REDlistserve Digest for radical_ecological_democracy@googlegroups.com - 1 topic:: AI's Social Implications
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Charles Fuller III
Aug 10, 2026, 9:08:52 PMAug 10
to radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com, Digest recipients
Just 1 or 3 comments from my locale.
Look @ the implication long term. Ethics, ppl’s choice in the matter, the idea that no 1 (esp local) has input on something effecting them, broader social impact - economic/financial, governance, familiar, neighborhood, ecological, energy use. To me it is a choice (another impact) like fossil fuels and the automobile. Diversity in social choices has been shown to create better outcomes long term...
The experts dont know where this is going, cept (the ruination) bigger, better, faster ( sound familiar as corporate double speak/marketing?) It is as if (some of those same ppl say) “we are turning over out lives to an alien who’s come here to run things.” The implications of Ai have effects far beyond use of chatGPT, search engines. A more corporate/multi-nationals world. Is that wise? Nukes were pretty bad but this is in every connected home, work place and community - far from the nuclear waste drift zone...
Thanks for your read. Ask your neighbors and those in representative governance. Let all know your opinion at this crutIal choice point before things go forward as headed.
- -Chad
On Aug 10, 2026, at 7:36 PM, radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com wrote:
Vasishth, Ashwani <vasi...@ramapo.edu>: Aug 10 02:52PM -0400
This—for me—is how we need to think about AI. If our objective is to learn
to cohabit the ecosphere with our creations.
Battles are local and necessary. But world changing is collaborative and
multiperspectival.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth (he/him)
Professor of Sustainability (Retired)
vasi...@ramapo.edu
(323) 206-1858 (cell)
http://linkedin.com/in/vasishth
Founding Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City (SJC)
sustainablejc.org
Board of Trustees
NJ Highlands Coalition (NJHC)
njhighlandscoalition.org
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Vasishth, Ashwani <vasi...@ramapo.edu>
Date: Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 2:29 PM
Subject: Fwd: Talking AI: New Toolkit for Communicating AI's Social
Implications
To: Sanjay Pradhan <sprad...@gmail.com>
These people have a hand in shaping my worldview.
I know you have your hands full, but Frameworks is worth knowing about, I’d
argue.
Does not need ongoing attention, but alters how e can see.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth (he/him)
Professor of Sustainability (Retired)
vasi...@ramapo.edu
(323) 206-1858 (cell)
http://linkedin.com/in/vasishth
Founding Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City (SJC)
sustainablejc.org
Board of Trustees
NJ Highlands Coalition (NJHC)
njhighlandscoalition.org
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: FrameWorks Institute <engag...@frameworksinstitute.org>
Date: Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 11:35 AM
Subject: Talking AI: New Toolkit for Communicating AI's Social Implications
To: <vasi...@ramapo.edu>
Help people understand how AI works in society, who shapes it, who
benefits, and what it takes to ensure it serves the public interest.
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*FRAMEWORKS INSTITUTE*
<https://us.list-manage.com/3YwDBbG5CsK?e=04d0440f82&c2id=2ac153e9fb42fdacf56abd0899a65b26>
Communicating AI’s Social Implications
August 2026
[image: collage of AI related images]
<https://us.list-manage.com/4vk1YXl50ok?e=04d0440f82&c2id=2ac153e9fb42fdacf56abd0899a65b26>
Artificial intelligence is reshaping decisions about health care,
education, housing, employment, child welfare, and more. Yet public
conversations about AI are often dominated by two unproductive storylines:
either AI represents inevitable progress that will make life easier, or an
autonomous force that threatens humanity, jobs, and social life.
*Both of these narratives obscure what matters most when it comes to
solutions: AI is a human-made system embedded in existing power structures.*
Today we’re sharing *Communicating the Social Implications of AI: A Framing
Toolkit*
<https://us.list-manage.com/vxv9JBXlAt5?e=04d0440f82&c2id=2ac153e9fb42fdacf56abd0899a65b26>.
The toolkit translates research-based framing insights into practical
guidance you can use in messaging, campaigns, media, policy advocacy, and
movement communications. This framing helps people:
-
Recognize harm as systemic rather than accidental
-
See regulation as necessary and legitimate
-
Imagine how AI could be designed and governed for public benefit
SHOW ME THE TOOLKIT
<https://us.list-manage.com/o_umMMMYCPn?e=04d0440f82&c2id=2ac153e9fb42fdacf56abd0899a65b26>
It includes guidance, practical examples, and “dos” and “don’ts” to help
you build shared understanding across your coalition or movement; diagnose
messaging challenges; develop narratives, talking points, and examples; and
align communications about AI across issues. *The goal is to help people
understand how AI works in society, who shapes it, who benefits, and what
it takes to ensure it serves the public interest.*
As conversations about AI continue to evolve, we hope this resource helps
you steer attention toward human agency, social systems, and justice.
<https://us.list-manage.com/P3tpjzNDYQ7?e=04d0440f82&c2id=2ac153e9fb42fdacf56abd0899a65b26>
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Vasishth, Ashwani <vasi...@ramapo.edu>: Aug 10 07:21AM -0400
https://www.ipsnews.net/2026/08/the-year-of-pastoralists-must-be-more-than-symbolic/
--
Ashwani
Vasishth (he/him)
Professor of Sustainability (Retired)
vasi...@ramapo.edu
(323) 206-1858 (cell)
http://linkedin.com/in/vasishth
Founding Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City (SJC)
sustainablejc.org
Board of Trustees
NJ Highlands Coalition (NJHC)
njhighlandscoalition.org
Ariel Salleh
Aug 11, 2026, 6:48:56 AMAug 11
to Charles Fuller III, Radcal Democracy, South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group
You make sound points, Charles.
And maybe as the bottom line, we need to consider the massive climate and water impacts of AI and digitalised lifestyles.
A dying ecosystem will mean dying communities.
Ariel
On 10 Aug 2026, at 10:08 pm, 'Charles Fuller III' via Radical Ecological Democracy <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Just 1 or 3 comments from my locale.
Look @ the implication long term. Ethics, ppl’s choice in the matter, the idea that no 1 (esp local) has input on something effecting them, broader social impact - economic/financial, governance, familiar, neighborhood, ecological, energy use. To me it is a choice (another impact) like fossil fuels and the automobile. Diversity in social choices has been shown to create better outcomes long term...
The experts dont know where this is going, cept (the ruination) bigger, better, faster ( sound familiar as corporate double speak/marketing?) It is as if (some of those same ppl say) “we are turning over out lives to an alien who’s come here to run things.” The implications of Ai have effects far beyond use of chatGPT, search engines. A more corporate/multi-nationals world. Is that wise? Nukes were pretty bad but this is in every connected home, work place and community - far from the nuclear waste drift zone...
Thanks for your read. Ask your neighbors and those in representative governance. Let all know your opinion at this crutIal choice point before things go forward as headed.
- -Chad
> On Aug 10, 2026, at 7:36 PM, radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com wrote:
>
>
> radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com
To reply to the author of this message, select "reply"; to reply to the whole list, select "reply to all".
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Vasishth, Ashwani
Aug 11, 2026, 10:41:01 AMAug 11
to Ariel Salleh, Charles Fuller III, Radcal Democracy, South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group
Charles, Ariel, I fear we see very different slices of the same reality.
I won’t belabor the point. Fossil fuels, electricity, automobiles, planes, trucks, and AI are all here. The good old days are in the past.
It does not matter—to those of us who want to change the current adverse impacts of how AI is being implemented—that we’d like to stop the madness.
The question has changed. Should we, should we not have AI is no longer a savvy debate.
How do we stop the rush to unchecked data center proliferation? It’s a societal governance issue now. How do we make it more favorable and more equitable for more.
I’m sitting in a hospital fighting pneumonia, I dread to think of doing this 50 years back.
I hate AI Data Centers—the ways they are being built. The wanton greed of singleminded wealth accumulation. These must be resisted.
But let’s pick our targets wisely. Flailing in blind opposition does not get us very far.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth (he/him)
Professor of Sustainability (Retired)
vasi...@ramapo.edu
(323) 206-1858 (cell)
http://linkedin.com/in/vasishth
Founding Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City (SJC)
sustainablejc.org
Board of Trustees
NJ Highlands Coalition (NJHC)
njhighlandscoalition.org
Ashwani
Vasishth (he/him)
Professor of Sustainability (Retired)
vasi...@ramapo.edu
(323) 206-1858 (cell)
http://linkedin.com/in/vasishth
Founding Advisor, Sustainable Jersey City (SJC)
sustainablejc.org
Board of Trustees
NJ Highlands Coalition (NJHC)
njhighlandscoalition.org
To view this discussion, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/radical_ecological_democracy/35803C0A-4826-45F3-AAC4-FD18568E24F4%40gmail.com.
Uygar Ozesmi
Aug 11, 2026, 11:47:33 AMAug 11
to Vasishth, Ashwani, Ariel Salleh, Charles Fuller III, Radcal Democracy, South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group, Erdem Cansızoğlu
Dear Ashwani et al,
In relation to this discussion, I am organising a workshop on "AI in the Next Economies: From Extraction to Sympoiesis” with Erdem Cansızoğlu
As the current hegemonic economic system is collapsing, narratives, practices, and prefigurative organizations are emerging in a pluriverse of next economies around the world. Currently, even they are exploited by AI systems owned by a few transnational power foci. How can these next economies avoid extraction and create a sympoiesis. What are the roads and initiatives that will build together community-owned AI systems within all these next economies?
This workshop will co-create with participants a roadmap, possible initiatives, and futures for the next economies to build community-owned AI systems. The workshop will lay the groundwork to continue the discussion via the Next Economies Forum on 4-6 April 2027 in Cairo at Heliopolis University.
Please see https://platform.coop/events/solidarity-ai/
Any leads on initiatives are appreciated and if you are going to be there please let me know privately.
Best wishes,
Uygar
--
Dr. Uygar Özesmi
Board Chair - Prosumer Economy Society
Founder & Instigator - Good4Trust.org
Trustee - Armaş Foundation
Adj. Asst. Professor - CESD, Kadir Has University and Istanbul University
Uygar
--
Dr. Uygar Özesmi
Board Chair - Prosumer Economy Society
Founder & Instigator - Good4Trust.org
Trustee - Armaş Foundation
Adj. Asst. Professor - CESD, Kadir Has University and Istanbul University
'Vasishth, Ashwani' via Radical Ecological Democracy <radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com> şunları yazdı (11 Ağu 2026 17:40):
mp
Aug 12, 2026, 5:25:57 AMAug 12
to Ariel Salleh, Charles Fuller III, Radcal Democracy, South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group
Cave paintings were AI: the shaman emerged, who could conjure the
imagery, animate and make it speak, interpret it and facilitate the
group process through this new symbolic dimension.
The leader of the abstract was born.
Then came the alphabet and detailed property coding and debt registries
were born hand in hand with the managerial class, who organised the
architecture of the working class, all of whom were now subject to the
elite ruling class.
Then came the academic, "the shoeshiner of the elite".
Eventually the algorithm and learning machines.
Now the elite system is fully up and running.
IT/AI is the foundation of rule, order, central command and control.
Illich and Sanders argued that alphabetisation detached language from
the speaker: the word escaped the passing event of speech and acquired
an existence, authority and permanence of its own. '
Text can travel without the body and testify without any witness present
and, indeed, command without an actual commander in the field.
Sure, there are moments of beauty in the horror - novels for passing
time in one's own mind, poems for line of flight - but the need to seek
flight had to first be created before that beauty had meaningfulness.
Art in text as bandage.
LLM's and learning machine simply completes another turn of the screw.
Language is no longer merely detached from _the_ speaker but from _any_
speaker at all. The symbolic order generates its own speech.
The shaman once stood between the cave wall and the group. The scribe
stood between the record and the people. The administrator stood between
the ledger and the governed. The academic stood between authorised
knowledge and everyone else. The programmer stood between the machine
and its users.
Now the mediation disappears into the infrastructure.
The image speaks.
The ledger calculates.
The archive interprets.
The bureaucracy predicts.
The machine answers.
And because the command no longer appears to come from a ruler, it
begins to appear as reality itself, but that is in great part a matter
of degree, we were ruled by books in one hand and swords in the other
all along.
So, the medium is no longer merely the message. The medium, you could
say, has become the manager, too.
Alanis Morrisette was probably right:
"Burn the books. They've got too many names and psychoses...."
Conversely, the data centre resource use (including for this very
group/list!?!) might bring the whole shit house down and no one will no
longer care about texts and argumentative pontification: everyone will
prostrate before those who know how to sow, grow, save, store and share
seeds. Nothing else will matter.
There's hope...
Ashish Kothari
Aug 13, 2026, 6:35:27 AMAug 13
to radical_ecolog...@googlegroups.com
Some v. interesting points here. Once again, I invite anyone willing to
write an article or two on this ... the foundations, the nuances of
resistance to (or acceptance of), the struggles to resist/contain, and
other aspects of AI ... for the Radical Ecol. Democracy website.
ashish
Ashish Kothari
Apt 5 Shree Datta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana
Pune 411004, India
https://ashishkothari.in
write an article or two on this ... the foundations, the nuances of
resistance to (or acceptance of), the struggles to resist/contain, and
other aspects of AI ... for the Radical Ecol. Democracy website.
ashish
Ashish Kothari
Apt 5 Shree Datta Krupa
908 Deccan Gymkhana
Pune 411004, India
https://ashishkothari.in
Larry Lohmann
Aug 14, 2026, 4:59:58 AMAug 14
to Radical Eco. Democr. list (India)
Dear all,
Just for your interest re AI, attached is a draft chapter coming out
next year in a new collection ... not for reproduction, please!
Also:
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/ai-too-incoherent-gambit-reverse-trend-toward-exhaustion-capitalist-fixes.
Larry
Just for your interest re AI, attached is a draft chapter coming out
next year in a new collection ... not for reproduction, please!
Also:
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/ai-too-incoherent-gambit-reverse-trend-toward-exhaustion-capitalist-fixes.
Larry
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