Stanford University Press Blog

Unraveling the Global Phenomenon of Mega-Science

A Journey Across the Century of Scientific Advancement

DAVID P. BAKER and JUSTIN J.W. POWELL

Credit: IceCube/NSF. Original photo taken by Martin Wolf. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

 

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed an extraordinary surge in scientific discovery, particularly focused on understanding the novel coronavirus and developing effective interventions. This rapid pace of research, which saw an exponential increase in the number of studies published on the virus within months, was not a stroke of luck, but rather the result of decades of investment in global scientific infrastructure. It required the collaborative efforts of thousands of scientists worldwide sharing their knowledge and engaging in the now-typical ways of mega-science. Previous mega-science projects, from the Manhattan Project to the Human Genome Project, were more locally-based and were conducted over many years, not months.

In 2020 alone, over three million articles were published in leading scientific journals, showcasing the extensive capacity for new discovery facilitated by highly-networked scientists across the globe. This phenomenon was not something foreseen by early skeptics, who predicted the stabilization of scientific progress—and growth to limits. Instead, it was and is propelled by a cultural transformation—the education revolution—creating an increasingly symbiotic relationship between higher education and science systems. This educational paradigm shift laid the groundwork for mega-science. Universities transformed from centers of learning to also becoming hubs of scientific inquiry. As ever more individuals pursued higher education (today, two-fifths of each cohort of youth worldwide participate in postsecondary education), universities evolved to prioritize research alongside teaching; they also attend to their third mission of helping to solve wicked problems of society and environment. This cultural process lies behind not only more people attending schooling for ever-longer phases of their lives than ever before but also, throughout the twentieth century and onwards, a steady inclusion of greater numbers of youth and young adults in universities and other postsecondary organizations across the world. In and of itself though, growing attendance alone could not have been the midwife to the mega-science we witness today. Also required was a concurrent influence of the culture of the education revolution on the very essence of what it means to be a university—and how this organizational form provides the crucial, well-resourced forum for the exchange of ideas and research for everyone devoted to scientific discovery.

Anthony Comstock Rides Again

The resurgence of American censorship and book bans

KATHERINE GIUFFRE

2016— Then Vice President Joe Biden examines James Joyce manuscripts at Trinity college, Dublin.  Official White House Photo by David Lienemann. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons 

 

This is a repost of an entry that originally ran in July 2023.

Anthony Comstock is back in the news. More than a century after his death, the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV) and the law he inspired – the 1873 “Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use,” more commonly known as the “Comstock Act” – have emerged once again as players in America’s cultural wars, cited by right-wing judges in 2023 to support banning books, drag shows, and the medical abortion drug mifepristone.

Comstock was active throughout the end of the 19^th century and into the 20^th. He opposed women’s suffrage, the dissemination of any information regarding birth control or abortion, and pornography or other “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material. Thousands were arrested under the Act and Comstock himself boasted that 15 people were driven to suicide by his actions. After his death in 1915, Comstock’s work was carried on by his successor at the NYSSV, John Sumner.

As I discuss in my book, Outrage: The Arts and the Creation of Modernity », it was Sumner who had Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap arrested in 1920 in New York for publishing an excerpt of James Joyce’s Ulysses in their literary magazine, The Little Review. In January of that same year, Prohibition became law in the US after the Volstead Act passed. In April, Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for the murder of a Boston-area paymaster in what many believed was a politically motivated action based on their anarchist political beliefs. And perhaps most importantly, in 1920 the 19^th Amendment became law, guaranteeing women the right to vote, sending Sumner into a frenzy over the fear that “radical feminists” would upend American society. In the midst of these social and cultural changes, Anderson and Heap were convicted, narrowly escaped a prison sentence, and were fined fifty dollars each (about $750 today). Joyce’s Ulysses was effectively banned from the United States. Copies of The Little Review that contained excerpts of it were taken to the official government incinerator and burned. Fortunately, copies already in the hands of purchasers survived to be digitized for us today.

 

An Exploration of Capitalism’s Sexual Division of Debt

How do women's debt, capitalism, sexuality, and kinship all connect?

ISABELLE GUÉRIN, SANTOSH KUMAR, and G. VENKATASUBRAMANIAN

Photograph provided by Isabelle Guérin, used with permission.

 

Our book goes by the title The Indebted Woman: Kinship, Sexuality, and Capitalism ». Why is it that financial capitalism is suddenly interested in poor women, even in remote parts of India? And why are women so keen to take out credit and pay it back on time, even when they lack income, capital and the support of their husbands? This book is a response to these questions.

A long journey

Initiated by Isabelle Guérin, a French research economist, it was made possible by collaboration with Santosh Kumar and G. Venkatasubramanian, both Indian socio-anthropologists. They have worked together for 20 years, combining their skills, but also their gender, their social background and their sensitivity to explore the materiality and intimacy of debt. Their fieldwork has gradually taken them in completely unexpected directions, revealing how women's debt is at the heart of contemporary financial capitalism, while being shaped by and constitutive of norms of kinship and sexuality.

Capitalism

This book will make for essential reading if you want to dig deeper into the complexities of our current financialized capitalist system.

We argue that the indebted woman plays a critical role in this financialized capitalism. Our perspective is rooted in two decades of on-the-ground research in rural Tamil Nadu, South India, where we combined quantitative surveys with ethnography. To make our point, we draw parallels across different times and places.

American Sociological Association 2023

 

Please enjoy this virtual space, showcasing our new authors, award-winning books, and highlights from the last year of sociology at SUP.

 

New Books 

Recent Award Winners

ASA Resources

 

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New Books 

Announcing new books, published in the last year. We’re offering 30% off recent SUP Sociology titles with discount code S23XASA through our virtual exhibit ».

SUP 2023 Sociology Catalog »

Anthony Comstock Rides Again

The resurgence of American censorship and book bans

KATHERINE GIUFFRE

2016— Then Vice President Joe Biden examines James Joyce manuscripts at Trinity college, Dublin.  Official White House Photo by David Lienemann. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia Commons 

 

Anthony Comstock is back in the news. More than a century after his death, the founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV) and the law he inspired – the 1873 “Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use,” more commonly known as the “Comstock Act” – have emerged once again as players in America’s cultural wars, cited by right-wing judges in 2023 to support banning books, drag shows, and the medical abortion drug mifepristone.

Comstock was active throughout the end of the 19^th century and into the 20^th. He opposed women’s suffrage, the dissemination of any information regarding birth control or abortion, and pornography or other “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material. Thousands were arrested under the Act and Comstock himself boasted that 15 people were driven to suicide by his actions. After his death in 1915, Comstock’s work was carried on by his successor at the NYSSV, John Sumner.

As I discuss in my book, Outrage: The Arts and the Creation of Modernity », it was Sumner who had Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap arrested in 1920 in New York for publishing an excerpt of James Joyce’s Ulysses in their literary magazine, The Little Review. In January of that same year, Prohibition became law in the US after the Volstead Act passed. In April, Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for the murder of a Boston-area paymaster in what many believed was a politically motivated action based on their anarchist political beliefs. And perhaps most importantly, in 1920 the 19^th Amendment became law, guaranteeing women the right to vote, sending Sumner into a frenzy over the fear that “radical feminists” would upend American society. In the midst of these social and cultural changes, Anderson and Heap were convicted, narrowly escaped a prison sentence, and were fined fifty dollars each (about $750 today). Joyce’s Ulysses was effectively banned from the United States. Copies of The Little Review that contained excerpts of it were taken to the official government incinerator and burned. Fortunately, copies already in the hands of purchasers survived to be digitized for us today.

 

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and the lessons of Bernie Madoff and the Crisis.

What do two of the biggest fraud cases in U.S. history have in common?

COLLEEN P. EREN

Left: Bernie Madoff's mug shot by U.S. Department of Justice, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

Right: February 2022— Sam Bankman-Fried delivering testimony at the U.S.  Senate. By US Senate, CSPAN, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

 

The precipitous fall of Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF) from his status as a crypto wunderkind and the world’s youngest billionaire, splashed across the covers of Fortune and the Forbes’ “400” edition, to having his in-jail nutrition and pastimes in a sordid Bahamas jail reported by Bloomberg, is a story that rapidly claimed widespread public attention and commentary. Indicted on eight counts of conspiracy and criminal activity related to wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, violation of campaign finance laws, as well as facing civil charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, SBF is alleged to have, from the very beginning of his establishment of the cryptocurrency trading platform, FTX, in 2019, deceived equity investors, and channeled and commingled billions in customers’ funds illegally to his other business, the quantitative crypto-hedge fund Alameda Research, founded in 2017. With those funds, SBF purchased swanky real estate in the Bahamas, made risky speculative investments and large political donations, loaned himself and other executives large amounts of money, repaid Alameda’s debts, and even bailed out other distressed crypto firms. In total, about 8 billion dollars of FTX customers’ funds are thought to have been lost in the swindle by SBF and his accomplices.

Almost immediately, along with the details of SBF’s fraud and titillating accounts of his life in the Bahamas, came comparisons with and allusions to perhaps the most notorious white-collar criminal of the 21^st century, Bernard Madoff. CNN juxtaposed footage of Madoff’s arrest alongside that of SBF, asking if SBF was the “new Madoff” in an interview with the federal prosecutor. In his first network interview, George Stephanopolous levelled at him “A lot of people look at you and see Bernie Madoff.” #BernieMadoff trended in tweets about SBF in November 2022, and Google Trends in January 2023 showed that the top two related rising “breakout” queries to the search term “Bernie Madoff” were “FTX” and “Sam Bankman-Fried" respectively. Yet, the comparison to Madoff, in terms of the nature, length of, modus operandi, and motive, is largely inapposite. Important differences (and similarities) abound.

Perhaps most significant among these differences, in spite of the loose throwing around of the term to describe SBF’s fraud: it is not a Ponzi scheme. To call it such—as has been the case in non-broadstreet outlets—stretches the term so that it loses its definitional clarity. Madoff’s 17.5 billion Ponzi, the largest in history, like all such classic schemes regardless of size, involved paying ‘returns’ to investors in a fake investment advisory business using funds from other investors in the same scheme that were merely deposited in a personal Chase bank account. It was a legerdemain that was possible as long as new institutional investors and individual ‘marks’ could be obtained. SBF is accused of misappropriating deposits from FTX customers to plug holes for Alameda among other purposes, commingling funds between the two businesses, but this is more readily described as embezzlement. His selling equity investors on a responsible business that was anything but responsible, was also fraudulent, but not a Ponzi. On none of the legal documents from government agencies like the Department of Justice (DOJ) or Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does the term appear, unlike in Madoff’s case. Among the other important differences is the modus operandi: Madoff's scheme, as with many Ponzis, was an affinity fraud targeting members of communities to whom he had personal connections, a characteristic not seen in SBF’s crime, which was much shorter-lived, surviving only a few years, compared to Madoff’s fraud, which by some accounts stretched back to the 1970s, an almost 40-year scheme. And last, while Madoff in his interviews for my book Bernie Madoff and the Crisis: The Public Trial of Capitalism », expressed being motivated to begin the Ponzi to not disappoint his wealthiest clients, some have suggested that SBF’s allegiance to the philanthropic philosophy of effective altruism might have been his motivator.

Conflicted Care in a Post Roe v. Wade Nation

The future of physician decision-making and patient welfare

HYEYOUNG OH NELSON

Via Pixabay. Free for commercial use.

 

The overturning of Roe v. Wade has shocked millions, with many grappling with the implications of the June 2022 Supreme Court decision to no longer ensure that abortions are a constitutional right to all individuals living in the United States. Amidst the shock caused by this decision with many questioning how we, as a nation, got here, health care providers, patients, activists, policymakers, and the like, began to immediately articulate the consequences of this decision. Including the obvious impact on reproductive health care access and reproductive rights, this decision will have a disproportionately negative toll on individuals of color, and will lead to the criminalization of patients and health providers who offer abortion care.

With each passing day, the consequences of this decision continue to permeate the news. Most recently, reports have revealed the heavy restrictions being placed on medications that are known to impact a fetus and/or can result in an abortion. For instance, Methotrexate, a common and affordable drug used to treat multiple conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and cancer, is currently being denied to individuals with a uterus. With providers choosing not to prescribe these medications and pharmacies refusing to carry such medications, individuals of childbearing age are disproportionately impacted and at high risk of their health care needs being unmet due to anti-abortion legislation.

            The decision to refuse to provide medication to an individual of childbearing age is just one example of the difficult decisions providers are now expected to make in the post Roe v. Wade nation. Such decisions resonate with the complex decision-making process of physicians revealed in my book, Conflicted Care: Doctors Navigating Patient Welfare, Finances, and Legal Risk ». In this book, I demonstrate how physicians encounter a hidden curriculum of doctoring on the clinical wards of a prestigious academic medical center that forces them to make medical decisions amidst conflicting medical, financial, legal and training pressures. These conflicting pressures inevitably compel physicians to make trade-offs when formulating clinical decisions, which are rarely uniform. In some instances, financial considerations drive clinical protocols, in others, malpractice litigation fears play a primary role. Ultimately, while patient welfare is always an important feature of the clinical decisions providers make, it does not necessarily emerge as the driving factor in medical decisions due to the highly commodified and bureaucratized health care system in the United States.

A Soundtrack to an Academic Book?

Education, cadence, and the pitfalls of perception

CHRISTOPHER BONASTIA

Cover of Soundtrack to the Battle by Uno Collision. Co-designed by by Christopher Bonastia and N'taaliyah Banks. Used with permission. The light yellow border & slight cropping was added by the SUP Social Media Specialist.

 

In The Battle Nearer to Home », I assess the politics of school integration in New York City from 1954 to the present. I examine policies and practices of the New York City Board of Education that perpetuated a system in which Black and Latinx children often attended substandard, segregated schools that fundamentally failed them, in a system that nonetheless, retained the glint of integration and inclusion. Crucially, I also spend many pages trying to capture what the long, exhausting, and ongoing quest for racial justice in schools felt like to those who were fighting for it: the determination, the exasperation, the frustration, and the sense of community that comes with waging an uphill struggle. My project Soundtrack to the Battle will, I hope, aid in this effort.

I’ve been making beats since the late 90s, when I transitioned from live deejaying—working until 4 AM didn’t mesh well with the academic life—to music production. The simplest reason for creating Soundtrack to the Battle is that I love making music. I love to write as well. Yet, as anyone who creates in more than one medium can tell you, the joys and struggles of each one are distinct. In many cases, I can create a demo of a song and enjoy it recreationally on my runs or in the car in a matter of days or weeks. I forgive my “mistakes,” which are sometimes the secret sauce in a song. I live and breathe with it. Of course, writing a book entails a more stretched-out timeline and rhythm, and that marathon contributes to the feeling of accomplishment and pride when your book enters the world.

Some of the songs on the soundtrack are instrumental. One listener commented that the album has “driving in the rain vibes.” Another said: “It’s really a city soundtrack.” I love those interpretations: people typically don’t react to academic books in such rich, impressionistic language. While the instrumentals refer abstractly to the emotional landscape of school equity struggles, other songs include interviews with friends who attended New York City public schools. (Those interviews were conducted after the book was complete.)

American Sociological Conference 2022

 

 

New Books and New 2022 Videos

Recent Award Winners

ASA Resources

 

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New Books and New 2022 Videos

Announcing new books, published in the last year. We’re offering 30% off these and other recent SUP Sociology titles with discount code S22XASA-FM through our virtual exhibit ».

For the best shipping rates on orders outside of North America use the discount code S22XASA-FM at our international distributor, CAP.

 

Book Trailer for The Border Within » by Phi Hong Su

American Sociological Association Conference 2021

 

New Books and New SUP Authors

Recent Award Winners

ASA Resources

 

---

New Books and New SUP Authors

Announcing new books, published in the last year. We’re offering 30% off these and other recent SUP Sociology titles with discount code S21XASA-FM through our virtual exhibit ».

For the best shipping rates on orders outside of North America use the discount code S21XAOM-FM at our international distributor, CAP.

 

 

Marcela Maxfield, SUP's Sociology Acquisitions Editor, says hello to ASA and explains her areas of interest.

 

Creating Space for Systematic Change in Sociology

A Q&A with Julie R. Posselt

JULIE R. POSSELT

 

 

Last month, Stanford University Press hosted an online discussion with Equity in Science » author Julie R. Posselt, Gibor Basri (UC Berkeley), and Natasha Warikoo (Tufts University). Because attendees of the talk posted more questions than could be answered in a short amount of time, we invited Julie to continue the conversation here.

 

Thank you for your work! During your fieldwork and interviews, how did faculty and/or graduate students (or administrators if they are part of the sample) think of themselves as workers? Did that come up at all, or did the “disciplinary steward” focus overtake most interviewees’ comments?

Graduate students have long been positioned dually as learners and workers, and mismanagement of that reality has been the source of graduate student protests and strikes in the last year. In my research on racially and gender diverse doctoral programs, students absolutely thought of themselves as workers as well as students. The students of color we interviewed recognized that their labor on behalf of the institution not only took the form of teaching and research assistantships. Departments striving for diversity leaned on students for other types of time and effort as well — engaging with prospective students for outreach and recruitment, providing support to other current students in the absence of faculty of color, and more. In some respects, graduate students were the ultimate cultural translators—an idea that I develop in the book—that allow these historically white and male organizations to transition into something more like the America we are becoming. All of this came with emotional labor for students, too, which they spoke about as a part of their work. It exacts a serious toll to conceal one’s negative emotions and reactions to everyday instances of racism and sexism, in order to help keep a positive tone.

 

Have you seen relevance of hiring and promotion practices of faculty in your case studies as shaping the grad student experience?

Faculty hiring and promotion is absolutely relevant to the student experience. My research has observed this in a few ways. First, the composition of a department’s faculty and availability of same-race or same-gender faculty to serve as advisors or informal mentors is important to recruiting doctoral students. Of course, students can learn with and from any faculty with the skill and disposition to provide guidance, but research demonstrates that the experience of being part of a community in which one feels they belong makes a significant difference to student wellbeing.

Hype Queens

Nigerian beauty pageant contestants and the power of friendship

OLUWAKEMI M. BALOGUN

Contestants line up to audition for the Face of Culture in Nigeria Final. By Faceofculturenigeria - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. Image has been cropped. Via Wikimedia Commons

 

In December 2019 two different moments featuring Nigerian representatives at major beauty competitions drew considerable attention. At the 2019 edition of the Miss Universe competition held in Atlanta, Olutosin Araromi, who placed in the top 20, smiled broadly when Miss South Africa, Zozibini Tunzi was crowned the winner. Araromi gave an enthusiastic thumbs up sign, kissed the newly crowned Miss Universe on the cheek, and encouraged Tunzi to relish her coronation walk. Araromi, who was Tunzi’s roommate at the Miss Universe competition earned the media designation of being her personal “hype queen,” a riff off of the slang term “hype man” used in hip hop music for a backup performer who gets the audience energized and boosts the star’s stage presence. Less than a week later, at the Miss World competition held in London, Miss Nigeria’s Nyekachi Douglas, placed in the top 3, but lost to Miss Jamaica’s Toni-Ann Singh. Internet buzzed about her priceless reaction. Douglas danced, jumped for joy, and whooped animatedly, hugging a shell shocked Singh. Viewers commented on Douglas’ genuine support and kind-hearted reaction as embodying the epitome of a loyal friend.

Promoters and fans view beauty queens as cultural ambassadors. The relationships between beauty queens represent microcosms of diplomatic affairs.

Pageants are often dismissed by the general public as superficial yet they hold significance at the individual, national, and global levels. Araromi and Douglas’ viral moments generated Internet memes, social media commentary, and news coverage. A less charitable interpretation of these moments might conclude that the Nigerian beauty queens held ulterior motives of stealing the limelight. This understanding depends in part on common perceptions of Nigerians as playing an outsized role in Africa as the most populous country and at the forefront of cultural trends in fashion, literature, music, and film. There is a long-standing desire to translate this recognition onto the world stage through events like beauty pageants. Industry insiders view winning and hosting beauty competitions as avenues of promoting hospitality, entrepreneurship, and positive attributes of Nigeria by showcasing charming, attractive, and intelligent young women.

On the whole, responses commended how Araromi and Douglas’ joyous reactions highlighted solidarity, sisterhood, and support despite their personal defeat. These instances belie conventional understandings of beauty queens as catty, hyper-competitive, and self-absorbed. Indeed, in my own book, I write about how beauty contestants often stress the social connections, camaraderie, and life-long friendships that they gain from their participation in beauty competitions. Their involvement in these contests also provided opportunities to network outside of the pageant world. Effectively networking relied on their self-presentation as virtuous and formidable women concerned with the greater good of their communities. They are expected to use their platforms selflessly, to help vulnerable segments of the Nigerian populace through public speaking and charity work. Beauty queens leveraged these forms of civic labor into social capital to catapult their careers and ambitions to the next level. Participating in Nigerian beauty contests provides the chance to enter into the upper echelons of Nigerian society through hobnobbing with celebrities, lobbying politicians, and striking business deals with executives.

HOW THE U.S. CAN SUPPORT IMMIGRANTS EN ROUTE TO CITIZENSHIP

Ming Hsu Chen on American membership and exclusion.

MING HSU CHEN

The Statue of Liberty in silhouette at sunset. Free for commercial use. Via Pixabay

 

This piece was previously posted on the Scholars Strategy Network.

For the last decade, U.S. federal immigration policy has focused on enforcement. Indeed, an anti-immigrant thrust undergirds many of the major domestic policies of the last thirty years – from the tough on crime initiatives of the 1980s, to the welfare and work reforms of the 1990s, to the anti-terrorism efforts following September 11, 2001. Most recently, powerful political forces have pushed ethno-nationalism as a strategy for protecting America during a public health crisis. Beyond so many tendencies to reject immigrants are the underappreciated roles immigration policy can play in integrating immigrants rather than excluding and deporting them.

Members or Not?

Compared to U.S. citizens, immigrants hold statuses far short of full membership in U.S. society. For many, membership is circumscribed by their legal status as noncitizens. There also social, economic, and political barriers to full membership, even for naturalized citizens. Many immigrants, including naturalized citizens, struggle with access to language instruction, face economic barriers in the workplace, and find themselves without a political voice or vote. Increasingly, many fear brushes with law enforcement or immigration authorities that may lead to detention or deportation.

U.S. immigration law, unfortunately, tends to draw boundaries and exclusions. Noncitizens sit outside the circle of membership, and in many areas the laws are not obligated to afford them the equality or fair treatment due to citizens. Rather than seeing immigrants as individuals who are, at present, partial members of the U.S. community, and in many instances moving toward possible full citizenship in the future, U.S. authorities tend to regard immigrants as the responsibility of someone else, somewhere else.

The Nuances of Data Colonialism

A Q&A with Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias

NICK COULDRY and ULISES A. MEJIAS

Free for commercial use. Via Pixabay

 

Earlier this month, Stanford University Press hosted an online discussion between Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, authors of the recently released The Costs of Connection », and Safiya Umoja Noble, author of the bestselling Algorithms of Oppression. The Costs of Connection uncovers "data colonialism," and its designs for controlling our lives—our ways of knowing; our means of production; our political participation. Because attendees of the talk posed far more questions than could be answered in a short amount of time, we invited Nick and Ulises to continue the conversation here.

 

What do you think are the key/most concerning issues in the age of data colonisation and why?

At the core there are two issues. First, the capture of what in our book we call ‘the space of the subject,’ the basic protection from interference and monitoring that is essential to our integrity as individual selves. This affects all possible selves, even if detailed effects are, as we just said, deeply unequal. But then, second, there is data colonialism’s way of deepening and obscuring how inequality gets reproduced through automated algorithmic processing — the implications of this for social life in every country in the next decades will also be severe, all the more so, because much of that will be easy to hide from view.

 

Data colonialism might be free of violence, but only of the once applied in the former colonial times. I believe it is just a different time of physical violence, which is even more profitable. Digital platforms are clearly damaging brains, propelling sedentarism as well as social isolation. It is also pulling people into debt by promoting consumption in each website which in an more extreme way is pulling people into poverty, which in the long run shortens life expectation. Do you agree?

Absolutely. As we said in the webinar, the question of violence is complex. It would be wrong to even hint that the situation with data colonialism involves anything like the brutal and sustained physical violence that was at the core of historic colonialism. But for sure data colonialism is introducing a social order that relies on a lot of force and pressure. So if you are in a low-paid job, you won’t have the chance to negotiate whether or not you put on your phone the app that tells you where your next assignment is, even if it takes your data. When these sorts of pressures are overlaid with others (about debt, housing etc), then the net effect may well be physically violent. And then there’s the effect on people’s brains of their continued exposure to digital devices and the intense pressures this can bring, as noted in our last answer. Finally, there is the symbolic violence that lies at the core of how data colonialism categorises and orders everyday life. All of this is important to our reading of data colonialism, and justifies the statement, as you say, this is a time of a different type of violence, even if the apparent difference from the immediate brutality of historic colonialism must always be recognized.

Is He a Sociopath?

Why the principal question we ask about Bernie Madoff is wrong.

COLLEEN EREN

Bernard Madoff, painted portrait by Thierry Ehrmann. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.

In light of Bernie Madoff's recent request for compassionate release we are republishing this entry from 2017.

In May, HBO’s The Wizard of Lies brought in the largest premiere audience that the network has seen in four years. The film, an adaptation of Diana Henriques’ journalistic account of Bernie Madoff’s multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, saw, 2.4 million viewers, the weekend of its release—a sizable audience, especially considering that actors Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner headlined Madoff, a four-hour ABC miniseries on the same subject, only a year prior. Perhaps as a way to seize upon the renewed interest generated by the film, which cast Robert De Niro in the lead role as Bernie and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff, the New York Post ran a lengthy article, “The sad new life of exiled Ruth Madoff,” with paparazzi-style photos of Ruth, her preferred bagel shop, dry cleaners, local clothing shop, and other quotidian details about a no-longer-privileged existence. The UK’s Daily Mail published a similar story with photos of the “recluse” Ruth emerging from a local CVS. With a distinct note of schadenfreude, the piece indicated just how far down the social ladder she had fallen. With the ten-year anniversary of Bernie’s arrest approaching, public appetite for this story and curiosity about its principal characters remains robust.

Whether or not Madoff fits the criteria of a sociopath (or a psychopath) has produced numerous conjectures.