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The triple crisis we are currently experiencing — financial, public health and climate — reveals the paradoxical character of the capitalist discourse and its original idea of “progress” and “growth”. As the book Design, Method and Industrialism by Freddy van Camp et al. (1998) recalls, the union of Design with the business environment was a bet of the 1950s/60s, significantly marked by post-war developmental thinking. There was no guarantee that betting on this alliance was the ideal path to “progress”, nor was there a concern with the environment, since in the prevailing view of the time, nature would be an infinite and controllable resource. Written by Isabel Elias Edited by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

“Government investments in public transport systems may very well be exacerbating inequality due to their direct ties with the global capitalist system.” To claim that investment in public transportation goes against the interests of low-income workers is counterintuitive. It is expected that the highest someone’s income is, the less likely they are to rely on buses to get around. Therefore, if money is spent to make improvements in this sector, we naturally expect investments to target users’ interests and well-being. And, because of this expectation, whenever buses are vandalized during a protest, many observers perceive this destruction as symbolic of ungratefulness — to bite the hand that feeds. Could it be, however, that investment in public transport in fact leads to disadvantages to the lowest income working population? Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Photographed by Fabio Teixeira Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

Banning burkinis, the War on Terror and the US occupation of Afghanistan have nothing to do with improving the lives of women. Why, then, did Women’s welfare become central to any discussion about these topics? To wage War in the name of Human Rights is an oxymoron. Nevertheless, this is exactly how the United States, and its mass media, is diverging attention from the fact that it has just lost another war. Feminism and LGBTQ+ rights was never the motivation behind the occupation of Afghanistan. And yet, the Taliban’s treatment of women and gays seems to be at the forefront of all mediatic discussion about the pulling-out of American troops. As a woman, it’s pertinent to honestly show how uncomfortable it is to see Women’s rights being used to paint a racist imperialist regime in good light. To pair concerns for the educational future of Afghan girls with demands for the extermination of “primitive” Islamists feels like using feminism as a veil for islamophobia. Women’s rights are violated everywhere in the world, every day. Could it be that we lack perspective on the gendered violence present in the Christian world because we are submerged in it? Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

In English as pocket-book and PDF. Quem lê, já leu uma tradução. Mesmo que o texto não seja uma tradução, ele possivelmente alude a uma. Quem não lê, já foi exposto a uma ideia que foi traduzida, seja ela na 'Sessão da Tarde', na reza ou no nome da companhia para qual alguém trabalha. Esse livro é, portanto, não só para pessoas que traduzem, ele é para qualquer pessoa que tem interesse em saber como ideias e pensamentos são compartilhados pelo mundo. Edição atual da revista Lucía v. 1 n. 1 (2021) Issn 2763-521X lançamento 08/03/2021 Escrito por Mirna Wabi-Sabi Leia na Tenda de Livros

In my view, Africana womanism has been the most effective anti-fascist strategy Brazil has ever seen, tackling all realms of oppression from self-esteem to material conditions, infrastructure, community development, and, most importantly, survival. Unlike Western patriarchy, which feeds competition, individualism, and authority through the use of violence or force, the ‘matricommunity’ guarantees all the basic spiritual and practical needs [1] that a fascist government not only fails to provide, but systematically deprives in order to marginalize and exterminate an unwanted contingent of the population. Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

By René L. P. Mahieu ABSTRACT Collectively exercising the right of access: individual effort, societal effect The debate about how to govern personal data has intensified in recent years. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect in May 2018, relies on transparency mechanisms codified through obligations for organisations and citizen rights. While some of these rights have existed for decades, their effectiveness is rarely tested in practice. This paper reports on the exercise of the so-called right of access, which gives citizens the right to get access to their personal data. We study this by working with participants—citizens for whom the law is written—who collectively sent over a hundred data access requests and shared the responses with us. We analyse the replies to the access requests, as well as the participant's evaluation of them. We find that non-compliance with the law's obligations is widespread. Participants were critical of many responses, though they also reported a large variation in quality. They did not find them effective for getting transparency into the processing of their own personal data. We did find a way forward emerging from their responses, namely by looking at the requests as a collective endeavour, rather than an individual one. Comparing the responses to similar access requests creates a context to judge the quality of a reply and the lawfulness of the data practices it reveals. Moreover, collective use of the right of access can help shift the power imbalance between individual citizens and organisations in favour of the citizen, which may incentivise organisations to deal with data in a more transparent way. ABSTRACT From dignity to security protocols: a scientometric analysis of digital ethics Our lives are increasingly intertwined with the digital realm, and with new technology, new ethical problems emerge. The academic field that addresses these problems—which we tentatively call ‘digital ethics’—can be an important intellectual resource for policy making and regulation. This is why it is important to understand how the new ethical challenges of a digital society are being met by academic research. We have undertaken a scientometric analysis to arrive at a better understanding of the nature, scope and dynamics of the field of digital ethics. Our approach in this paper shows how the field of digital ethics is distributed over various academic disciplines. By first having experts select a collection of keywords central to digital ethics, we have generated a dataset of articles discussing these issues. This approach allows us to generate a scientometric visualisation of the field of digital ethics, without being constrained by any preconceived definitions of academic disciplines. We have first of all found that the number of publications pertaining to digital ethics is exponentially increasing. We furthermore established that whereas one may expect digital ethics to be a species of ethics, we in fact found that the various questions pertaining to digital ethics are predominantly being discussed in computer science, law and biomedical science. It is in these fields, more than in the independent field of ethics, that ethical discourse is being developed around concrete and often technical issues. Moreover, it appears that some important ethical values are very prominent in one field (e.g., autonomy in medical science), while being almost absent in others. We conclude that to get a thorough understanding of, and grip on, all the hard ethical questions of a digital society, ethicists, policy makers and legal scholars will need to familiarize themselves with the concrete and practical work that is being done across a range of different scientific fields to deal with these questions. ABSTRACT Measuring the Brussels Effect through Access Requests: Has the European General Data Protection Regulation Influenced the Data Protection Rights of Canadian Citizens? We investigate empirically whether the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) improved compliance with data protection rights of people who are not formally protected under GDPR. By measuring compliance with the right of access for European Union (EU) and Canadian residents, we find that this is indeed the case. We argue this is likely caused by the Brussels Effect, a mechanism whereby policy diffuses primarily through market mechanisms. We suggest that a willingness to back up its rules with strong enforcement, as it did with the introduction of the GDPR, was the primary driver in allowing the EU to unilaterally affect companies' global behavior. [From the Plataforma9 family]

In English here. El último sábado de agosto, prendí las luces del balcón e una nube de termitas corrió hacia las lámparas. Se arrojaron contra la ampolleta nerviosamente y cubrieron cada centímetro de la pared. Una mariposa voló entre ellos, desorientada. Y una lagartija estaba allí, verticalmente, al lado de una de las lámparas, emocionada, pero en gran desventaja numérica. Es el comienzo de la primavera, hora de salir en la búsqueda por nuevos apareamientos, con la ayuda de la luna. Entonces, pasé un tiempo en el oscuro mientras las termitas se orientaban. Al día siguiente, a pesar de la pandemia, la gente llenó las playas para disfrutar del sol. El invierno se terminó y también el aislamiento. Los humanos, en muchos sentidos como un enjambre de termitas, tienen instintos que no les dejan acompañar los cambios drásticos del contexto. La luna ya no es la única fuente de luz en esta tierra — que antes era un pedazo de bosque atlántico costero. Aunque seamos adaptables encontramos maneras de racionalizar comportamientos irracionales para retrasar los cambios. Ciertas cosas ya cambiaron, irreversiblemente, como la manera que nuestros cuerpos existen en el mundo y lo influencian. Nuestros cuerpos son importantes, por lo tanto la distancia entre ellos también importa. Así como las termitas son importantes para el mundo — un mundo que no circunda solamente los bienes humanos — ellos ayudan a descomponer los cuerpos de los árboles muertos, devuelven los nutrientes al suelo abriendo el camino para una nueva generación de árboles. Como nosotros, a ellos también les gustan los cadáveres de los árboles, aunque practiquen este culto de forma mas sostenible. ¿De qué formas insostenibles ​​practicamos nuestra devoción? Poniéndonos devotos del dinero, de otras personas o de nuestro propio cuerpo, puede ser que estemos practicando rituales que no solamente nos aleje de las cosas que mas valoramos, sino que también pueden destruirlas. El instinto de socializar y tomar el sol, por ejemplo, como homenaje a las personas que amamos, incluye a nosotras mismas, aunque tuviera validez antes del año 2020, hoy puede ser una maldición más. Así como las termitas tuvieron la capacidad de disfrutar de la luz de la luna, aunque se distraen con una luz bastante débil solamente por su cercanía, al encontrar nada más allá del vidrio, concreto y de madera químicamente tratada. El COVID-19 y el aislamiento puede haber remodelado la forma como vemos nuestros cuerpos en el mundo y, por lo tanto, va a remodelar la practica de nuestra devoción, en lo que sea. Esto no es algo malo, las tradiciones pueden evolucionar para volverse aún más poderosas. En cierto modo, es por el cambio que nos ponemos devotos. Si alguien adora la riqueza, aunque la idea que hacemos de ella pueda ser inmutable, el deseo es que se cambie la cuantidad de la riqueza. Mismo en la adoración de las deidades, por eternas que sean, son consideradas con poder de Cambio. Yo fui una de las personas que fueron a la playa en este domingo, sin saber que formaba parte de un enjambre. La multitud me sorprendió y me hizo super-consciente de no estar usando un barbijo. Lo más sorprendente, sin embargo, fue percibir que ahora me dio una sensación fragilizada de lo que mi cuerpo es capaz, de lo que puede soportar y de como las cosas pueden amenazarlo. Yo solía ser tan desteñida, andar en bicicleta entre los autos, escalar las enormes rocas en la playa, explorando senderos escondidos y mirando hacia abajo del acantilado. Probablemente sea seguro decir que el año 2020 nos hizo sentir vulnerables ​y muchos de nosotros simplemente no queremos aceptarlo pero existen nuevas formas de reconstruir la confianza en nuestros cuerpos, solamente tenemos que querer buscarlas. Ciertas cosas cambian y volver a las antiguas formas de afrontarlas puede ser contraproducente. Especialmente para aquellos de nosotros que quieren seguir resistiendo a los cambios, es importante mantener nuestros objetivos inmutables para que conozcamos a las tácticas cambiantes ​​en las que podemos confiar para alcanzarlas de manera efectiva, sin distraernos con cosas brillantes en el camino. ________ texto: Mirna Wabi-Sabi traducción: Marina Mayumi revisión: Angely Zambrano

Show Notes Whatever one’s conception of “God” is, “John of God” should now be a nauseating name. For decades, João Teixeira de Faria pretended to heal an endless stream of pilgrims to his center in rural central Brazil through the Spiritist practice of “psychic surgery.” In reality, the miracle healing claims worked to cover up an obvious truth. João was sexually assaulting and raping women, in public and in private, likely every day of his “working” life. As he did so, he amassed a vast fortune in affiliate businesses, farming operations, real estate, referral rackets, and sales of crystals and fake remedies. In this episode we won’t retell this history, now poignantly captured by a new Brazilian-made documentary on Netflix. Instead, we’ll look at how lazy and motivated journalism shook hands with the entrepreneurial New Age to validate and accelerate the absurd claims of a monster. In addition to original reporting on how João made his mark in the U.S., Matthew is joined by former New Age publicist Lisa Braun Dubbels and Brazilian journalist Mirna Wabi Sabi to discuss the globalization of magic and abuse. Trigger warnings for this episode: rape, sexual assault, fraud, spiritual abuse. 02:17 John of Fraud 1:16:22 Interview w/Lisa Braun Dubbel & Mirna Wabi-Sabi Listen at Conspirituality.net

"Bloodthirsty savagery", which is often attributed to the Mayan people, far better describes U.S. foreign policy than any pre-Columbian civilization in the Americas. We ought to remember that the Mayan people still exist today, and they were and still are far from the backwards and underdeveloped stereotype propagated in mainstream media. Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

“This photo-journalistic work has as main objective to show the reality of emergency rooms, the lives of people in favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the struggle to fight this invisible enemy, coronavirus, the burials, the tragedy of this genocidal government, the suffering of the population in favelas, and the daily life that the pandemic has failed to change.” — Fabio Teixeira Curfews have always been a part of life in Rio’s favelas. Long before the pandemic, being out in public has inevitably meant imminent danger. Disputes between criminal/political factions and the widespread use of military artillery pose a blatant threat to life and to the physical integrity of residents. The sounds of bullets, police cars, shouting, blood and bodies on the streets unscrupulously reminds the population of the punishment that comes with disobeying orders to stay home. The imminent threat to life posed by COVID-19, however, isn’t as blatant. The virus is invisible, silent, and kills behind closed doors in off-limits hospital units. In this photo-journalistic series, Fabio Teixeira visually exposes the overwhelming presence of these microscopic entities, and their crushingly material repercussions. Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Photographed by Fabio Teixeira Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

Silvia explains what function the witch hunts served in Europe during the medieval era, far beyond the superficial understandings we often have of it. This phenomenon in which primarily women—mostly poor women—were targeted, tortured, and publicly executed paved the way for the rise of the world-eating socioeconomic order. During the witch hunts, tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, of women were killed, and this event is rarely given the attention it really deserves. Written by Patrick Farnsworth Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org

Few things paint a clearer picture of the insidious nature of American Imperialism than the CIA’s approach towards African anti-colonial wars of the 50s and 60s. During this period, the Civil Rights movement, the Cold War, and the eruption of Independence movements across Africa reached a robust symbiosis. Although the struggle against colonizers never lacked “philosophical justification and leadership”, the FBI accused Black Revolutionaries in the USA of “misquoting” and “inflat[ing] [them] into exaggerated dimensions” (p.988*). Frantz Fanon not only became this leadership, but also provided a philosophical justification that was heavily influenced by Hegel, and therefore by his pre-eminent progeny — Marx. In this mid-20th-century conjuncture, how did Fanon — a Latin American anti-capitalist philosopher, psychiatrist, and fighter in the Algerian National Liberation Front — die at the age of 36 at the hands of the CIA in Maryland? Written by Mirna Wabi-Sabi Read it at Abeautifulresistance.org