Science and technology

US Waging ‘Unilateral’ Economic And Tech War To Halt China’s Rise

October 25, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Resistance Report China, Joe Biden, New Cold War, Science and technology, US Imperialism

The US government has imposed aggressive sanctions that aim to “kneecap” China’s tech sector and halt the country’s rise, Washington policymakers and industry analysts have admitted. The Joe Biden administration took the extraordinarily aggressive action this October of blocking China from importing most semiconductors, machines to create chips, and supercomputer parts. A former Pentagon official acknowledged that this was a “disproportionate” and “unilateral” attack, amounting to a “form of economic containment.” He said this in an article in Foreign Policy, the magazine of the DC political class, titled “Biden Is Now All-In on Taking Out China.” Jon Bateman, an ex analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who served in several important policy roles in the Pentagon, wrote that US officials have “imposed disproportionate measures” and “strong-armed others into compliance.”

Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why

October 17, 2022 Heather Vogell, ProPublica. Educate! Housing, Landlords, Rent, Science and technology

On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one of their company’s signature products: software that uses a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants. “Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as conventiongoers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said in a video touting the company’s services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked: What role had the software played? “I think it’s driving it, quite honestly,” answered Andrew Bowen, another RealPage executive. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually.”

US Sanctions Will Make China Stronger

October 1, 2022 Lee Siu Hin, Popular Resistance. Educate! China, Congress, Science and technology, US Sanctions

For the past five years, with the rapid decline of the U.S. empire and the peaceful rise of China, the U.S. has rapidly developed a baffling policy of anti-China hysteria. From Trump to Biden, Republicans and Democrats, neo-cons and “progressives,” are all now focused entirely on a racist cold war of China-bashing and Russophobia, rather than doing anything constructive for the people of the United States and global society. From a never-ending trade war, financial war, sanctions and the war against Huawei they turned to spreading unfounded stories of Chinese communist “high-tech” spies in the U.S., and a “Wuhan man-made” virus hoax. They play at “gunboat diplomacy” by sending aircraft carriers to the South and East China Seas in an effort to intimidate China, while they provoke ethnic and social tensions by playing their “Taiwan card,” their “Hong Kong card” and their “Xinjiang card,”.

Big Chip In US-China Crisis

August 6, 2022 Maria Ryan, Consortium News. Educate! China, Chips, Science and technology, Taiwan

One aspect of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan that has been largely overlooked is her meeting with Mark Lui, chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC). Pelosi’s trip coincided with U.S. efforts to convince TSMC – the world’s largest chip manufacturer, on which the U.S. is heavily dependent – to establish a manufacturing base in the US and to stop making advanced chips for Chinese companies. U.S. support for Taiwan has historically been based on Washington’s opposition to communist rule in Beijing, and Taiwan’s resistance to absorption by China. But in recent years, Taiwan’s autonomy has become a vital geopolitical interest for the U.S, because of the island’s dominance of the semiconductor manufacturing market.

Hawaii Law Could Break Years-Long Astronomy Impasse

July 25, 2022 Alexandra Witze, Nature. Create! Hawaii, Indigenous Activism, Sacred sites, Science and technology

The state of Hawaii has set up a new way to manage the mountain Maunakea, the summit of which is home to many world-class astronomical observatories. A law signed by Hawaii’s governor on 7 July removes the University of Hawaii from its role as the main authority overseeing the land on which the telescopes sit, and gives that responsibility to a newly established group with much broader representation of the community, including Native Hawaiians. Many hope that the shift will mark a path forwards for astronomy in Hawaii, after a years-long impasse over the future of telescopes on Maunakea. Since 2015, some Native Hawaiians have intermittently blocked the road to the summit, primarily to prevent the start of construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) — a next-generation observatory that will have a huge light-gathering mirror to make astronomical discoveries.

The Nordic Model Invents The Goods

July 10, 2022 Nick Warino, People's Policy Project. Create! Innovation, Nordic Model, Production, Science and technology

For decades, many on the American left have pointed to the Nordic nations as models that we should be striving towards. One frequent response to this has been to say that, although the Nordic nations have built remarkably equal economies, they lag in other important respects like inventing and implementing new technologies. There is no compelling statistical evidence for this claim, but some version of this idea seems to permanently linger in the US discourse. Recently, various liberal commentators — often rallying under the label of supply-side progressivism — have published articles chastising leftists who frequently point to the Nordic and western European models. According to these articles, such leftists are inattentive to the questions of how to steer the invention and deployment of new kinds of production.

New York Times Tech Workers Vote 404-88 To Unionize

March 5, 2022 Angela Fu, Poynter. Organize! New York Times (NYT), Science and technology, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Tech workers at The New York Times voted 404-88 to unionize as the New York Times Tech Guild, the union announced Thursday. The guild, which includes more than 500 engineers, project and product managers, designers and analysts, is now the largest unit of tech workers with bargaining rights in the country. They are organized by the NewsGuild, the largest union of journalists. As an official from the National Labor Relations Board counted the ballots Thursday, the guild marked the occasion with a live vote tracker. “This is a historic win,” the union tweeted. “We stand in solidarity with all workers organizing to build better workplaces in the tech and media industries.”

The Profit-Motive Didn’t Create The James Webb Space Telescope

January 14, 2022 Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening!. Educate! Capitalism, Innovation, Science and technology, Socialism

We have two examples of economic systems and of individual scientific workers and business people doing what they do that offer a instructive illustrations of why the US is so screwed up, and why it doesn’t have to be that way. The first is the extraordinary new (if unfortunately named) James Webb telescope heading rapidly towards it’s parking orbit at the Lagrange point 2.2 where its telescope, reportedly 100 times more powerful than the already extraordinary orbiting Hubble telescope, will be able to show images of early galaxies formed only a short time after the Big Bang. That telescope, which has had to go through over 300 automated or remotely controlled steps — in order — to open up from its fetal position crammed inside the oversized faring of a European-built Ariane rocket — was designed and built by scientists and engineers working on salary and launched on a rocket designed and built by a multi-European government agency.

Tech Workers, Bigger Than Big Tech

November 28, 2021 J S Tan, Progressive International. Educate! Big Tech, Science and technology, Technology, Worker Rights and Jobs

Tech companies are the new empires of today: Alphabet annual revenue surpassed Hungary’s GDP, Facebook employs over 15000 content moderators around the world, and Microsoft has built datavcenters in nearly every corner of our planet. Yet we continue to be sold the myth that the workers of the tech industry, which spans every corner of the globe, have nothing to do with each other. To hold these tech companies accountable, tech workers in the United States have begun to organize. “Help us be Alphabet’s conscience”, proclaimed the recently-formed Alphabet Workers Union, a minority union composed of full-time employees, temporary employees, vendors, and contractors at Google’s parent company.

In The Name Of Saving The Climate, They Will Uberise The Farmlands

November 19, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! climate crisis, cryptocurrency, Farming, Science and technology

Ag Tech and Big Tech firms are championing a kind of uberisation of farmlands in an effort to dominate all aspects of food production. This ensures that it is the powerless smallholders and agricultural workers who take on all the risks. The German pharmaceutical company Bayer’s partnership with the US non-profit Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) intends to use e-extension training to control what and how farmers grow their produce, as agribusinesses reap the benefits without taking on risk. This is another instance of neoliberalism at work, displacing the risk onto workers whose labour produces vast profits for the Ag Tech and Big Tech firms. These big firms are not interested in owning land or other resources; they merely want to control the production process so that they can continue to make fabulous profits.

Mexico Will Create A State-Owned Company For Lithium Production

October 30, 2021 Telesur English. Create! Lithium, Mexico, Public ownership, Science and technology

The government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador plans to create a state-owned company for the exploration and exploitation of lithium, announced the Secretary of Energy, Rocío Nahle. In an interview to local media, the official highlighted on Wednesday that "lithium is a strategic mineral," and gave as an example its use as a "raw material for the manufacture of electric batteries." According to Nahle, this state-owned company would be established in the secondary law of the energy reform proposed by the Mexican president. "It is going to pass for the exploitation of lithium," she emphasized. She also made reference to the expropriation of oil that occurred during the government of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940).

World’s First Battery-Powered Freight Train Unveiled In Pittsburgh

September 24, 2021 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Create! Electrification, Energy, Science and technology, Transportation

The world's first ever battery-electric freight train was unveiled in Pittsburgh on Friday. The train, known as the FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive, was built by rail-freight company Wabtec and showcased at Carnegie Mellon University as part of a bid by the two organizations to decarbonize rail freight transport in the U.S., The Guardian reported. "A bolder, cleaner, more efficient transportation system is in our grasp," Wabtec chief executive Raphael Santana said, as The Guardian reported. "This is just the beginning." In addition to partnering with Carnegie Mellon on this venture, Wabtec is also working with fellow freight company Genesee & Wyoming, according to Railway Age.

US Collected 4.8 Million Biometric Records Of Afghans

September 4, 2021 Margaret Hu, Consortium News. Educate! Afghanistan, Privacy, Science and technology, Wars and Militarism

In the wake of the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the ouster of the Afghan national government, alarming reports indicate that the insurgents could potentially access biometric data collected by the U.S. to track Afghans, including people who worked for U.S. and coalition forces. Afghans who once supported the U.S. have been attempting to hide or destroy physical and digital evidence of their identities.

New York Times Tech Guild Walks Out, Into An Historic Fight

August 31, 2021 Rose Lemlich, Left Voice. Resist! Labor Unions, New York Times (NYT), Science and technology, Worker Rights and Jobs

On August 11th, after months of management’s union-busting and stalling, New York Times tech workers staged the tech industry’s first ever walkout over unfair labor practices. Among the over 300 workers taking part was Kathy Zhang, a senior manager of newsroom and product analytics at the New York Times, who echoed hundreds of years of militant worker organizers when she explained the simple yet monumental rights at stake: “we want better working conditions and we want to be able to advocate for those conditions together.” The future of organizing in the tech sector is dependent in large part on what happens here in the next few months. Because the tech industry sits at the nexus of commerce, mass media, finance, entertainment, and nearly all modern forms of communication, a strong labor movement in that sector could result in workers having power over some of the most consequential decision-making of our time.

Keep Big Oil Out Of Public Science

August 11, 2021 Alice Procter, Tribune Magazine. Educate! Corporatism, Science and technology, Shell Oil

It feels so tired to be going through another museum sponsorship drama. Accepting money from a fossil fuel company? In this climate? How quaint. We’ve had this conversation before; we know that corporations use relationships with museums and arts institutions to launder their reputations. Pharmaceuticals, weapons, and pollutants get washed away by these wholesome acts of public philanthropy. The Science Museum Group’s longstanding relationship with Shell has been the subject of controversy and protest for years. There is a particularly glaring hypocrisy in such a catastrophic polluter as Shell sponsoring an exhibition about carbon capture and the future of climate change, but that kind of brazen behaviour is barely shocking enough to make major headlines.

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