robbo203
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It seems from this that the coronavirus was actually patented way back in 2003/4. I am not quire sure what to make of this. Does this mean the virus was simply identified or developed under lab conditions? If the latter then the implications are (potentially) alarming
Thoughts?
Excellent idea BD. But why not have an electronic message display board that changes messages every hour or so, Something big and bold and highly visible. Or even a large scale screen able to display images
The Coronoavirus phenomenon as seen through prism of capitalist geopolitics
This too I think will not develop into a Spanish Flu (note how we do blame foreigners) which killed millions upon millions.
Talking of which the first suspected case of coronavirus has just been identified here in Granada, Spain – a Chinese tourist
Perhaps this matter needs to be referred to the GenSec and posted on SPINTCOM. I agree – prompt and transparent communication is vital
We have just had 3 requests from twitter users for the three-month free trial subscription, presumably as a result of the offer being mentioned there.
What can be done to encourage more members to engage in this sort of activity not just on twitter but the social media in general. Things like placing adverts or inserts in newspapers and journals are excellent and need to be done but I am more concerned about addressing the very low level of activity of among members themselves
How do we encourage them to become more active via the social media when all the evidence suggests this is the most productive thing they can do to contribute to the growth of the WSM.
This is something I believe the Party seriously needs to address – and soon
What’s wrong with electricity grids, national and international? They are a sign of how production is inter-related and part of the material basis for a worldwide socialist society. We will still need them in socialism. Small is not particularly beautiful. It is just small.
Nothing wrong with electricity grids per se – provided they are buried underground! Of course under capitalism the cost factor militates against this but capitalist cost benefit analysis always understates the cost of externalities.
For example in the part of the world I live in overhead pylons can result in devastating bushfires through sparking. For that reason very wide strips have to be cleared around them and access roads created (in the Alpujarras alone about 80 hectares of woodland would have to be cleared and regularly strimmed but many existing strips are growing back because of the cost of maintenance Wildlife and in particular raptors are electrocuted – tens of thousands of them in Spain.
But the biggest impact is visual. Sorry but I think these giant pylons are grotesque monstrosities that destroy the beauty of places (my William Morris tendency is coming out here) never mind the consequences for the tourist industry. I would sincerely hope a socialist society would embark on a vast programme of decommissioning all pylons – at least those over a certain size – and burying the cables underground where they last much longer when not exposed to the elements, preferably alongside major roads to allow for easy access
I believe in some parts of Europe underground cabling is becoming much more common despite the greater initial costs. Holland I believe is leading the way but even here in Spain sections of the grid are buried underground. Damn good thing too
Talking of China and coal, it has been interesting to learn that China is financing a big coal-fired power station in Morocco. I learnt about this because last year news surfaced of a major infrastructure project to be carried out by the Spanish electrical company REE to create an absolutely huge electrical grid or highway which wull cut through the beautiful Alpujarras and Lecrin valleys south of Granada where I work and live , en route northwards to link up with other pasts of the national grid. Some of the pylons – nearly 100m high in some cases – would have a devastating visual impact on the whole area which is heavily dependent on tourism. Understandably the locals were enraged and the protestors have managed to stall the project for the time being (but for how long is anyone’s guess)
Corresponding with a local researcher , I discovered that this project is tied up with a much larger scheme promoted by the European Union – to create a much more integrated energy grid in the Iberian peninsula. Spain has huge potential for renewables – wind turbines can be found dotting the landscape in many parts of Andalucía and there are significant solar farms inland. The network in France which is sometimes subject to outages is reliant to some extent on Spanish energy. So while Spain sells surpluses to France , Spanish people have to pay some of the highest electricity prices in Europe.
Anyway, the connection with Morocco is that apparently there is going to be an underwater cable from Morocco feeding electricity into the Spanish grid. “Dirty energy” from Morocco will be topped with “clean energy” from renewables along the Mediterranean coastline and then the planned electrical highway will veer inland somewhere in Granada province I gather and head northwards ultimately towards France.
Come the day they start harvesting solar power on a massive scale in the Sahara desert, I imagine this particular electrical highway will become ever more strategically significant not just for Spain but for much of Europe and the environmental sensibilities of the locals will stand no chance against the power of big money
Alan, I believe the American Party has an arrangement with the SPGB whereby it advertises the free trial offer of the SS amongst other things on its revived website. I am trying to encourage the Canadian Party to do the same thing as they are struggling at the moment. For WSPUS this has been virtually the only source of the increase in the numbers of contacts they are now receiving and, by extension, the new members they are now making
Contacts from election leaflet inserts are an important source of contacts for the SPGB but nowhere else. If a serious campaign was initiated within the SPGB to encourage individual members to engage in regular internet work linking to material published by the SPGB in the social media I believe the number of contacts it would generate would dwarf the number obtained through leaflet inserts or adverts in papers and journals. The WSPUS placed an advert in the Monthly Review and got no response.
Members linking to our material in the social media – Facebook, Quora and so on – not only costs nothing but actually encourages members, young or old, and no matter how isolated they may be , to become active. Quite apart from the results it will assuredly generate, this is a major benefut for an organisation in which the vast majority of members are only members in name and probably because in large part they cannot see what role they can play in promoting the cause, apart from expressing solidarity with it by joining
I think that’s an excellent idea Bijou – having a workshop on how to use the internet more effectively. But I think there are a number of other things that also need to be done to get this idea off the ground (what I mean by joining up the dots).
For starters , this website needs to be sorted out as it is currently a bit of mess as far as locating material is concerned. The pamphlets section, for example, needs reorganising. A system for sorting SS articles under subject headings would help too. The idea is to significantly enhance the “linkability” of stuff we publish
There also needs to be some way of approaching all party members (and maybe also sympathisers) – perhaps in the form of a regular quarterly or half yearly newsletter – on an individual basis via email to get them involved in this project. So it would have to involve someone authorised to have access to membership data. Perhaps some sort of ad hoc committee or working team could be set up to oversee this and other aspects of this project like the workshop you mention. Of course, we could also say something about this in the new members handbook
There are a lot of different things that we need to do to make this idea really work for us but I firmly believe that it is by far the most effective thing we could do at this stage as a relatively small organisation. If I am right in thinking so it could enthuse and spur on a lot more members into activity than is currently the case.
Success breeds success
robbo’s post seems to indicate that the WSM is an ageing organisation with not enough young members who are au fait with social media. Is this true?
Hi Rod, I dont think age has got that much to do with it. Its attitude, not age, that is the problem. Older members are fully capable to using the internet and probably have more time on their hands to do so but overwhelmingly dont. This is the root of the problem. We have got to find a way of encouraging ALL members, young and old, to engage in more internet work. The evidence shows that this IS the way ahead. It doesn’t mean abandoning traditional forms of activity but supplementing them.
The really frustrating thing about all this is that internet work is NOT time-consuming, difficult or laborious. Its easy-peasey. Anyone with a computer can do it and it only takes a few minutes a month. Here is the link to a campaign that sadly very few members have even bothered to respond to :
http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/search?q=ten+minutes
The results of this kind of activity are disproportionally FAR BETTER than other forms of activity. What is happening with the WSPUS now proves this and, even in the case of the WSPUS, only a minority are active in this way.
Probably less than a dozen members across this world are engaged in this sort of activity on Facebook, Quora and other social media. If we can get it properly organised and join up all the dots – make this (and other WSM) website’s contents more amenable to linkability and get many more members involved in linking on the social media – we could quadruple the number of contacts we make within a year. And more contacts means more members and, in due course, a much larger organisation than we currently are
Yet we dont do this while the evidence is staring us in the face that this is what we ought to be doing!
Why?
We have a wide potential receptive audience.
Why are we not resonating with them?Partly I think because we are doing precious little to tap into this potential
The problem is we live in the age of the internet and the WSM has simply not yet adapted to this. The vast majority of its membership is inactive, because of isolation and probably not really appreciating what they can do to contribute.
I am beginning to see what can be done on even a small scale with our American companion Party. This time last year it was at the point of collapse. Then it reorganised. All members barring one or two were put on a central discussion list enabling party wide decisions to be made instantly. The website was reorganised upgraded and made more attractive. Members started writing pamplets and most crucially of all , a handful of comrades starting linking to material on the WSPUS website via the social media such as Facebook. The result? The flow of contacts that had virtually dried up started flowing again and now we are seeing new members joining (one just yesterday).
I cannot stress enough that the key to progress is through the internet where increasingly people meet the WSM and through which the vast majority of new members now join. But there is only a tiny handful of members proactively linking to our website material via social media such as Facebook or Quora – I would say less than a dozen worldwide.
If we could triple or quadruple the number of members engaged in this sort of activity I wouldn’t mind betting we would see an explosion in the number of contacts made and the number of new people taking up the trial offer of the Socialist Standard. There is direct correlation between the number of new contacts made and the number of new members made.
This organisation needs to seriously consider developing an approach that would encourage every member to engage in internet work and perhaps some sort of ad hoc committee needs to be set up for that very purpose
Unfortunately, the ‘materialists’ will continue to supposedly try ‘to reconcile… by synthesising’, by actually reducing ideas to the physical. As for Podolinsky, ‘value’ must be ’embodied’. But ‘value’ is a social product, not a form of ‘matter’.
David Pena, if you read the article, actually takes the view that “value” is pre-social – that is, it predate human society and indeed organic life itself. ‘Exchange value’ is predicated on the exchange of energy. He doesn’t seem to understand the point that exchange value presupposes commodity exchange and therefore a particular kind of society in which commodity relations have developed to a vey significant degree.
Strange that he wants to consider himself some sort of Marxist while rejecting this basic Marxian insight
While researching the subject I came across this guy – a contemporary of Marx and Engels with whom he corresponded – who made arguments not dissimilar to those made by Pena
Came across this site.
Some of the Links are interesting. For instance according to one link sustainable development is “Marxist” so we must oppose it. LOL
