Alan,
I knew this would happen. I was following up with (in a more abstract sense)
two less recognized points that I thought Marc's piece touched on (I thought).
1. The new attention economy. 2. The threat of post-human ideology on real life
- the question being how much stuff that happens online makes any positive
difference in the real world - and by "real" I mean one that is not alienated
from our very conditions of existence (I'm talking about basic ecology of
course). I was not attacking your practice and not attempting to say that one
can't take an adversarial position while "working for the man." I know very
well that it's possible (though I'd like to see you take down SL entirely).
Sorry if I seemed to be attacking your practice specifically. That's why I
renamed the thread to take Marc's comments in another direction than a response
to your original call for help. My bad.
- mark
Oy yoy yoy, in spite of you telling me what I do in SL is labor, it isn't
if anything it's challenging the structure and at times in fact close to
bringing down the sim because of particle streams.
Or another way to look at it, it's a lot less labor and a lot more thinking
than any other art- form; I work physically harder at music-making (where I'm
feeding the
corporate club-owners) or typing theory (where I'm feeding no one).
I also don't get a sense that you're talking about anything other than a
distant corp - you might want to look at the internal structure of SL
farms for example.
- Alan
On Wed, 7 Oct 2009, mark cooley wrote:
> I'm with you Marc. Also though, there should be some recognition here of
> attention capital. when we're participating in so-called social networking
> sites we're in fact providing labor for the corporations that own the
> platforms. Simply, it goes like this - some influential economists and
> "thinkers" in the 70's were sitting around thinking about the evils of
> leisure time - if they could just get people to think of work as leisure then
> everything would be great - what they came up with is an idea that if people
> could be convinced that they were in fact serving themselves and a
> "community" while doing labor then they could get a whole lot of people doing
> their labor for them at no cost. Web 2.0 is little more than the fulfillment
> of this dream. In the case of SL they're actually getting people to pay them
> for doing their labor. Imagine going back to the mid 20th century and telling
> an industrialist that in the future they wouldn't have to build a factory,
> in fact they wouldn't even have to supply the machinery for their workers,
> and their workers wouldn't understand themselves as such at all - they'd be
> happy to make your products (content) for you because they'd feel like
> somehow they're serving themselves. They'd see themselves as "socializing"
> with "friends" rather than doing what they're doing 9 times out of 10,
> sitting alone in front of the computer indulging in their most
> exhibitionistic fantasies for an audience that's too busy indulging in their
> own egos to care.
>
> I think we need more people willing to step out into the real world. It needs
> some attention. There are many intelligent minds stuck in the factory who
> could do some good out (t)here.
>
>
>> mmm,
>>
>> I'm not asking for A mono-cultural and isolated thing here, more of a
>> conscious effort by people to support each other, artists or whatever
>> those communities may be. I feel that sharing and supporting others is
>> an honourable thing to do - not for any religious reasons or official
>> ideology, but because as an individual who respects others (humans), I
>> want a better world to live in, therefor I must do something of value
>> and not just care about my own singular entity. I have made the decision
>> to bypass the 'heroic' stance of genius in order to seek a life beyond
>> such distractions which really is more about childish fantasies and
>> top-down control - in so many different ways in our cultures. I know it
>> sounds corny, but I still believe in things like love and respect, and
>> other equally silly things - I know some adhere to a post-human agenda
>> and this is their choice, which is more about nihilism for the self and
>> ignore others and their very 'real' contextual situations. I am not
>> asking people to be like me, but I am asking for people to protect their
>> cultures before it is taken away from them.
>>
>> Also,
>>
>>> for that matter the fibers this stuff goes out on - it's all
>>> corporate. How we situate ourselves, how we fight abuse, those
>>> are integral to this, but I don't feel withdrawal - which is
>>> only an inauthentic withdrawal (in the Sartrean sense) - is any
>>> sort of answer.
>>
>> It may all be corporate, but humans are not necessarily corporate
>> drones, unfortunately many of us are engineered and (de)educated to be,
>> and this is one of important points here - if we all fall into a fait
>> accompli, absolutist or even such an emperical state of being of
>> accepting what we are fed, then the battle will be lost, perhaps it is
>> already...
>>
>> I really do not agree that SL is grass roots, although I do agree that
>> it is populist which is not always a negative factor, such a thing can
>> change things in our world and make brilliant things happen. SL, is
>> centralist, successfully exploiting a digitally networked Internet
>> culture, like google has. It may have been once, not sure though. One
>> really cannot call it grass roots in respect of its reasons, function
>> and purpose.
>>
>> But of course, all that is being discussed here is different reasons for
>> our existence, ways of being - it all melds together somehow.
>>
>> wishing you well.
>>
>> marc
>
> ********************************************
>
>
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