Being "always on" is being always off, to something.
The Future of Freedom and Control in the Internet Age
Topic: Politics and Law
7:33 am EST, Feb 26, 2009
The Open Society Institute and Asia Society hosted an event with Open Society Fellows Rebecca MacKinnon and Evgeny Morozov that explored the changing landscape of Internet censorship. Special attention was given to the techniques employed by governments to co-opt and steer online discussions in ideologically convenient directions. Focusing on the specific cases of Russia and China, the panelists discussed how the strategies and tools of control, manipulation, and censorship have evolved in both countries.
Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue and an Open Society Fellowship selection committee member, moderated the discussion.
This event was presented in cooperation with the Asia Society Center on U.S.-China Relations.
We wanted a way to discover relevant and interesting items from the people we follow on Twitter. Most of the time something interesting is a link shared by a friend or colleague. So we built MicroPlaza to deliver us the filtered links from our Twitter timelines. It's our discovery engine, our personal newswire and just so god damn addictive!
Alfred North Whitehead:
It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.
News coverage is not all that newspapers have given us. They have lent the public a powerful means of leverage over the state, and this leverage is now at risk. If we take seriously the notion of newspapers as a fourth estate or a fourth branch of government, the end of the age of newspapers implies a change in our political system itself. Newspapers have helped to control corrupt tendencies in both government and business. If we are to avoid a new era of corruption, we are going to have to summon that power in other ways. Our new technologies do not retire our old responsibilities.
From 2004, Joe Nye:
In the era of the Founding Fathers, newspapers were extremely partisan, and George Washington was dismayed by the harshness of political language. For much of its early history -- to say nothing of the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction -- the country was as closely divided as it is today, and bitter campaign rhetoric reflected the closeness of the competition.
From a 2004 review of Paul Starr's book, The Creation of the Media:
The most important -- and interesting -- questions are structural.
Americans fundamentally misunderstand what is unusual about their communications media, and why.
Printed Words, Computers, and Democratic Societies
Topic: Technology
8:04 am EST, Feb 24, 2009
From 1983, Irving Louis Horowitz:
The relationship between political democracy and the new technology is by no means either uniform or mechanistic. In rapidly developing areas, nationalism may conflict with a wide use of a technology that has foreign or colonial origins. Antidemocratic constraints come masked in hostility to foreign ideas, influences, artifacts, and scientific systems. The intense desire for national autonomy not infrequently spills over into tightly knit controls over the new information technology. [...] Controls on information flow can be justified on the basis of national security, privacy, economics, or nationalism. The restrictions, however, are often a two-edged sword: they may protect the country in one way and injure it in another." In other words, the need for socioeconomic development involves maximum participation in the international exchange of information and ideas, even as the need to protect national interests may seek elites to limit such maximal use.
In the medieval university, contemplation was knowledge of reality itself, as opposed to that involved in getting things done. It corresponded to a distinction in our understanding of what it is to be human, between reason conceived as puzzling things out and that conceived as receptive of truth. This understanding of learning has a history that goes back to the roots of western culture. Now, this is under serious threat, and with it our notion of civilisation.
It’s not a matter of waiting for two or three years to absorb the overproduction. It’s a matter of drastically reducing real estate prices to well below replacement cost. And when you sell something for below replacement cost – that might sound like, well, “Somebody takes a hit but life goes on as usual.” No, life doesn’t go on. For the owners of that retail or housing space, every dollar that they invest will be money they don’t get back. That is another definition of a slum. There’s no incentive to invest in a slum. So here you are.
Ah, yes:
Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail! [crowd chants `Monorail' softly and rhythmically] Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud... Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud. Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend? Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend. Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs? Lyle Lanley: You'll all be given cushy jobs. Abe: Were you sent here by the devil? Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level. Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can. Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man. I swear it's Springfield's only choice... Throw up your hands and raise your voice! All: [singing] Monorail! Lyle Lanley: What's it called? All: Monorail! Lyle Lanley: Once again... All: Monorail! Marge: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken... Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken! All: [singing] Monorail! Monorail! Monorail! [big finish] Monorail! Homer: Mono... D'oh!
Victory now sounds a lot like what victory in Iraq might be for the US: lower violence just enough so that people won't talk about it anymore.
From 2006, John Rapley:
As states recede and the new mediaevalism advances, the outside world is destined to move increasingly beyond the control -- and even the understanding -- of the new Rome. The globe's variegated informal and quasi-informal statelike activities will continue to expand, as will the power and reach of those who live by them. The new Romans, like the old, might not enjoy the consequences.
Multiverse, the largest and most complex light sculpture created by American artist Leo Villareal, may be seen and experienced by visitors as they pass through the Concourse walkway between the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery of Art. Commissioned by the Gallery and on view until November 2009, the work features approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED (light-emitting diode) nodes that run through channels along the entire 200-foot-long space. The development of this LED project began in 2005, and the installation created by Villareal specifically for this location began in September 2008.
