http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FihYsCy9x8A&NR=1
part 3 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected]; [email protected]; > [email protected] > Subject: RE: [Futurework] Re: timesizing not downsizing > Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2010 13:56:26 -0400 > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJDV9z8XvEo > > Here is part 2. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Arthur Cordell [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:49 PM > To: '[email protected]'; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, > EDUCATION' > Subject: RE: [Futurework] Re: timesizing not downsizing > > Every once in a while I like to go back and listen to Howl. > > Here is Allen Ginsberg Reading Howl (Part 1) > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVGoY9gom50 > > Your posting put me in the mood. > > Arthur > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer > Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:14 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Futurework] Re: timesizing not downsizing > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > YOW! Sorry about that. It *is* possible to screw up with Linux. Hit > a bunch of the wrong keys and send a half-finished post along with > some gibberish. Sigh. Aren't computers wonderful? :-/ > I think I'm doing it right this time.... > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Arthur> Just one correction. Tim Berners-Lee is credited with > Arthur> inventing the World Wide Web. He deserves to be recognized as > Arthur> some sort great humanas he did this and seemed to have sought > Arthur> no monetary outcome such as trying to patent or copyright > Arthur> anything. > > Keith> True enough. However, it's to be wondered whether he had any > Keith> idea of just how his innovation would be developed. Initially > Keith> it was just a useful mode of communication for scientific > Keith> results. > > The concept of hypertext/hypermedia has been around for nearly 50 > years. Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu envisioned something greater, in a > sense, that the WWWeb as we now know it. Nor were such notions limited > to the arcana of the academic hothouse; both the depths and the > intrinsic ambiguities of such computer systems appear in John Barth's > _Giles Goat-Boy_. (1966) > > Tim Berniers-Lee designed a protocol piggy-backing on the existing > internet, that implemented a practical and simple subset of what > Nelson, inter alia, had been talking about for years. TB-L's design > was so simple that any modestly computer-literate person could learn > and start employing it with a few evenings of study and practice. > > But the deign was *too* simple. What the Tim's original protocol > didn't envision was the rabid determination of advertisers and > marketing droids to exploit the web in the same way as they had > learned and loved to exploit print media and TV. Missing from Tim's > initial design were control of detailed page layout and details of > audio/video streaming. Support for unlimited interactive sessions > were intentionally omitted from HTTP in order to reduce load on > 90s-era servers and bandwidth. > > Which brings me to some thoughts about which I hadn't yet posted here: > > The rabid weasels of marketing have been furioso drivers in adding > "cascading style sheets" (detailed page layout control) and the > embedding of video (aka TV :-) and client-side scripting to the basic > HTTP/HTML protocols. The result is that many web sites -- especially > corporate sites -- are becoming indistinguishable from television and > the worst of print media, notwithstanding that they're interactive. > > > > http://www.truth-out.org/the-disappearing-intellectual-age-economic-darwinis > m61287 > > > > The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism > --------------------------------------------------------------- > Monday 12 July 2010 > by: Henry A. Giroux > > > We live at a time that might be appropriately called the age of > the disappearing intellectual, a disappearance that marks with > disgrace a particularly dangerous period in American > history. While there are plenty of talking heads spewing lies, > insults and nonsense in the various media, it would be wrong to > suggest that these right-wing populist are intellectuals. They > are neither knowledgeable nor self-reflective, but largely > ideological hacks catering to the worst impulses in American > society. > > [snip] > > Moreover, as the university becomes more corporatized, > intellectual and critical thought is transformed into a commodity > to be sold to the highest bidder. I am not suggesting that so > called professed intellectuals are not influencing policy, > appearing in the media or teaching in the universities, but that > these are not critical intellectuals. On the contrary, they are > accommodating ideologues, content to bask in the politics of > conformity and the rewards of official power. Underlying this > drift toward the disappearing critical intellectual and the > erasure of substantive critique is a regime of economic Darwinism > in which a culture of ignorance serves to both depoliticize the > larger public while simultaneously producing individual and > collective subjects necessary and willing to participate in their > own oppression. The cheerful robot is not simply an opprobrium for > ignorance, it is a metaphor for the systemic construction in > American society of a new mode of depoliticized and thoughtless > form of agency. > > [snip] > > It's been 60 years now, since commercial television became ubiquitous, > 40 or more years since the average [1] TV-watching time has been hovering > somewhere between 20 and 30 hours a week. That's the equivalent of a > light-to-medium university course load. And every bit of it carries > the imprimatur of large institutions who are diligently trying to > control the viewer's behavior, typically to get the viewer to buy > something; at least to accept that "buying something" is the default > core subject of public discourse. > > So: the majority of present adults in the US and Canada have been > absorbing this medium, accepting as givens its format, style, purposes > and effects, all of their lives. And those styles, purposes and > effects are intrinsically counter-intellectual, counter-reflective, > anti-analytical. > > The consequence of that half-century of commercial media, a life-long > exposure to training in passive non-thinking more highly engineered > than almost any school or university program, is a populace who will > elect morons, morons who will run for office and obedient sheep who > will accept the notion that huge, wealthy, hierarchical convocations > of psychopaths, narcissists and borderline personalities can be > trusted to do pretty much anything they want and that we should yearn > to serve them for wages and prestige. > > Back to the original topic: TB-L envisioned the web as more than what > was implemented in the very first versions of an HTTP server and an > HTML browser but I doubt that he envisioned it as a medium engineered > to take over the role of commercial television in keeping the sheep > docile. It is just our good fortune that we've been able to use it > for 15 or so years while the epistemological restructurers, the social > engineers, the political brainwashers and the PR & advertising > industries were getting their collective digital act together. > > > - Mike > > > [1] Since a large number of professionals and influential white-collar > people are *way* too busy, as adults at least, working 90-hour > weeks, to watch much TV at all, the average for everybody else is > significantly higher than the figures usually cited. > > > -- > Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. > /V\ > [email protected] /( )\ > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework >
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