Joe Costello has decades experience in politics, energy, environment, and communications. Traveled and worked across the planet. Long a student of democracy, its demise, possible revitalization.
After years trying to define the politics of technology, I recently came upon a one sentence definition by Simone Weil, “The detail of the individual destiny of the machine-worker fades into insignificance before the science, the tremendous natural forces and the collective labor which are incorporated in the machines as
Over the last half-century, it’s become clear that not just the American system, but modern republicanism that spread across the globe from America’s founding is failing. A new book by Helene Landemore, Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule offers incredibly valuable thinking on how we might
Sinead had some animal spirits, but it's a term more associated with economics, capitalism to be exact. John Maynard Keynes wrote about animal spirits in his 1936 book, The General Theory of Money, Interest, and Employment. Keynes knew a lot about money, unlike say money innovator Satoshi Nakamoto,
Monday night at operations control I sat facing rows of monitor mountains Mind control Life control Operation Mind Control It is no accident American politics and just as clearly global politics offer little insight for our times. Contemporary politics are archaic, maybe at best anachronistic, not of the era. Less
SUBSCRIBE ‘Cet esprit de mensonge et d’ erreur—De la chute des rois funeste avantcoureur’ (This spirit of lies and error—a fatal herald of the fall of kings), which Racine spoke about, is today no longer the monopoly of sovereigns. It embraces all classes of the population; it takes
When Nigeria rises to the surface of America's (mis)information streams and you're even asked a question by a family member on the South Side, you need to write. After my first time in Nigeria a decade ago, the number of times I've had
Dem use sorrow, tears, and blood Dem regular trademark Two days ago, I forwarded a piece to several Nigerians and a former South African on the American Grammy's amusingly giving an award to Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti. Wouldn't have happened no way, no how back in the
It’s sort of incredible, although maybe simply nothing more than a manifestation of the technology, the more information technology, the greater the bullshit produced. Yesterday, when the merger of Trump Media and Google backed fusion firm TAE was announced, you might think we reached some sort of peak, but
I did a great interview on The Politics of Ape and Machine with Ben Tallman at WUSB, the radio station for Stony Brook University out there on Long Island. Thanks Ben! He brought up Bernie Sanders at one point. Afterwards, I was thinking I should have told a good story
Deep and Dirty SUBSCRIBE It's clear any sort of American small “d” democratic revival requires Americans coming together face to face to discuss and decide. This essential democratic tradition is largely lost across the political landscape, yet it still thrives at the top. JPMorganChase just announced the formation
SUBSCRIBE Saturday talk in Chicago was well attended and enjoyable. Special thanks to Jim Geoghegan. Below, I focused my remarks on a short history of compute. The latest technology reshaping society for which we have no politics.
Well the politics of technology around Tech's data center push, or is it putsch, continue to bubble-up across the country. The latest action occurring in Port Washington, WI, a town of 12,000 on Lake Michigan, just south of Milwaukee. Seems the citizenry discovered the Mayor and Council