OLDaily

Welcome to Online Learning Daily, your best source for news and commentary about learning technology, new media, and related topics.

Move fast and break democracy
Ben Werdmuller, Werd I/O, 2025/02/06

---

It is impossible for those of us in Canada to watch what is happening south of the border with indifference. So this issue of OLDaily is dedicated to the sweeping changes happening in the United States and our reaction - as Canadians, as democrats, as educators - to them. We'll get back to whatever counts as normal coverage of learning technology tomorrow. So today, we begin with this analysis from Ben Werdmuller analyzing the "move fast and break things" mantra that is now being applied to U.S. governance. "The next task," writes Werdmuller, "is to build an alternative, not in reaction to Trump, but in itself, based on upholding core values and improving everybody's quality of life... The status quo doesn't work. The American people have made that clear. So it's on us to invent something new. What does it mean to create a truly inclusive, peaceful, democratic society?" First - I suggest - you have to decide whether you really want that. Then you work together to build it.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

The Metacrisis, Our Fears and the Road to Authoritarianism
Chusana Prasertkul, The Soulful Systems, 2025/02/06

---

"If history is repeating itself, albeit with new actors and settings, then our role is to decide where we stand and how we respond," writes Chusana Prasertkul. "When people feel unsafe, they seek security — sometimes, even at the cost of freedom, reason, or morality." Our social media, as well as our traditional media, has stoked the fires of dissent, setting us against each other, with the intent of promoting panic at every possible threat. Why? Because it's good for business - it drives attention, which is good for advertisers and other propagandists. "We are witnessing this dynamic unfold on a global scale. Fear of economic collapse. Fear of war. Fear of pandemics." Grown men afraid that a teenager somewhere might be using the wrong washroom. How should we respond? Start with "small, everyday decisions, like, how we view other people, how we treat those who we see as different to us, how we treat those we disagree with, or how we engage with truth and complexity," and don't be afraid. Embrace them, as opportunities to grow and share.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

How Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada are stoking a new Canadian nationalism
Anna Triandafyllidou, The Conversation, 2025/02/06

---

Fifty years ago, as this article notes, "shared social values were the bedrock of successful Canada-U.S. relations." Today, however, "today, that assumption no longer holds." For educators and policy-makers alike, "Canadians must embrace an independent Canadian identity based on respect for democracy, pluralism, the rule of law and human rights.... U.S. authoritarianism is wholly unacceptable to Canada." This is a national consensus. "Canadian patriotism that is emerging today in the face of Trump's actions — and in the words of almost all Liberal, Conservative and NDP leaders — builds on solid ground... Canadians do not feel they need to choose among their multiple identities or to exclude others in order to revitalize their sense of identity and belonging. National unity is strengthened by internal diversity."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Google Lifts Self-Imposed Ban on Using AI for Weapons and Surveillance
Matt Novak, Gizmodo, 2025/02/06

---

Google started several decades with a notable "don't be evil" catchphrase. Those days are long gone, and if there were any doubt, it has been removed withe the latest "updates to our AI Principles" on AI.Google. The turning point - there for anyone to see - can when Google went public in 2004. At that point, they assumed a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders that overrules any concerns they may have had about ethics. This is to my mind a built-in structural defect in the constitution of corporations, setting them as active agents contrary to the social good any time there is money to be made undermining it. Russia's war against Ukrain may have been the inflection point here, but it's a development that was inevitable given how corporations are governed. So is - not surprisingly - their deeper and deeper influence over government.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

Partisan Politics and the Road to Plutocracy
Blair Fix, Economics from the Top Down, 2025/02/06

---

This is a comprehensive and well-diocumented look at the gradual slide into income inequaklity and plutocracy that has characterized U.S. politics over the years (a trend I have railed against from time to time in these pages). "this evidence illustrates how the trappings of democracy can be used to ensconce plutocracy. As the rich get richer, they use their time and resources to become information-sucking machines. Meanwhile, as the poor get poorer, they fall into a pit of political ignorance where they become easy victims of propaganda. In a sense, this asymmetry is why reactionary politics are so easy, and why progressive politics are so difficult. Reactionary politics push snake oil downhill. Progressive politics push knowledge and solidarity uphill." It's a long read, but necessary as the same trends are not unique to U.S. society.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders
Ars Technica, 2025/02/06

---

Enshittification, writes Cory Doctorow, is "my theory explaining how the Internet was colonized by platforms, why all those platforms are degrading so quickly and thoroughly, why it matters, and what we can do about it." In this article, "Ars staffers take aim at some of the web's worst predatory practices." The list includes smart TVs that are thinly disguised advertising spyware, Google's voice assistant that gets worse and worse (aside: the assistant on my phone no longer sets my alarm when I ask; instead, it recommends some clock apps I might be interested in), the Portable Document Format (PDF), paywalls around televised sports, unasked-for cruft  in Windows, and the way "people or companies rush to copy nearly anything that resembles a viral moment, whether it's a trope, an aesthetic, or a word that is subsequently beaten to death by overuse." It's not just the commercial aspect that Doctorow focuses on; these products are also designed to reduce our autonomy and agency. See also bit.ly adding itself to the list of offenders.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism
Janus Rose, 404 Media, 2025/02/06

---

I agree with this. "Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them," Janus Rose writes. "We don't need any more irony-poisoned hot takes or cathartic, irreverent snark. We need to collectively decide what kind of world we actually do want, and what we're willing to do to achieve it." What does that look like? It involves talking with each other, organizing, and building decentralized institutions and structures that are resistant to centralized control, and then defending them when they come under attack. It also means taking care of each other and protecting our most vulnerable and resisting the inevitable calls to scapegoat them. All this used to be the proper domain of education, but we've gotten away from that a bit.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post][Share]

We publish six to eight or so short posts every weekday linking to the best, most interesting and most important pieces of content in the field. Read more about what we cover. We also list papers and articles by Stephen Downes and his presentations from around the world.

There are many ways to read OLDaily; pick whatever works best for you:

• Read in your web browser on this web page, updated weekdays
• Receive a daily or weekly email newsletter by subscribing here
• Subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader
• Follow @OLDaily@mastodon.social on Mastodon or elsewhere in the fediverse
• Follow @OLDaily on Twitter
• Integrate the open API using the JSON feed