Attentive Notes: Urban Design, Democracy Preservation, Retail Issues

[dewline]

1. Allegra Kirkland for Alternet: 5 Ways We Design Our Cities to Make Them Inhospitable to Human Life (Photos)
Hostile architecture prevents society’s unwanted from inhabiting public spaces.

2. 'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia

Google, Twitter and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks alarmed by a race for human attention

3. Retail, the Comic Strip by Norm Feuti - Issues of the Retail Trade

Comments

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you for the links.

Having cleaned up human elimination fluid and solids from a front stoop, to prepare for the day of work, I feel that a periodic water shower is kinder than I would have felt like being. On the other hand, more people are homeless or couch surfing because of the process in the cartoon, and cities are bigger, so getting out of the "retail district" is almost impossible.

The issue of social media dystopia is so tricky. I keep swearing to give up Facebook because I come away depressed - but it is now the way my family keeps in touch. No one writes letters - not even Christmas card gestetner bombs anymore, nor do we phone much. It is also the perfectly distanced way of keeping in touch, since it is smiley without actual time together. But, by gum, it's a life-eater alright.