a child.
Also last year, he “pressured federal regulators” with the goal of voiding
“a privacy rule that prevents police from accessing the medical records of people seeking reproductive services, according to documents reviewed by The Lever.”
J.D. Vance is asking us to “embrac[e]” these “contradictions.”
Refuse to believe lies peddled to assuage the less extremist voter.
From Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny:
“Post-truth is pre-fascism.”
https://jessica.substack.com/p/the-anti-abortion-movements-language?utm_medium=ios
If there is one thing that I would like Americans to understand in 2024, it is that what is at stake in our society is not really #democracy, per se, but the critical mass of #consensus that allows people of disparate backgrounds and beliefs to form a stable civil #government and agree upon the rule of #law, guided by the principles of #constitutionalism—the protection of #equality, #liberty, and #justice, for all people.
"Two…associate editors [at the 𝘈𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘑𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩] are looking into the potential of ‘Yarning’ as a way of reviewing manuscripts and research with #Indigenous people and communities. Yarning is a cultural form of conversation…rooted in #FirstNations epistemologies and ontologies. Yarning relies on the creation of a culturally safe space for sharing and learning and, in some cases, for reaching #consensus."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajr.13148
I'm glad someone has written about this. I haven't read the book, but I'll add to my list of possibles.
About originalism, my own feeling is this: In the most literal interpretation, originalism, at least as practiced, would be perfected if the amendment process were nullified and courts were never allowed to set precedent. That's what originalism seems to be saying. And yet that can't be.
The founders knew they were not doing it all right. They gave us a living system, one capable of responding to changing needs, so that society didn't outgrow itself. This was a great insight and perhaps the most important of the original thoughts, though not part of originalism.
A literal take on originalism would unroll women's right to a vote or the right of African Americans to be 100% people at all. That's preposterous in any sane modern understanding and to assert that this is the proper interpretation of law now, especially after having fought the Civil War over this, is improper.
More generally, originalism fights the ability to patch holes in the system. As a computer person, I see it precisely the same as an insistence that the only true version of a piece of software is version 1.0, the originally released code. To me, the amendment process of the Constitution is the service agreement, the ability to stay up to date with fighting later-discovered vulnerabilities. No one would want to use a piece of software that is not protected in this way. Our government, in my mind, is no different.
The originalists are basically just hackers bent on breaking in and controlling the system, and their tool is to convince people that maintenance is bad and to use Jedi mind tricks to convince people to allow them to unroll security fixes. Again, just preposterous.
This relates as well to Stare Decisis. I'm busy writing a blog post on that today, so I'll try to link it here if I finish it, but the importance of stare decisis and the utter violation of civil society that SCOTUS is presently engaged in by tearing it to shreds is something I think the populace does not generally understand.
In brief, and I'll try to write this better in the blog, stare decisis is not just an old decision that SCOTUS is entitled to label as "wrongly decided". It is part of a societal conversation that says "this will be the default unless Congress acts". But over time, through inaction, it becomes law because the inaction says loudly "no action was needed, the public is doing fine". This is very critical to society because we do not need a bunch of laws that just say "Yeah, what SCOTUS said." The way we say that is to not change the decision.
So when SCOTUS overrides a long-standing thing, they are not just saying "this was decided wrong" but also "the fact that society has seen the decision and allowed it to stand is of no importance to us".
That is as undemocratic as overturning actual legislation. It is the ultimate in adverse and inappropriate judicial action. They see it as "this was and is in our realm" but the proper way to see it is as a conversational offering to say "tell us we're wrong", and they don't interpret the silence as having involved the other branches. It is not now in their realm.
So I agree originalism is a trap, though I'd be fascinated, if I can find the time, to read someone else's analysis of it, which probably hits other things I haven't thought of.
By the way, I am not a lawyer, but I don't think only lawyers need opine. This is about what We The People want our world to be, and every one of us is equally entitled to opine on that, notwithstanding what the Supreme Court says. Indeed, the Supreme Court and all government derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed, but right now they are actively engaged in making sure the public has no ability to give consent. In effect, they are staging a coup-by-process. So while legal scholars may opine differently than I have, I stand by my right to have an equal position as just one voice of many in our democratic society. The strength of my words should be in the strength of my argument, not the strength of my credential.