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On 17th April, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra conferred on me the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, at a public ceremony. I attended online since I am not able to travel long-distance at present. UPF is a major public university in Barcelona, named for Pompeu Fabra, a celebrated linguist who was a key figure in the Catalan cultural revival of the early 20th century.

For an academic worker, an honorary doctorate is a public recognition of one's contribution to a field of knowledge, but also, importantly, a recognition of the field itself and its value. In this case, the study of social hierarchies of class and gender, the study of masculinities, and struggles for social justice and peace.

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon

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The post Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea appeared first on Nautilus.

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In 1976, Robert Gilpin distinguished three contrasting political economy perspectives: liberalism, Marxism, and mercantilism. Gilpin introduced these International Relations-derived categories as theories and ideologies of political economy, sometimes conceived either as explanatory models or future scenarios. He recognises that the three ideologies ‘define the conflicting perspectives’ that actors have, but he does not go as far as to theorise how the perspectives may be part of the dynamics of the world economy and generative of its history and future. Gilpin’s models, scenarios, and theories are thus mainly cognitive attempts to understand reality from the outside. Since Gilpin’s main works, a large number of critical and constructivist International Political Economy (IPE) and Global Political Economy (GPE) approaches have arisen, stressing the constitutive role of ideas and performativity of theories. Many of these studies, however, tend to focus on aspects of contemporary matters or specific issues and fall short of analysing broad historical developments and, most markedly, causation.

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The post The “Electrify Everything” Movement’s Consumption Problem appeared first on The Intercept.