Sean, Thanks for the correction - I like the sound of "positivist" better.
Eric, I still feel tha pain from the days when, non-GIS, colleagues would acuse me of "spewing alphabet soup" whenever I opened my mouth; now people run screaming from words like "taxonomy" and "ontology" whenever they see my lips move. On a more serious note: I gues that is the key to success here - putting in sufficient effort to make sure the technology is applied in such a manner that the users are shielded from the jargon and it's efects on the un-innoculated. Perhaps this is what neoCartography is all about. Cheers AlanK _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf Sent: Wednesday, 2 July 2008 10:07 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory My favorite example to through back at the post modernists (or critical theorists) is Scipionus.com By combining a simple GeoWeb API, real differences were made in the lives of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina. And access to the technology was not a real problem. Access is thanks to Google generously making their API open and easy to use and to Bill Gates for funding through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation many computers used by the public in libraries. My advsior once complained to one of the human geographers in our department that critical theory seemed to be just a bunch of meaningless big words being thrown around: jargon. His response was "Doesn't GIS have it's own jargon?" The jargon of GIS is just as likely to seem meaningless to the people deep in the trenches of social warfare. It all depends on your persepective (or epistemology!). -Eric On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 5:58 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "I only do this because there are still so many problems that need this technology applied to them" I'd argue that makes you a positivist. If you were a post modernist you would have to talk about how using technology to solve these problem disenfranchises the proletariat and further reinforces the corporate hegemonic order because they control access to the technology ;-) If anything the discussion is an excuse to use big vocabulary words for no real apparent reason. FortiusOne Inc, 2200 Wilson Blvd. suite 307 Arlington, VA 22201 cell - 202-321-3914 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Keown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 7:48:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Critical Theory Sean, >p.s. if this is terribly droll and too off topic for folks happy to take it >off line I, for one, find this discussion interesting. Eric's comment: "I think it's too easy for a computer-based discussion to remain too technology-centric" hits the nail on the head. While not wanting to discount the "entertainment value" of the GeoWeb, nor the people who make a living from it, I only do this because there are still so many problems that need this technology applied to them... I never realised that made me a post-modernist. ;-) Cheers AlanK _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking -- -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=- Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818 PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
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