Stupid Anthropology

Episode 23: The Internet’s Crypto-Grift

The group wraps up our journey through the internet with a long, long discussion about the gold standard, grifts, crypto, and AI. Shark and Rachel align themselves with the Machines, while Aaron yells at clouds.
Music by Daniel Griggs
Reading list:
On Mt. Gox: https://www.wired.com/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/
“Could gold be the next Libor scandal?”
What Drives Gold Prices?, Federal Reserve
The Bank War, history.com
Is Gold an Inflation Hedge?, Forbes
Wizard of Oz and the Gold Standard, Marianne Hayes
Ron Paul and Steve Forbes Jack Each Other Off About Gold
A year on, El Salvador's bitcoin experiment is stumbling
The New York Couple Behind El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment
The Electricity Costs of Bitcoin, CNET
Proof of Stake, Proof of Work
No, Bitcoin isn't pumping because it's a "safe haven" from banks
Dunning-Kruger Effect
Dunning-Kruger Isn't Real, Psychology Today
A Crypto Game Promised to Lift Filipinos Out of Poverty. Here's What Happened Instead, Time
Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account, Yahoo News
The Enshittification of TikTok
 

Episode 22: The Internet - Part 2: Web 2.0

Aaron brings Robert and Rachel through the horrors of venture capital, Meta's quarterly reports, and the enshittification of the web.
Music by Daniel Griggs.
READ THIS STUFF:
A funny Tweet about how shitty the Internet is.
How Venture Capital Works, Harvard Business Review
How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions, Harvard Business Review
Competition is for Losers, Peter Thiel in the Wall Street Journal
Facebook's culpability in genocide
NBC News
Council on Foreign Relations
The Guardian
Meta's financial report
The Supreme Court Could Destroy the Internet Next Week, Legal Eagle
How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends (or Family, Customers, or Communities), Cory Doctorow and the EFF
TikTok's enshittification, Cory Doctorow
Content Moderation is Infosec, Cory Doctorow
A series of studies on the ease with which tech companies spread misinformation
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740703/twitter-algorithm-right-wing-amplification-study
https://www.businessinsider.com/transphobia-ted-kaczynski-tiktok-algorithm-right-wing-self-radicalization-2021-11?op=1
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/26/facebook-conservatives-2020-421146
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504218766547
https://www.brookings.edu/research/echo-chambers-rabbit-holes-and-ideological-bias-how-youtube-recommends-content-to-real-users/
https://www.wired.com/story/right-wing-fake-news-more-engagement-facebook/
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/facebook-twitter-don-t-censor-conservatives-they-hire-promote-them-ncna1245308
https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/10/more-internal-documents-show-how-facebooks-algorithm-prioritized-anger-and-posts-that-triggered-it/ 
The Internet's video focus is based on a lie, Slate
Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things, Catherynne M. Valente
Social Media and Algorithms, PBS Nova

Episode 21: How Cyberlibertarians Laid The Groundwork to Ruin the Internet

Aaron leads Robert and Rachel through the early days of the Internet. The gang talks about the worst people imaginable: Corporate stooges and Grateful Dead lyricists.
Music by Daniel Griggs
Sources:
Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software, Stallman: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
Cyberlibertarians’ Digital Deletion of the Left: https://jacobin.com/2013/12/cyberlibertarians-digital-deletion-of-the-left
Making common sense of cyberlibertarian ideology: The journalistic consecration of John Perry Barlow: https://jstor.org/stable/community.32839336
Cyberlibertarian myths and the prospects for community: https://doi.org/10.1145/270858.270864
Cyber Libertarianism - The Case for Real Internet Freedom: https://techliberation.com/2009/08/12/cyber-libertarianism-the-case-for-real-internet-freedom/
Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

Episode 20: Drag

Rachel takes Aaron and Robert through the history of drag, the unmitigated good of drag brunches and drag story hour, and how the right is trying to ruin a whole lot of good peoples' lives. This is, ostensibly, a palette cleanser episode but, well, Florida and the South in general are bummers.
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 19: First Person Shooters

Robert and Aaron reminisce about their lives spent with their eyes glued to monitors while Rachel looks on in horror. By which I mean, Robert talks about how the first-person shooter genre opens people up to be anesthetized to the horrors of the world, BUT ALSO how the first-person shooter genre can be artful and allow people to explore those horrors in an artful way a la - not surprisingly - Wolfenstein: The New Order. Don't worry, we talk about the Nazis.
 
Music by Daniel Griggs.

Episode 18: Country Music, Part 2

The gang continues their traipse through the history of country music, this time focusing on Richard Nixon and how 9/11 broke everyone's brains. There are far too many digressions to count in this one, so I'm not even going to try.
 
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 17: Country Music, Part 1

Robert takes Aaron on a journey through the history of the politics of country music, then shatters Aaron's psyche by reminding him about Brooks & Dunn.
 
Music by Daniel Griggs

Episode 16: Propaganda, But Fun!

Aaron takes Robert and Rachel on an adventure through the glories of the Ip Man quadrilogy and RRR. Are these movies mere propaganda? Are they are? Or are they REALLY FUN ACTION MOVIES, YOU GUYS! (Question mark.)
Music by Daniel Griggs.

Episode 15: Santos and Adams

Robert takes Aaron and Rachel on a journey between IRL George Costanza, George Santos, and best-poster-who-isn't-dril, Nick Adams. Digressions include:
Highlights from Fallout: New Vegas
Aaron takes a stand against Tibetan Buddhism
Mayor Pete!
The gang's thoughts on Taylor Swift
Music by Daniel Griggs.

Episode 14: Warhammer 40K’s Alt Right and Nazi Problem

Join the gang on a journey into the grim, dark future in which there is only war. Digressions in this one mainly include a not-at-all successful attempt to get Rachel up to speed on the lore of Warhammer 40K, D&D, and Warhammer: Fantasy Battles.
 
Reading list:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160518214822/http://cardboardsandwich.com/features/games-workshop-the-humble-origins-of-a-global-gaming-empire/
https://web.archive.org/web/20160518214819/http://cardboardsandwich.com/features/blood-dice-and-darkness-how-warhammer-defined-gaming-for-a-generation/
Bell of Lost Souls: Warhammer 40K Op-Ed: Lets Talk About The Community’s Nazi Player Problemhttps://www.belloflostsouls.net/2021/11/warhammer-40k-op-ed-lets-talk-about-the-communitys-nazi-player-problem.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ri-x0RCd8Yk&feature=emb_title
 
Vice: The Wahammer 40K Community is Trying to Weed Out its Far Right Faction: https://www.vice.com/en/article/9358ke/the-warhammer-40k-community-is-trying-to-weed-out-its-far-right-faction
Harvard Kennedy School: Research note: The spread of political misinformation on online subcultural platforms https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/research-note-the-spread-of-political-misinformation-on-online-subcultural-platforms/
B2O: Containment Breach: 4chan’s /pol/ and the Failed Logic of “Safe Spaces” for Far-Right Ideology https://www.boundary2.org/2019/07/dennis-erasmus-containment-breach-4chans-pol-and-the-failed-logic-of-safe-spaces-for-far-right-ideology/
The Untold Truth Of Games Workshop: https://www.looper.com/448990/the-untold-truth-of-games-workshop/
Chainmail’s fantasy supplement:  Shannon Appelcline (2014). Designers & Dragons: The '70s. Silver Spring, Maryland: Evil Hat Productions, LLC