Fast Capitalism

Full Issue

The Editors — 2022-11-01

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Front Matter

The Editors — 2022-11-01

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About the Authors

The Editors — 2022-11-01

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The Manosphere as an Online Protection Racket: How the Red Pill Monetizes Male Need for Security in Modern Society

Eva Bujalka — 2022-11-01

To effectively manage, empathize with and respond to the implications and impact of the so-called â€˜Manosphere,' this paper is centered on the premise that researchers require an understanding of the draw factors that lead individuals to engage, affiliate with, and contribute to the various groups that constitute this wider movement. This paper seeks to contribute to the growing body of knowledge around the Manosphere by exploring how thought leaders propagate symbiotic cycles of ontological security and insecurity through YouTube in a manner that resembles a protection racket. It argues that these constructed ontological security cycles provide a powerful impetus to not only draw individuals into the Manosphere, but also to extract material and social resources out of them that can be reinvited to retain them within the movement.

Cultural Politics and the Crisis of Education and Political Agency

Henry Giroux — 2022-11-01

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Populism and Identity Politics in the U.S. Heartland

Ann M. Oberhauser — 2022-11-01

The rise of populism on the political right in the U.S. and Europe in recent decades reflects a significant shift in political culture. This populism has been associated with the rejection of mainstream politics and increased hostility toward immigrants, racialized minorities, and other marginalized groups who are seen as threats to economic security and hegemonic social identities. In the U.S. Heartland, several key states flipped from Democrat to Republican in 2016, sealing Trump's win and leading to widespread debates about populist political attitudes in this region. This analysis draws from focus group discussions with community leaders in rural and micropolitan Iowa to understand how local discourses about economic and social change intersects with rising populist politics. Three characteristics of community life emerged as areas of concern among these groups; economic destabilization associated with neoliberalism, changes in social composition, and a profound sense of rurality. Our findings reveal how populism and identity movements on the political right are integrated with Heartland political culture, contributing to the recent electoral success of right-wing populist candidates. The discussion concludes with recommendations to promote a progressive and inclusive agenda for the Heartland and the U.S. as a whole.

The Dialectic of De-Holocenation: Waste and Wealth in the Anthropocene*

Timothy W. Luke — 2022-11-01

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Culture After Work? Intellectual Property in Post-Scarcity Discourses

Ryan Nolan — 2022-11-01

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Neo-Imperialism and the Precarious Existence of Vietnamese Factory Workers During the Covid-19 Lockdowns in 2021

Scott G. McNall — 2022-11-01

Based on interviews with Vietnamese factory workers we discuss the impact Covid lockdowns had on their lives and illuminate how fragile their economic circumstances are in general. Both the government and major international corporations, such as Samsung and Nike, took extraordinary steps to keep workers on factory floors when covid infections started spreading in 2020. The government and businesses pressed laborers to work, sleep, and eat in their factories to stop the spread of the virus and to keep production lines moving. There was a determined push to get people vaccinated. It wasn't just the Vietnamese government that tried to get jabs in arms; ninety U.S. corporate executives urged the U.S. government to speed vaccine delivery to the country. Japanese, South Korean, and other Southeast Asian companies located in Vietnam also joined in these efforts. The purported reason was that supply chains had been disrupted by covid and exporters feared they would not have products on the shelves for the coming holiday season. We argue that focusing on supply chain disruptions obscures the fact that what is being transferred between developing countries and those in the core is not just television sets and tennis shoes but human labor power. It is a form of economic imperialism in which countries no longer conquer another nation to extract wealth but operate through international corporations unfettered by ties to any specific country. The Vietnamese government offers international corporations significant tax breaks and other benefits to set up shop in industrial zones. Their profit margins are high and come at the expense of workers, who must work overtime and enlist other family members in their labor force to survive. We conclude by identifying actions the Vietnamese government could take to alleviate the plight of factory workers.

Deep-Rooted Images: Situating (Extra) Institutional Appropriations of Deepfakes in the US and India

Kailyn Slater — 2022-11-01

The paper aims to map institutional and extra-institutional affordances and appropriations of deepfake images through an analytical framework that accounts for the socio-political contexts of the US and India. Our main argument involves the inevitable leakage of technologies outside institutions and its redressal through corporatized comebacks. Utilizing vernacular and global examples, we trace the perceived ownership and extended modalities of deepfake images and videos. While compositing (Manovich 2006) and habitual media (Chun 2016) predetermine our deep mediatized world (Hepp 2019), deepfakes, as a visual cultural technology newly popular within the political economy of media, offer a novel entry point into locating the neoliberal ethos of both socio-political contexts and their respective apparatuses and valences of control. Thus, the paper articulates the coordinates of deepfake affordances to situate the technological power and political rhetoric that governs our international media situation across differing but interrelated socio-political contexts.

Introduction to Special Section: Academic Automation, Machine Un/Learning and Artificial Non/Intelligences

Jeremy Hunsinger — 2022-11-01

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Fast "Truths" and Slow Knowledge; Oracular Answers and Wikipedia's Epistemology

Zachary McDowell — 2022-11-01

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Learning Management Systems as Anti-Convivial Tools

Edward Maclin — 2022-11-01

The last two decades have seen an increase in the number of online university classes operating under any of several commercial Learning Management Systems (LMS). Online classes expanded dramatically in the US during 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students, faculty, and administrators frequently assume that LMSs are epistemologically neutral. These LMSs are designed to do exactly what they say on the tin: they are systems for managing learning. At the same time, they function based on implicit understandings of "learning," "management," and "systems" that privilege some knowledges, interactions, and discourses while de-emphasizing others. In this paper I argue that the LMS as a tool is notâ€”in the terms of Ivan Illichâ€”convivial. Rather, LMSs as designed enforce a technocratic perspective based on efficiency and replicability, making them actively anti-convivial. At the same time, problems with LMS-hosted classes are defined in technological terms, with additional improved software being seen as the main solution. I argue that employing a critical participatory pedagogy can begin to address these concerns.

Modularity, Labor, and Ideology in Edtech Platforms

Mario Khreiche — 2022-11-01

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Margaret Fuller: Feminist Theory Years Ahead of Its Time

Charles Lemert — 2022-11-01

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