Bovine America huh? Good thing you aren't part of the masses. Good thing you aren't duped by that.
Have you ever met anyone who claims to be part of the masses? 'Yep, my thoughts don't matter, I'm just a part of the masses. We've got them avant garde folk over on slashdot to look after us.' No? Maybe it's because there -are- no masses.
Go and talk to non-geeks about romantic comedies or movie stars. You'll find that they know the plot will be predictable. They know the formulas. They know that celebrity-watching is pointless. But a lot of them do it to some extent anyway. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe they get the same kick out of watching Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt fall in love that the geek scene gets out of watching Star Wars frame by frame to pick out continuity errors.
Try and find a copy of Watching Dallas by Ien Ang. It make for pretty interesting reading and explains how people actually watch television and movies and pretty much debunks the concept of 'masses'.
Gutenberg was no fool. The printing press was a dangerous thing, giving information to the masses and all. So before using it for subversive and risque purposes that could be considered heretical, he published religious materials to satisfy the Church.
Imagine if you owned the only photocopier in the world, and all of a sudden photocopies of banned material came up... who would be to blame? Once there were other printers operating their own presses, erotica and political satire (often tied together) started to be published.
What IT needs is honest, effective, and knowledgable management.
If Jane has no reason to be communicating with the outside world, do not give Jane access to anything outside the Intranet. Jane will still be able to collaborate on projects and use the corporate network, but she will spend less time posting on Slashdot and sending personal email. Jane may "waste" just as much time by talking to co-workers, but co-workers who are friendly and know each other well are better team players.
If Bob's job is to write reports, his PIII-500 will do the job. Jim needs to do graphic design, so he gets a new PC, while Bob sticks with his old one, or gets Jim's hand-me-down.
Harry the office temp probably doesn't need a computer at all. Don't give him one.
Unfortunately, managers are not always as knowledgable about their IT as they should be. There is a lot of money to be made in the IT consulting field just by being honest and not telling managers they need more than they really do.
Imagine the market for false identities that will spring up over the next few years and decades as the implications of moves like this are felt by more and more people. There is less and less room to screw up and later reinvent yourself.
In the past it was possible to create an entirely new life. Criminals, debtors, or just people who wanted to start a new life could move to "The New World" or other countries and begin again. Now, your new home already has a pretty good idea who you are.
Until the age of direct deposit, it was possible to move somewhere new and get a job that you could be paid for the same day, paying cash for a room in some seedy hotel until you could get a better place. Now, it takes 2-3 weeks before you see your first paycheque, and most hotels require a credit card. Right away it is harder to move around, let alone reinvent yourself.
Let's look at the example of one famous head of state. He spent the first half of his life screwing around, doing drugs, getting arrested for drunk driving, and wasting Bush Sr.'s money. Suddenly he cleans up his act and buys a baseball team, becomes governor of Texas, and eventually President of the U.S. of A. Good for him.
Imagine this same kid 20 years from now. (Minus some of daddy's influence, perhaps.) Generally good kid gets into a bit of trouble when he/she is young, but cleans up and decides to get a job working for MS-AOL-Time-Warner-USA. (MATWU for short.) Person goes in for their interview, to face a series of questions, like a normal job interview. After doing quite well, the interviewer says this:
"You are very well suited for the job. I think you would make an excellent addition to the team. However your ethics do not fit with corporate guidelines. We notice that on your trip to Amsterdam you visited 3 hash bars in a 4 hour period, 1 strip club where you took part in two lap dances and consumed a good deal of alcohol. We also note that you visited Tokyo and stayed for 2 weeks at a VSP resort. Consorting with Vivendi-Sony-Panasonic, perhaps? I'm afraid we cannot hire you."
Who has never done anything they wouldn't want their prospective employer, prospective friends, prospective mate, or prospective client to know about?
Re:What I think will survive:
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 1
Now that I think about it, banning non-organic musicians won't be enough.. they'll ban non-organic musicians that they don't have a gene sequence patent on. Bleh.
What I think will survive:
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 1
I'm missing a lot, but here are a few starters:
Will be remembered:
WWF/WWE/Professional Wrestling
Miles Davis
Fight Club - probably the film more than the novel
George Orwell - 1984 and Animal Farm among others
Punk
Dance/Club/Rave Culture (at least parts)
Tolkien
The Price is Right
Pablo Picasso
Andy Warhol
Bauhaus
David Carson
Won't be remembered:
Prefab Pop (Britney + Nsync + BSB, particularly)
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Master of Disguise
AYB references
Other cultural predictions:
Robot retro - AIBO and predecessors fetch huge sums from vintage robot collectors.
PC retro - refitting ugly beige cases to house digital devices.
Musicmachines - Pop music composed and performed by digital stars, RIAA introduces bill banning non-organic musicians.
I just thought of something else that ties into my other post in this thread. Classic Greek plays and literature, Shakespearian plays, and most great literature have something in common with things like the WWF. Themes. All of them look at subjects like betrayal, love, lust, revenge, hubris, and whatnot. I really do think that when future sociologists and historians are looking at the 20th century, professional wrestling will be one of the cultural forms they consider most.
Believe it or not, it might not reflect too badly upon us. Wrestling is crude, simplistic, highly stylized, sexist and classist, but it does mirror American society and does follow the models set by its predecessors very well.
Re:American Culture
on
The Last Place
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
This reminds me of a question that came up while I was studying in the UK. My Pop Culture in Britain 1800-Present class was discussing what the term culture means. Many people were certain culture meant what was played on BBC4 and "the classics." I took another point of view. Culture is everything produced by a civilization... there is no real yardstick.
After all, in his day, Shakespeare's plays were considered to be for the common people. I don't mean to equate The Fast and the Furious with Hamlet, but I think we are too fast to dismiss anything other than 'high culture'.
You mean millionaire FDR was only trying to prevent revolution during the depression? He wasn't creating the New Deal out of the goodness of his heart?
Capitalism then and capitalism now are two very different animals. Corporations with no responsibility besides shareholder profit are quite different from individual factory owners who might (or might not, depending on the owner) feel guilty about exploiting workers.
This is Slashdot... I can rant all I want without offering alternatives;)
Actually, that's part of the problem. Surely there are other societal models for an industrial society, but the way our industry developed, we can't see them.
When 1984 was written, Orwell couldn't invision any form of social control that was not ideological control. After all, if you couldn't control people's ideas and keep them from thinking politically, they would revolt against their oppressors!
Since 1948, however, a new form of social control has emerged. Some of you may recognize the name. It's called capitalism. The illusion of choice created by being able to choose from 25 kinds of peanut butter and 500 cable channels is a far more effective way of quelling revolt than systematically cutting down political oppostion. But political oppostion has been cut down all the same.
The capitalist system has so deeply entrenched itself that two things have occurred. First, those who suggest that there should be alternatives for everyone are labelled as "Commies" or "Dirty Hippies" and largely ignored. So, collective oppostion is nearly impossible. Secondly, it is next to impossible for a person (at least someone in a G8/G7 nation) to live outside of the capitalist system. Self-sufficient farming requires land, which requires property tax, which requires income. If you sell your product to pay your taxes, you cannot be self-sufficient but turn into a for-profit farmer. Vicious circle.
Orwell wasn't as wrong as the article would have us believe. Technology as used by the capitalist system did enable social control, but not in the way Orwell thought.
Astral Projecting basically invented the Israeli psy sound back in the day, but they've been treading water since 1997. Their latest album and their newish single were disappointing to me. There are some artists still pushing the genre forward though:
Space Cat - Psy with attention to percussion! About time.
I can't think of the others I was going to mention now... blah. But there are some other old classics you should check out:
Shiva Space Technology Volume 1 and Volume 2 - Great psy/goa sound. Compilations, so they give a survey of the genre at its best. Check out Muses Rapt - Spiritual Healing. Incredible track.
Goa Gil - Kosmokrater - One of the few well known psy DJs. He played off DAT tapes mostly, as did most psy djs during its goa days... easier to bring DAT into the desert and the jungle than crates of vinyl!
Shpongle - Are You Shpongled? - Great downtempo psychedelic sounds... they have a new album out called 'Tales of the Inexpressible' but it isn't as good.
Doof - Let's Turn On - Goa with a sense of humour... Could it be true? Could space monsters mate with earth women?
Green Nuns of the Revolution - Fast and crazy stuff. Strange samples. Loads of fun.
Man With No Name - Vavavoom! - I saved the best for last. Possibly THE GREATEST psy producer ever. Teleportation is probably his best track, but don't miss Sugar Rush, Floor Essence.
Synthpop is back! Kinda... they're calling it electroclash now. Usually it has sleezy synth lines combined with sleezier vocals. A good place to start is Kitty-Yo Records, and then move on to International Gigalo Records and check out their immense sleeziness. Miss Kitten and the Hacker and Tiga and Zyntherius are two acts to try out for sure. The latter just had a huge hit in the UK with a remix of Sunglasses at Night.
If you feel like giving, check out adbusters and help support their work against corporate influence and globalization. Of course, I'm not 100% sure that it is tax deductable....
Hmmm. Moldy space station about to be 'de-orbited'... maybe they should shoot the whole show on Mir, and let the winner leave right before the de-orbiting... Now -that- would be a show worthy of being called Survivor;)
-as
One problem is that corporations have been given the same rights as the individual. Before we can take our governments back, we need to change the laws and 'crack the corporate I.' There is an interesting article in the July/August issue of adbusters, which is also available here
Online documentation means less resources used, both in printing the manual, and in packaging it. Its good to hear that a big company like GM is saving money and the environment by avoiding printed documentation.
Slashdot Mirror
Bovine America huh? Good thing you aren't part of the masses. Good thing you aren't duped by that.
Have you ever met anyone who claims to be part of the masses? 'Yep, my thoughts don't matter, I'm just a part of the masses. We've got them avant garde folk over on slashdot to look after us.' No? Maybe it's because there -are- no masses.
Go and talk to non-geeks about romantic comedies or movie stars. You'll find that they know the plot will be predictable. They know the formulas. They know that celebrity-watching is pointless. But a lot of them do it to some extent anyway. Maybe there's something to that. Maybe they get the same kick out of watching Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt fall in love that the geek scene gets out of watching Star Wars frame by frame to pick out continuity errors.
Try and find a copy of Watching Dallas by Ien Ang. It make for pretty interesting reading and explains how people actually watch television and movies and pretty much debunks the concept of 'masses'.
Some interesting background reading is here.
Disney is not Pixar. Pixar is not Disney. Disney distributes Pixar, they don't own it. Pixar is actually a Lucas project, along with ILM.
Think it would be possible to program decency into them? Good. Then we won't have to deal with the misogynist and homophobic bastards on our campus.
Gutenberg was no fool. The printing press was a dangerous thing, giving information to the masses and all. So before using it for subversive and risque purposes that could be considered heretical, he published religious materials to satisfy the Church.
Imagine if you owned the only photocopier in the world, and all of a sudden photocopies of banned material came up... who would be to blame? Once there were other printers operating their own presses, erotica and political satire (often tied together) started to be published.
What IT needs is honest, effective, and knowledgable management.
If Jane has no reason to be communicating with the outside world, do not give Jane access to anything outside the Intranet. Jane will still be able to collaborate on projects and use the corporate network, but she will spend less time posting on Slashdot and sending personal email. Jane may "waste" just as much time by talking to co-workers, but co-workers who are friendly and know each other well are better team players.
If Bob's job is to write reports, his PIII-500 will do the job. Jim needs to do graphic design, so he gets a new PC, while Bob sticks with his old one, or gets Jim's hand-me-down.
Harry the office temp probably doesn't need a computer at all. Don't give him one.
Unfortunately, managers are not always as knowledgable about their IT as they should be. There is a lot of money to be made in the IT consulting field just by being honest and not telling managers they need more than they really do.
In the past it was possible to create an entirely new life. Criminals, debtors, or just people who wanted to start a new life could move to "The New World" or other countries and begin again. Now, your new home already has a pretty good idea who you are.
Until the age of direct deposit, it was possible to move somewhere new and get a job that you could be paid for the same day, paying cash for a room in some seedy hotel until you could get a better place. Now, it takes 2-3 weeks before you see your first paycheque, and most hotels require a credit card. Right away it is harder to move around, let alone reinvent yourself.
Let's look at the example of one famous head of state. He spent the first half of his life screwing around, doing drugs, getting arrested for drunk driving, and wasting Bush Sr.'s money. Suddenly he cleans up his act and buys a baseball team, becomes governor of Texas, and eventually President of the U.S. of A. Good for him.
Imagine this same kid 20 years from now. (Minus some of daddy's influence, perhaps.) Generally good kid gets into a bit of trouble when he/she is young, but cleans up and decides to get a job working for MS-AOL-Time-Warner-USA. (MATWU for short.) Person goes in for their interview, to face a series of questions, like a normal job interview. After doing quite well, the interviewer says this:
"You are very well suited for the job. I think you would make an excellent addition to the team. However your ethics do not fit with corporate guidelines. We notice that on your trip to Amsterdam you visited 3 hash bars in a 4 hour period, 1 strip club where you took part in two lap dances and consumed a good deal of alcohol. We also note that you visited Tokyo and stayed for 2 weeks at a VSP resort. Consorting with Vivendi-Sony-Panasonic, perhaps? I'm afraid we cannot hire you."
Who has never done anything they wouldn't want their prospective employer, prospective friends, prospective mate, or prospective client to know about?
Now that I think about it, banning non-organic musicians won't be enough.. they'll ban non-organic musicians that they don't have a gene sequence patent on. Bleh.
I'm missing a lot, but here are a few starters:
Will be remembered:
Won't be remembered:
Other cultural predictions:
Believe it or not, it might not reflect too badly upon us. Wrestling is crude, simplistic, highly stylized, sexist and classist, but it does mirror American society and does follow the models set by its predecessors very well.
After all, in his day, Shakespeare's plays were considered to be for the common people. I don't mean to equate The Fast and the Furious with Hamlet, but I think we are too fast to dismiss anything other than 'high culture'.
My picture of him is now completely shattered.
Grin.
Capitalism then and capitalism now are two very different animals. Corporations with no responsibility besides shareholder profit are quite different from individual factory owners who might (or might not, depending on the owner) feel guilty about exploiting workers.
Actually, that's part of the problem. Surely there are other societal models for an industrial society, but the way our industry developed, we can't see them.
Since 1948, however, a new form of social control has emerged. Some of you may recognize the name. It's called capitalism. The illusion of choice created by being able to choose from 25 kinds of peanut butter and 500 cable channels is a far more effective way of quelling revolt than systematically cutting down political oppostion. But political oppostion has been cut down all the same.
The capitalist system has so deeply entrenched itself that two things have occurred. First, those who suggest that there should be alternatives for everyone are labelled as "Commies" or "Dirty Hippies" and largely ignored. So, collective oppostion is nearly impossible. Secondly, it is next to impossible for a person (at least someone in a G8/G7 nation) to live outside of the capitalist system. Self-sufficient farming requires land, which requires property tax, which requires income. If you sell your product to pay your taxes, you cannot be self-sufficient but turn into a for-profit farmer. Vicious circle.
Orwell wasn't as wrong as the article would have us believe. Technology as used by the capitalist system did enable social control, but not in the way Orwell thought.
-asreal
Astral Projecting basically invented the Israeli psy sound back in the day, but they've been treading water since 1997. Their latest album and their newish single were disappointing to me. There are some artists still pushing the genre forward though:
Space Cat - Psy with attention to percussion! About time.
I can't think of the others I was going to mention now... blah. But there are some other old classics you should check out:
Hope this gets you started.
Synthpop is back! Kinda... they're calling it electroclash now. Usually it has sleezy synth lines combined with sleezier vocals. A good place to start is Kitty-Yo Records, and then move on to International Gigalo Records and check out their immense sleeziness. Miss Kitten and the Hacker and Tiga and Zyntherius are two acts to try out for sure. The latter just had a huge hit in the UK with a remix of Sunglasses at Night.
Take a look at Requiem for a Dream's website. Very well done, and very innovative.
-as
If you feel like giving, check out adbusters and help support their work against corporate influence and globalization. Of course, I'm not 100% sure that it is tax deductable....
-as
Hmmm. Moldy space station about to be 'de-orbited'... maybe they should shoot the whole show on Mir, and let the winner leave right before the de-orbiting... Now -that- would be a show worthy of being called Survivor ;)
-as
One problem is that corporations have been given the same rights as the individual. Before we can take our governments back, we need to change the laws and 'crack the corporate I.' There is an interesting article in the July/August issue of adbusters, which is also available here
Oh, and there is an interesting site on what can happen when a corporation gains too much power, as is the case with Shell-Nigeria.
Everyone has a right to be concerned about how powerful corporations have grown. Just a few bits of food for thought.
-as
If you want paper documentation, buy a book.
Online documentation means less resources used, both in printing the manual, and in packaging it. Its good to hear that a big company like GM is saving money and the environment by avoiding printed documentation.
-as