This research is really sweet -- showing the size and complexity of ancient #African#huntergatherer networks, before farming.
Hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo maintained social networks across vast distances thousands of years before agriculture arrived. The cultural diversity is shown in musical instruments, specialist vocabulary and genetic analyses.
@NatureMC yes, there has been stupid prejudice regarding 'small' nomadic bands -- because they do not tend to leave a lot of trace in the archaeological record. Most of their stuff -- and they don't carry a lot of stuff -- is biodegradable.
People confuse impressive durable material culture or architecture with complexity. But that's a mismatch with the needs of highly egalitarian societies to create widespread social networks, often via 'intangible' ritual means.
'Many of those fleeing Rafah had already gone to the “expanded humanitarian zone”, designated by the IDF at al-Mawasi on the coast, where aid workers said conditions were “horrific”. Others had fled to the north.
...
'Al-Mawasi, a strip of sandy coast and dunes, is packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have overwhelmed entirely inadequate supplies of food, clean water and healthcare. Sanitation systems barely exist, leading to the rapid spread of disease.'
🌖NEXT WEEK🌗
Tues April 30 18:30 (BST)
with @ana_valdi
LIVE @UCLanthropology and on ZOOM
'The supply chain capitalism of AI: a call to (re)think algorithmic harms and resistance'
Everybody welcome FREE, LIVE and online! Just turn up!
Ana Valdivia, Lecturer at Oxford Internet Institute, will be speaking LIVE in the Daryll Forde Room, 2nd Floor of the UCL Anthropology Dept, 14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW
**NB We can now use the front door in Taviton St again **
You can also join us on ZOOM (ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak)
Ana writes: 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) has woven into a supply chain of capital, resources and human labour that has been neglected in debates about the social impact of this technology. While the literature on critical AI studies has focused on algorithmic bias and opacity, the global production line fostering AI innovation has drawn little attention. Using Tsing’s concept of supply chain capitalism, this paper offers a journey through mines, semiconductor manufacturers, data centres, technological firms, data labelling factories and e-waste dumps illustrating the complex, diverse, opaque, global structure of the supply chain of AI.
'Then, the paper moves into illuminating a case study drawn from six months of fieldwork on data centres in Mexico, Spain, UK and Chile, revealing that algorithmic harms go beyond code pitfalls. A close examination into the supply chain capitalism of AI reveals that other types of eco-political frictions are arising, particularly in the context of fundamental and environmental rights. This demands a broader and critical perspective on AI studies considering the entire capitalist production line of its industry—from mineral extractivism to e-waste dumps—and its environmental and political consequences.'
April 30, 6:30pm,
LIVE @UCLAnthropology Daryll Forde, 2nd Floor, 14 Taviton St WC1H 0BW
and on ZOOM ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak
We gotched him at 18 months in autumn 2013, so he's a Spring 2012 kit.
The official birthday is
🌕Full Moon of the apple blossom 🌸.
So it's herby drops, fenugreek crunchies, sweet potato nibs and 🍎 for Jack!!
#AndreasMalm on
'The destruction of Palestine is the destruction of the Earth'
'The genocide is unfolding at a time when the state of Israel is more deeply integrated in the primitive accumulation of fossil capital than it has ever been. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have zero stake in that process: no platforms, no rigs, no pipelines, no companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. But Arabs in the UAE and Egypt and Saudi Arabia do, of course. This is the political economy of the Abraham Accords and its expected sequels: a unification of Israeli and Gulf capital in the process of making money by producing oil and gas. This is the political ecology of normalisation: a sacralisation of the business-as-usual that destroys first Palestine and then the Earth.'
'...An early, provisional, conservative analysis found that emissions caused during the first 60 days of the war equalled annual emissions of between 20 and 33 low-emitting countries: a sudden spike, a plume of CO2 rising over the debris of Gaza. If I repeat the point here, it is because the cycle is self-repeating, only growing in scale and size: Western forces pulverise the living quarters of Palestine by mobilising the boundless capacity for destruction only fossil fuels can give.
'It is easy to forget just how central military violence has been and remains to business-as-usual. More than 5 per cent of annual CO2 emissions stem from the militaries around the world.'
'...The genocide in Gaza provides a useful object lesson in callousness. In the climate catastrophe, the lives of non-white multitudes in the global South do not count. They are expendable, valueless. We saw this playing out in the disaster that struck Derna: the more than 11,000 people killed over one single night left only the tiniest trace in the media of the West and none whatsoever in its politics. Just imagine if these had been 11,000 white Americans or Brits or Swedes killed over one night – imagine if it had been 11,000 of the people that really count: imagine the uproar!'