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Collective Intelligence: Science on Trial, Berlusconi sentenced. Dispatch from Italy, by Jasmina Tesanovic

Jasmina Tesanovic — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:24:43 +0000

The Italian scientific community was stunned when Italian scientists, seismologists, were recently sentenced to years of prison for manslaughter, for failing to predict the lethal earthquake in Aquila in 2009. Other scientists have resigned to their jobs in protest, and even some relatives of the victims condemned the sentence as ridiculous.

The world press was reporting on the dark ages of inquisition in Italian courts and labs. But then, journalistic investigations discovered political scandals that implied a plot to downplay earthquake dangers in Aquila, involving Berlusconi and his cabinet. Silvio Berlusconi can't control earthquakes any more than seismologists can, but he's always been keen on controlling media.

It came as a huge relief to many Italians when, on Friday, a brave court of Milan managed to sentence Berlusconi for his tax frauds. He is condemned to 4 years of prison, but of course he will appeal, stall, and agitate demogogically. Nobody is expecting this potentate to serve time in an Italian prison. It is still a significant moral victory for the brave judges, fighting for years on end to legally prove what was already obvious to everybody.

Of course Berlusconi was enraged and immediately threatened to take over the Italian government and, if necessary, topple the European Union in his ageless feud with the Italian courts. His re-ignited ambitions -- he only feels safe at the top of the Italian state, and often not even there -- caused justified fear among the citizens. Italians are unhappy with Monti governmental solutions, an Austerity imposed by the Central European bank and the EU from Brussels. The Austerity is miserable, but it got there due the wild immoral corruption of Berlusconi, his party members and the court harems.

In Rome an anti-Monti demo blocked the downtown of the city with the usual leftist protests, so dear to the Italian alert activists. But in the outskirts of Rome, in Garbatella, a wise and sharp conference of small enterprises and craftsmen was held. Here political matters were handled in a different way; no more laments and protests, but a search for concrete solutions for getting Italy out of a dead end.

The CNA NeXT 2012 Motori festival was held in a rebuilt theater in Garbatella, the working class neighborhood once dominated by the vanished Italian auto business. Digital and other young Italian craftsmen, self employed artists/businessmen are facing a harsh reality of shocking number of small businesses bankrupting next year. Made in Italy crafts, the nation's most famous and prestigious products from food to clothes, are collapsing in the general economic crisis. There's no sign of plausible political and social solutions, just the black past of Berlusconi laissez faire right winged corruption, or the present European asphyxiating austerity.

The Italians have won the battle on national brands in the EU regulations: they can keep their much-prized "Made in Italy" branding, if any craftsmen financially survive to actually make things in Italy. It's been hard to forfeit control of local affairs to the distant European Union; when it came to deposing Berlusconi the Europeans were lifesavers, but Brussels isn't sentimental about local arts and crafts.

Garbatella has a certain working-class blue-collar romantic air, the part of town was portrayed by artists like Pasolini, the poet killed in 1975 and Nanni Moretti the prestigious Italian contemporary filmmaker. So "Motori" was a conference for "Collective Intelligence," where Italians, who might have once been in labor unions, scratched their heads and wondered if they could organize digitally on new platforms for design, creation, production and export. It may seem farfetched to look for rescue from the Internet and open-source, rather than from Rome, Brussels or panicky business investors. But what else is on the horizon for people who want to get real work done? Just anti-science superstition, financial corruption, and blatant fear of the future.

Besides the young boisterous voices of Italy's lost generation, who are seeking inventive ways to avert the disasters brought on by their nation's elderly "Caste", two Italian celebrities were also present. They were the Oscar winning Italian conductor Piovani and the famous national soccer coach Zeman, both accompanied by Roman paparazzi. How do they manage the "collectivity" of an successful Italian orchestra and a successful Italian soccer team? Did these star managers have any useful hints?

Piovani, the musical director, resplendent in a silk suit and burgundy socks, was entirely in favor of collective work imposing discipline, and, as he put it, the beauty of following the rules. Zeman, the leather-clad soccer coach, was in favor of individual talent -- the stars have to hone their gifts to pull the team to victory. So approaches differed, but everyone involved mourned the painfully obvious cultural and moral decline of such a beautiful and creative country.

It's hard to believe in national salvation by "collective intelligence." On the other hand, it's exhilarating to see proud Italians rallying against obvious stupidity.

Photos: Jasmina Tesanovic

This Friday, procrastinate with history!

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:14:02 +0000

Perhaps you will enjoy this in-depth analysis of the history of Roman charioteers, their sport, and their role in ancient Roman society. I haven't had a chance to read through this whole thing yet (because, you know, I have to work) but what I have read is fascinating. Be sure to check out the Appendix, which has a translation of a Roman account of a chariot race — so, basically, ancient ESPN play-by-play. (Via Dr. Hypercube)

Centurions battle cops at Colosseum

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:35:28 +0000

Phillip Pullella writes: "Roman centurions, complete with red skirts, tunics, armor, swords and feathered helmets, fought in front of the Colosseum. But this time it was with a modern enemy - Rome's city police. The police arrived at the ancient amphitheatre to enforce an eviction notice for the men, who ask for money to have their picture taken by tourists." [Photo: Tony Gentile / Reuters]

Rome Burns

Jasmina Tesanovic — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:13:04 +0000

Photo: La Repubblica, Italy

That is the graffiti in one of the destroyed streets in this Saturday's "indignati" demonstration. It ended in violence against the police, city security, and last but not least the pacifist organizers of the manifestation, in tune with the world wide movements OCCUPY.

The graffiti sounds like some epic motto of ancient Rome when power struggles burned palaces, libraries, and streets.

Roman life may not be too different after all, except that 2000 years later, we somehow believe that those conflicts should be resolved without arson. Maybe we are wrong. Maybe the fact that people are organized using web networks does not free them from timeless forms of treachery and palace intrigue, or the manipulation and destruction of good political intent.

Anyway, after the mayhem, the search was on for the hooded arsonists, organized through the Internet and through private video shots by participants.

Italy remembers very well the violent "Years of Lead" (late 60's to early 80's), when red and black terrorists planted bombs in public places, blasting innocent citizens in the name of their distorted concept of supreme justice. For years they rampaged beyond the reach of police, courts and other institutions.

Even today, after many years, some cases of public terrorism have not been resolved. Books have been written by important authors to explain the supposedly important difference between a red and a black bomb detonated in public. The Nobel prize authors Dario Fo wrote a play where he showed how easily the police could frame anarchists for terrorism, killing them by legal means. There was a famous question about crime: a chi giova, who profits from it?

Today decades political violence is less sophisticated and ideological. Rome on fire Oct 16 2011 could have been Belgrade Feb 18 2008, when nationalist hooligans, upset about Kosovo, burned foreign embassies.

This is how Italian press reported:

"Black bloc, the day after.

Rome woke up after the nightmare of violence. Devastated, injured, the city counts the wounds. In the streets cars are burned, roads left without precious sanpietrini stones used as bullets, the facades of banks hotels and shops destroyed, black from smoke: at least one million of euros is the damage.

135 injured people, luckily no dead. 500 violent intruders destroyed a protest of 300 000 pacific protesters: the battle lasted for 5 hours in Rome downtown: a boy has lost one eye, one men has lost two fingers and a policeman suffered a heart attack.

International day of anger, Roman version"

"You can recognize them immediately by they clothes: pants, hoodies, helmets, masks, backpacks. All in black. Sometimes they even hold a banner in front of them: we are not asking for the future we are taking the present. They individuate the target, make a cross, take off they backpack , take out their hammers and other tools and hit. They started with the cars…"

Eugenio Scalfari , in La Reppublica editorial commented:

And who are the indignitati? They are neither right or left winged., in the traditional sense of those words. They are however not conservative, they have concrete objectives: they want public goods for everybody, they have no faith in private property including the state administrated property by political and power elites.People should possess and rule the goods they have where they live as water food forests, communication networks, houses, factories hospitals. And banks should stop to exist except for elementary transactions based on use and exchange value."

It' s a sad end of an attempt in Rome of the globalized protest starting from Madrid through Occupy Wall street in NY and other 80 cities which managed a peaceful protest.

It all happened while the usual protestors where on the streets; in somewhat a bigger number: plus a feminist , an angry teacher, a perky granny, a guy who lost his job hand in hand with an extracomunitario and finally a indignado youngster. Then black bloc stormed in and all hell broke loose: the spectre of bloody Genova riots between the protestors and the police ten years ago, anni di piombo of public terrorism and police mafia 40 years ago and Rome in flames 2000 ago.

A chi giova, who profits from all this? Premiere Berlusconi has been confirmed in power again after months of public sex and corruption scandals as if nothing happened. As if indignity did not exist or protest. The Italians seem not to need a foreign enemy: they bring it all alone on themselves.

La Repubblica: "Outraged, burned the flags of Italy and the European Union"; "The broken windows"

Skeletal whole-hand bracelet

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:49:01 +0000

Delfina Delettrez, a designer in Rome, made this beautiful, polished skeletal bracelet (though I couldn't locate it at her site, which autoplays music) (be warned).

Delfina Delettrez

UNC team builds 3D model of Rome using Flickr photos on a single PC in one day

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:16:17 +0000

A UNC team has written an engine that scours Flickr for photos of a city, figures out which ones are images of the same place, analyzes them, and uses the results to build amazingly detailed 3D models -- all in less than a day, using a single PC.

Flickr Hack Makes 3D Model of Any City in a Day (Thanks, MooseHP, via Submitterator)

Hurray for copying 1: Myron's Discus-Thrower

Andrea James — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:35:17 +0000

The current amount of importance placed on "originality" is a fairly recent phenomenon which I will discuss at some point. Back in the day, by which I mean Roman antiquity, imitation was indeed the sincerest form of flattery. Thank goodness, too. Because the Romans admired the Greek aesthetic, talented artists spent a great deal of time creating hand-made replicas of notable Greek art, particularly sculpture. In some cases, the originals are now lost to time, and the only reason we know what they look like is because of the talented copyists of old.

Perhaps the best-known example is the Diskobolos by Myron. The bronze original was remarkable enough to be discussed by a number of ancient playwrights and historians who saw it first-hand, but what a shame it would be if their descriptions were all we had to go by.

Image: scaled bronze replica of Myron's Discobolos photographed by MatthiasKabel (via Wikimedia Commons)