I also had a hard time with his nastiness, which struck me as vapid.
On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Lina Srivastava <[email protected]> wrote: > I'd argue Morozov isn't a journalist at all. He is a writer and researcher > who publishes rhetorical opinion. His voice is absolutely necessary, as you > all point out, for its being one of the few on the opposite side of a > prevailing pro-SV world view. I find myself in agreement with most of the > positions he takes, but pushed back by his nasty discussions about and > call-outs of individuals. It's hard to take, and undermines what he is > seeking to do, if that is communicating argument to the larger public and > advancing the public interest. His methods of community building and > creating spaces for discourse are nearly TMZ-like. (On another note, it's > also strange that he delves into areas of discourse of which he has no > practical knowledge of -- his takedown of Kickstarter "culture" as one > example -- but I guess this isn't that different from most people who make a > living out of critique and commentary. But really, "try it before you > critique it" would be a motto I'd like to see applied more often.) It would > be good to see his intellect and his voice be directed away from that. His > work is important to the field. > > My two cents. > > > On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Yosem Companys <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Evgeny's critique of Silicon Valley intellectual fads is indeed >> worthwhile. What's surprising is that he is one of the only journalists to >> make this critique, considering the large number of people who have said >> similar things before him, which makes Evgeny's voice even more important. >> What is new in Evgeny's work is his desire to communicate these arguments to >> the larger public and to advance the public interest. >> >> Sociologists and historians of science and technology -- along with the >> field known as science, technology and society studies -- have critiqued the >> Internet since at least the 1980's, with a larger critique about science and >> technology since at least the 1950's and 1960's. >> >> Meanwhile, most journalists from the 1980's until recently have seemed >> more interested in promulgating the claims of Silicon Valley, which had a >> financial interest in their promulgation, than in communicating the problems >> associated with the Internet, which social scholars spent so much time >> documenting among themselves. This is not an indictment of journalism. >> There were, among other reasons, institutional pressures during this period >> for journalists to use press-release templates. Moreover, finding out what >> academics do as a non-academic is a long, arduous process. >> >> For academics, the problem here, of course, is that their incentive is >> focused on publishing articles to get tenure, rather than engaging the >> public at large. This means that academics spend the bulk of their time >> talking to one another rather than to journalists or even fellow academics >> outside of their disciplines. >> >> In fact, interdisciplinary contact in academia remained so limited that >> legal scholars, political scientists, economists, computer scientists and >> engineers were mostly in the dark about the wonderful research that >> sociologists and historians of science and technology had done to dissect >> the taken-for-granted assumptions of science and technology. This is >> changing but slowly. >> >> Even when aware of such research, as in the case of many American >> economists, they may choose to ignore the arguments of sociologists or >> pretend they don't exist because they come from what they deem as the >> lower-status field of sociology. Meanwhile, American sociologists routinely >> engage the work of economists, so the relationship is asymmetric. (I say >> American economists because, interestingly, this problem doesn't seem to >> happen in Europe.) >> >> Journalists, on the other hand, are in the business of writing interesting >> news stories, which means that they will (often inadvertently) cherry pick >> academic evidence, mostly ignoring the nuances of the larger academic >> literature. >> >> We see this, for example, with the meme of "robots are taking your jobs." >> Most of the evidence in the social sciences shows that technological change >> was faster during the industrial revolution that it is today and that >> whether a particular technology replaces your job or not depends on the >> social conditions in which the technology was created and the social >> conditions to which the technology is introduced. Routine jobs are more >> replaceable than non-routine jobs, for instance. But technologies generally >> don't replace professional jobs, and they often create non-routine jobs as >> well. Yet you rarely hear journalists discuss any of these issues. >> Instead, you hear that the singu >> >> As a result, both academics and journalists seem to be ignoring their >> responsibility to advance the public interest in the Internet domain. For >> the sake of humanity, this should and must change, and this is one of the >> reasons why we at Stanford Liberationtech conduct interdisciplinary research >> and engage the world at large through our various activities, online and >> off. And it is also why we are supportive of the efforts of people like >> Evgeny Morozov and others in journalism who seek to improve public >> discourse. >> >> On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 9:34 AM, Lucas Gonze <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I find Morozov's critique of silicon valley intellectual fads >>> worthwhile. The thinking coming from famous bloggers and tech industry >>> conferences is for the most part hype for the sake of commerce. >>> Morozov's writing is to puncture that hype bubble. This is a valuable >>> goal and he does it well. >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 11:51 PM, Soenke Zehle <[email protected]> wrote: >>> > maybe EM's style is more like a 'firstism' (make it sound like you're >>> > the first to make a particular point, obscuring other more or less >>> > readily available forms of critique) >>> > >>> > EM: "Let's get the Nazis out of the way first. There's a considerable >>> > body of serious scholarship looking at the technological thought of >>> > the Nazis. They had plenty of engineers and scientists and some had >>> > rather ambitious theoretical ambitions. (Not to mention that Carl >>> > Schmidt and Heidegger, whatever their relationship to Nazism, wrote >>> > about technology)." >>> > >>> > Yes Heidegger wrote about technology. But that's one of the places >>> > where firstism just won't do - to read Heidegger and his philosophy of >>> > technology in 'solutionist' terms ends up discrediting the >>> > anti-solutionist project imo. Funny Foucault quote: 'For me, Heidegger >>> > has always been the essential philosopher. My whole philosophical >>> > development was determined by my reading of Heidegger.' >>> > >>> > Soenke >>> > >>> > 2013/7/2 Andrés Leopoldo Pacheco Sanfuentes <[email protected]>: >>> >> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 6:26 PM, x z <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Morozov >>> >> >>> >> Well, to Morozov's credit, that's why philosophers prefer German, >>> >> French, Spanish, etcetera, to English! :D >>> >> >>> >> Best Regards | Cordiales Saludos | Grato, >>> >> >>> >> Andrés L. Pacheco Sanfuentes >>> >> <[email protected]> >>> >> +1 (817) 271-9619 >>> >> -- >>> >> Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by >>> >> emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at >>> >> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >>> > -- >>> > Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by >>> > emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at >>> > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >>> -- >>> Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by >>> emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at >>> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech >> >> >> >> -- >> Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by >> emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at >> https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > > > > > -- > Lina Srivastava > -- > linasrivastava.com | twitter | linkedin > > > -- > Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by > emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? 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