Slashdot Mirror
Dark Hearts And The Net
For more than half a century, ever since the birth of rock and roll and the rise of culture-expanding new media technologies from TV (and channel-switcher), on to cable, the Net and the Web, opportunistic political leaders have advanced the idea that the ideas and imagery spread by new technologies are dangerous to children. This idea, enthusiastically passed along by the mainstream media, has entered the American political consciousness.
Bush implied Wednesday night that the Net can, by itself, turn otherwise bright and youthful hearts dark, and even goad youth to murder -- an allegation that comes in the context of a long-standing cultural civil war. It exploits the worst fears of parents who are too often ignorant of their children's technological and cultural lives. Just that kind of claim is used to justify curbing the growing power of kids to access information and to set their own social and cultural agendas. It also gives us yet another look at how our antiquated, overwhelmed political process will deal with the Net, no matter who's elected.
It was hard to listen to comments like Bush's and not think of the dinosaurs just after the meteor hit. And to be fair, it isn't just Bush. The high point of the vice-presidential confrontation was when the Republican candidate Richard Cheney berated the Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman for softening his ferocious attacks on the "violent" culture of the young, especially movies, TV shows and videogames. Gore has repeatedly attacked TV, movies and the Net for the "cultural pollution" it's bringing to children's lives. And even before Wednesday night, Bush was demanding a wholesome "family hour" on TV every night.
This hysterical pandering has nothing to do with the reality of children's lives, or their welfare. If either Bush, Cheney, Gore or Lieberman cared a whit about children, they would shriek instead about the paucity of decent Internet access -- and even decent computers -- in America's public elementary and middle schools.
With perhaps a handful of holdouts, all American colleges are now wired up for the Net, one of the reasons that a whole generation of successful Web and media sites, from Yahoo to Napster to AIM and Slashdot have been created by college kids, not traditional media companies. Many of these new entrepeneurs are games and Net obsessives -- exactly the kind of bright kids who are online all the time. George Bush obviously doesn't know this.
The sad political truth is that access to the Net, the Web and broadband equals creativity, confidence and opportunity. If American schoolchildren were provided the same kind of bandwidth college students are, just imagine the kind of creative technological outpouring they might be capable of, not only in primary and secondary schools, but by the time they hit colleges and universities. Countries that are spending the money to give young children access to bandwidth -- many of the Scandinavian countries are doing this -- are seeding economic, educational and creative success, equality and prosperity.
In fact, a slew of new studies document that the young are using broadband to re-shape media and the information culture. They are the gurus, visionaries, technicians and authorities on the Information Revolution. According to the Pew center for Media Research, roughly half of American families now have Internet access. The aproximately 78 million Americans aged 21 and younger account for 28% of the population.
Lieberman likes to call himself a liberal, but he belongs to that long and glorious line of American politicians (H.L. Mencken called them "Boobus Americanus") who specialized in defining virtue and trying to ram it down everybody else's throat.
What a shame that the many real issues surrounding technology are perverted in this shamelessly exploitive way.
The biggest social, cultural and political issues in the country almost all relate to technology: How will the gene map be used, and will it be commercialized by bio-tech industries? (Yes). Will wealthy people start eliminating the retarded, emotionally disturbed and unnatractive from their birth "selection process"? (You betcha). Will the Net remain a unique and free space, or will it be forced to conform to non-virtual traditions and constraints? Will corporations be permitted to continue to grow unchecked and dominate technology in the way they now control culture, media and entertainment? Will all Americans have equal access to technologies like the Net and Web? (No.) Who will control intellectual property? (Companies like Microsoft, Sony, AOL/Time-Warner and Disney, looks like.) Who will manage new technologies from supercomuting to AI to nano-technology? (Megacorporations, apparently). If Bush or Gore talked about some of that stuff, the ratings might rocket up in a hurry.
But none of these issues will get much coverage or discussion, certainly not compared to the image of the Net turning young hearts dark and murderous. Politics like this can't possibly survive the Digital Age -- and they surely don't deserve to.
gore has been long touting his invention of the internet..
Al Gore never claimed to invent the Internet. That story was started by none other then Declan McCallugh (of LiViD defamation fame and in no small part responsible for inciting the persecution of DeCSS and css-auth developers).
For the story debunking the myth that Al Gore claimed to have invent the internet see this ; Salon story.
Caveat: I am voting for either Ralph Nader or Harry Brown (currently leaning toward Mr. Brown). If you oppose Gore (or Bush) that is fine, but be sure you do so for factual reasons, not myths propogated by yellow journalists.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Great post Jon.
I hadn't decided who to vote for yet, but that post really sent the message home and I'm definitely going to vote for Gore now.
Thanks for letting me know that Bush was an idiot, I hadn't noticed. In fact, I guess I was just trying to make an educated decision based on their proposed policies as well as their character and experience...Geesh, I guess that was silly wasn't it! Oh well, luckily I saw your post in time!
Please keep posting more stories like that one. It was well thought out, researched, and --most importantly-- it was very fair and unbiased.
Keep up the great work!
www.niceFire.com
www.niceFire.com
Funnier than a speeding bullet
Let's see. In the most recent debate, Bush claimed that the three men convicted in the dragging death of James Bird were all given the death penalty and were going to die for their crime. Actually, only two were given the death penalty. One was sentenced to life in prison.
... There are significant questions as to whether Gov. Bush actually fulfilled his service obligation in the Air National Guard. Nobody in the unit he was supposed to be attached to in Alabama can seem to remember him. Army paperwork shows no record of Bush ever reporting for duty in Alabama.
So was Bush lying, stretching the truth, or as I suspect, he just didn't really know, because he's not all that aware of what is actually happening in his home state and relies on his "advisors" to tell him?
And just so it's clear that this is not the only incident of Bush stretching the truth
Then there is education reform in Texas, which Bush is claiming so much responsibility for. Education reform in Texas actually got started two Governers ago, when Mark White (Democrat) was Governer of Texas. It continued under Ann Richards (Democrat) and has, to be fair continued under Governer Bush. But for Bush to claim any real responsibility for education reform in Texas is at best a stretch.
Want me to go on? How about Bush's much touted "tax cut" in Texas, giving "some of the surplus back to the people". Well, I live in Texas and let me tell you how it really worked. It is true that the State property tax rate was cut. When that happened, all of the counties, cities, college districts, school boards, and other taxing districts that rely on state funding immediately had to raise their property tax rates to compensate for the decreased funding they would receive from the state. Net effect - my total property taxes (and those of everyone in my city that I have spoken to) have actually increased. Nice tax cut.
Then there is the "Compationate Conservative" thing. How compationate is it for the state of Texas to have the second highest percentage of uninsured people in the nation? Particularly when the majority of those without insurance are Latino children (who Bush otherwise acts so fond of). How compationate is it that Bush actively tried to limit the access that children in Texas had to the new federal CHIP program that provides affordable insurance to children of low income families?
Bush is a liar too (aren't all politicians). He's just not called on it much.
During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
Ok dude. In this quote he is saying that he created the internet while he was in Congress.
"I" is possesive, and suggests that he himself was the one who did this. He could have said "We took the initiative", or "I urged other congressmen to take the initiative", but he didn't. He claimed sole responsiblility for an act which he played a very small role in.
GORE is not Congress. There are a whole array of other congressmen, and I doubt they'd give him as much credit as he gives himself.
Gore did claim to have invented the internet, and I suggest you learn english.
The problem is that even if everyone in America voted for Ralph Nader, he still wouldn't be made president because the Electoral college wouldn't permit it. In my opinion, the college is the biggest obstacle to third party success on the national stage. As far as I know there have been two cases of a candidate winning the popular vote, but losing the office b/c of the college. Am I the only one who thinks this is not Democratic? Well, it only goes to show that this country is not a Democracy, but a government of the people not by the people. The "intellectual elite" has faded away into the "mainstream popular" and a whole multitude of voices is not being heard. Ah well...enough ranting.
>in the past 20 years, we have been nowhere near the record of Americans turning 18
Thought that too. And besides, even if it were true, it means very little. The current crop of 18-yr-old voters are hardly the most poitically aware and active bunch in the last 20 years. I might go as far to say that they are probably the least likely bunch since the late 60's to actually be aware, much less participate in the presidential election. That's too bad, and I hope I'm wrong about that.
Katz's drift that alienating the young net-savvy voters by insulting their intelligence by painting the net as a chasm of evil seems somewhat moot. Is there really a chance that large numbers of the 18 20 23&1/2 doom/quake/napster crowd is going to vote for him anyway?
I doubt it. Are there hordes of registered voters in the 36-52 demographic with young kids that are scared to death their child might be the next Klebold and are waiting to hear which candidate "understands" how evil this internet thing is and is going to do something about keeping this bugaboo from corrupting their kid.
GW isn't going to be swept into office by swaying young voters and he knows this. If he were to stand up there and demonstrate a real understanding of the internet to the extent that Jon Katz would hail him as a true revolutionary political candidate, he would lose votes from that majoruty of registered voters that are afraid of the internet because they don't understand it and don't want to.
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
If you're going to get informed on the platforms, you might as well get informed on the decisions that really matter.
UBU
First of all, I know the definition of the word "stupid". Shrub is stupid.
Shrub thinks that muggin' and smirkin' and actin' like Andy Griffith will get him into the White House. Shrub thinks that calling facts and figures "fuzzy math" and mangling the English language will ensure him the "common people" vote. Shrub thinks that "being relaxed" in a debate makes him the winner of such, and many stupid media types are going along with that nonsense.
Of course, perhaps the American people are becoming more stupid. A lot of people seem to think that it doesn't matter who occupies the White House, that life will go on just the same. A lot of people like to put down smart people, call them "geeks", "nerds" or "dorks", thinking none of them have common sense or at least any sociability. A lot of people think it's OK to be stupid and not even try to understand any of the world around us.
Obviously, 2/3 of Shrub's support is coming from staunch conservatives who support Republican policies in a knee-jerk fashion. You know, these are the Christian right types who want moral control over your lives and the pseudo-Libertarians who simultaneously want to "give you more personal control by reducing what the government does for you." That's not to mention that if government stopped doing a lot of the things it does, our personal lives would have a lot less freedom of time.
The other 1/3 are voting for Shrub are those who want Andy Griffith in the White House so they don't have to look at the boring, intelligent, responsible Al Gore on their TV screens.
If the American people vote in Shrub, they'll get what they deserve. A stupid President for stupid people.
Steve Magruder
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
This prompted me to go to http://www.bush2000.com/contact.asp ; and submit the following...
I have no doubt that this will turn the tide in the election.
---
Now, you can cut that up like a lawyer, but to anybody whole is familiar with the English language, Gore was taking a granule of truth and exaggerating it out of proportion.
He was overemphesizing his congressional record, in which he actively supported and promoted the creation of the internet. He in no way claimed or implied that he invented the internet, any more than Jed Bush's statements that he was instrumental in creating Florida's voucher program imply that he invented the notion of vouchers or was the first to implement them. At worst he was guilty of exaggerating his congressional record, nothing more.
They have diametrically opposing views of the role of government. They could not be more contrary! Their only similarity is that neither one has the remotest chance of being elected. Your simultaneous interest in both these candidates says a lot about your political knowledge.
No, it says nothing about my political knowledge. What is says is two things:
* The individual is being marginalized in favor of large special interest and corporate influence in government, and both candidates offer a solution
* I remain undecided on whether the best approach is government regulation of industry (which can and does work quite well in some instances) or very, very small government and corresponding freedom (both for individuals and corporations) that implies.
Why am I undecided? Because freedom for corporations often translates directly into less freedom for individuals (e.g. up until a few years ago people with medical conditions were effectively locked into their jobs because they would lose medical insurance if they went to another employer with a pre-existing condition. Later regulation which decreased the freedom and discretion of the insurance industry had a direct and immediate effect in enhancing the freedom of the individual. One may make sophist arguments such as "people were free to leave and aren't entitled to basic medical anyway, so they shouldn't complain" but the reality was, if your life depended on medical care and you would lose it if you changed jobs or were fired, you had the freedom any prisoner or slave has ever had: comply or die). The Libertarians make some compelling arguments, but they also gloss over a number of important and very complex details.
As with nearly everything in life, the ideal situation will probably end up being somewhere in the middle, though probably more in the libertarian direction than the Green direction (hence my leaning toward Brown).
I will say this, however. Your inflexibility in considering two differing points of view on a number of complex issues says a great deal about the openness of your mind, and the simplicity with which you appear to view the political world.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So him saying that this is the largest demographic group is correct. It's what happens when the previous largest generation's kids grow up. Baby Boomers kids are graduating high-school, and there are a whole lot of them.
Oh - and to all you people who are voting for "lesser evil" or whatever, please take a stand and consider voting for someone beside the two big parties - and no, its not wasting your vote.
tagline
... hi bingo
. . . there are more Americans turning 18 than ever before,
and they now know that at least one presidential candidate is an idiot.
- JonKatz
Ahem, in the past 20 years, we have been nowhere near the record of Americans turning 18. That event occured when the peak of the babyboom generation turned 18 in the 70's (or was that the late 60's?) and the current number of 18yr olds pales in comparison.
Umm, wanna expand on that idiot part Jon?
Visit DC2600
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
While our democracy may have failed a bit, the candidates do, through extensive focus group testing, try to represent the people. Bush wouldn't say a word without his advisors telling him which demographic we're talking to.
So let's get it straight who Bush was talking to. Bush was talking to the Million Mom March. Bush was talking to the same Mom's who needed Microsoft's Digital Diva to explain to them how to send their email messages from their "cyberspace address" out over the "information superhighway".
He was talking to all the people who watched a high school full of children being led out by SWAT teams, the people who read newspapers and read about those two kid's obsession with the internet.
He was representing the great swath of Americans who just don't get it
My point is, don't blame Bush. Bush, as a C student, is uniuqely qualified to represent the vast and growing idiot demographic in America.
Blame the idiots. Think globally, but mock them locally.
-just a thought.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
I hope I'm not the only person in the USA who is bothered by the status of the government. Not neccisarly their "injustices to Americans" or the widespread corruption that you see on the news, but the fact that we're listening to a bunch of 50, 60 year old people who probably don't know what modem stands for. It's sad that it's going to take another 30 or 40 years before college people today get into the government. Sometimes I wonder if it will even happen in my lifetime.
Will the Net remain a unique and free space, or will it be forced to conform to non-virtual traditions and constraints?
Let's look at this logically. Eventually, someone who is elected to an important position is going to be very pro-freedom-of-information. If we elect someone today who is either against it, or the topic isn't on their priority list, then they are going to let monopoly companies decide what happens to freedom of speech online. What happens when we elect the person who is very pro-freedom of speech? It's going to be a lot of backtracking, might as well get someone who understands the issue now.
But most important, we can't do shit unless we vote. It's free, it's quick, and it's the easiest way to change the world. Register.
Gore: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet"
Now, you can cut that up like a lawyer, but to anybody whole is familiar with the English language, Gore was taking a granule of truth and exaggerating it out of proportion. That is another way of saying he lied. It would not be so noteworthy if he didn't do it every week, like claiming he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story, claiming to have written the Earned Income Tax Cut law and worked on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve while in Congress (both were created before he entered Congress), like claiming to have helped write candidate Hubert Humphrey's convention speech in 1968 (he didn't) ... And the list goes on.
A good compiliation of some of Gore's most egregious lies are here. You are an apologist for a compulsive liar.
Now, what is equally amazing to me is how you could be having difficulty choosing between Browne and Nader. They have diametrically opposing views of the role of government. They could not be more contrary! Their only similarity is that neither one has the remotest chance of being elected. Your simultaneous interest in both these candidates says a lot about your political knowledge.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
I thought it was rather funny =]
NightHawk
Tyranny =Gov. choosing how much power to give the People.
Anyone who cared one whit about children would never equate anything to related to computers with their general welfare. If you care about kids and their schools, talk about class size, books, inspirational and loving teachers, safety from violence, interesting curricula, engaging and nurturing environments, respect from adults and children; computers are just about at the bottom of the list of what any informed educator sees as making a difference in children's experience of school. Many trendy and ill-informed people see them as a remedy for all kinds of things, but to my knowledge, no research into the area has ever suggested that computers aid learning or the educational experience to anything like the degree that the things I mention above do.
Since the public in general doesn't understand much about the Internet it is an easy target. Rock and roll isn't much of a target anymore because it is mainstream, people have moved on to rap music. The same logic can be applied to women voting, alcohol, printing presses, etc. If its new, someone will attack it despite the enormous good that might come of it, Politicians are just capitalizing on the sensationalism that the media can stir up over things like the Columbine shootings. Once the media brands the Internet as contributing to some tragedy it is very hard to convince people (who don't know much about it) that that idea is ludicrous.
Politicians are particularly skilled at this type of spin. Examples abound: Vote against a gun control measure and you might be branded 'pro-crime', vote to cut some sprending out of a bloated federal program and you could be branded 'anti-education' or be accused of wanting to throw old people out into the streets.
Society is, by and large, ignorant of what the internet is and what it can do for them. They assume its only purpose, other than IMing your friends on AOL, is evil. Politicians are just trying to ride wave into office. Unfortunately, these are the guys who make the laws.
Icebox
If every student can't have their own at their desk, they are nothing more than toys for the few that have the opportunity to use them. The rest can only view from a distance; the majority can't interact. Couple that with the fact that there's just not enough room in a classroom for thirty or more of these boxes, and the immediate conclusion that computers in school, if they are there at all, should be in a lab. In this day and age of portable classrooms, what facility has the space to spare to set up a sporadically-used computer lab, and pay for the staff to operate it?
Secondly, computers are distractions. In a classroom they take even more time away from the real reason students are there-- to learn. No, not everything in school is fun. Some of it may, to the kids, not seem neccessary. But lack of fundamentals is one of the things that's killing this country. I can't tell you how often I find illiterate high-school students. They read like third graders! Why? Certainly not because they don't have computers in the classroom.
Computers in the classroom-- ya might as well call an arcade a "classroom." Don't give me platitudes about how they'll be able to research projects on the Web. With very limited exceptions, it just doesn't happen. What does happen? Games. Note-passing. Oggling naked women. Software piracy (in high school we called it "off-site archival preservation"). Generally, those things that in the past were not allowed in the classroom.
Information on the 'net is uncatagorized and unorganized. Students can hardly write these days, do you really think they'll be able to distill terabytes of noise and glean the kilobytes of needed data? Even if they could get to the stuff they need, much of it is on the 'net as advertisements. I am often frustrated to find that information that would be available printed and bound in the library is only on the web in the form of an abstract and order form. Not particularly useful for school-age researchers. I end up hiking to the library anyway. At least their card catalogs are focused, and don't contain millions of porn links disguised as what I want.
Americans have missed the boat on what education means. Education is not job skills. True education make one a better person. It builds character. Education creates wisdom. If kids today get out of school knowing little more than where the power switch is and how to run a small set of software applications, we have done a grave disservice to not only them, but to ourselves. We will have weakend the fabric of this country's society.
How about we get back to teaching what kids need to know to get through life. Reading is important for numerous reasons. Math lets them describe their world in measurable ways. Literature helps them understand their feelings, and express themselves to others. History tells them how we got here, and generally points to where we're going. Science teaches critical thinking. These are what schools need, not computers. Ignore these, and we'll get a society that won't even know how to build a computer!
Jeff
Hey, Look what happened here in Minnesota.
Jesse Ventura was able to get himself into the debates (largely because Skip Humphrey figured he would take votes away from Norm Coleman) and held his own. He ran funny ads during The Simpsons. He talked about social tolerance and fiscal responsibility (including the realization that some government spending, e.g. education, is more an investment) - a political philosophy you don't largely find in republicrats or democans, but seems to be quite popular amongst younger disaffected voters. He spoke with common sense instead of political wisdom.
And you know what?
Minnesota had by far the biggest turnout of any state in that election, lead by youngsters. We elected him, and most of us are pretty happy with the job he's done.
Now, I don't think we can jump right from that to getting someone like that into the White House. There's a lot of work left to be done to lay the groundwork. The best blueprint of how to do this (strategically, not philosophically) is the National Socialists of Germany in the 1930s. You need to start small. Target a vulnerable house seat or two. Put all of your resources into winning those one or two seats. The next election, you'll have incumbency and, with any luck, a general buzz of legitimacy. That should help you double your seat count, and maybe get a seat in the senate. And you just keep building, and don't overreach your capabilities. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can put forth a candidate for president and be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, our (American, obviously) society is so hooked on quick-fixes that I am not sure there are enough people out there willing to put in the necessary work to get this accomplished. But it is possible.