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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.
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.