All this freaking out about the extinction of Homo sapiens is turning me into a bore. Granted, I think it's freak out worthy but there are limits. So here is Giorgio Agamben discussing the end of modernity, Capitalism as a savage religion, and the death of art.
And here is a not-very-good article about the Canadian government's $1.2 B spy headquarters. I didn't think we had spies. Somewhat predictably, the feel-good Canadian style is to call them "watchdogs".
The second article is only really interesting when read immediately after the first. The Agamben interview is all over the place, which is to be expected in an interview with a philosopher that's going to be published on the internet. Agamben makes the point, "A city whose streets and squares are controlled by way of surveillance cameras cannot be a public place: it is a prison." This control by surveillance is precisely why Canada's new spy palace costs so much. Canada doesn't have much in the way of spies; not in the way most people think of them. No CIA, no MI6, certainly no James Bond types. We have nerds with weapons training hoovering up information and compiling it. Agamben's assertion Western governments view all their citizens as virtual terrorists here takes on its double meaning. We have the capacity to be terrorists (as defined by the government) and our crimes will be digital.
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