Qed

Cult of less: digital minimalists on the rise

Sorry but who are we kidding here?

The cult of less? Predicated on owning two eBook devices and a laptop with no means of personal transport. Sounds perfect for New York, a place of 20 million people where the streets are too small to fit everyone at once and apartments extend to the height of small mountains.

Is this the face of life in the 21st century, dependent on the ubiquitous internet and a neverending cycle of technology consumption for HAPPINESS?

When do the red and blue pills start appearing?

I mean look at this guy, he jets around the world for his holidays, buys a new computer every year or two and his life at 23 is complete.

DJ’s living on couches sounds very bohemian but try telling that to small army of unemployed homeless people everywhere in the world. The values implicit in this “story” are mind boggling.

Cult of less: digital minimalists on the rise.

Taking a position…

Oops just watched a trailer for Unrivalled…urgh what is going on with the world or am I just some latte drinking trendy overeducated and underpaid, indulging in some romantic sensibilities? Lordy lordy be.

It seems everywhere you have to have a position on something. Where do I stand on land rights for gay whales? Do I support the notional redistribution of capital into the hands of the rich at the expense of the useless layabouts bludging on the dole? What did Milton mean by promoting a straw man to finger Eve in the downfall of MAN? Jesus wept…a freakin decision please, just say where you stand!

Menzies took a stand 60 years ago against the evil communists who were in the words of the then Country Party like a poisonous snake, kill it before it kills you. Never mind the implications of outlawing a political party in a democratic state, some people are just too dangerous to let loose on the streets. 2001 and some bloody ideologically motivated nutbags fly a few planes into a few buildings and the whole world goes into shock therapy while governments aided and abetted by the media keen to broadcast a plethora of shocking images to the unsuspecting goes into legislative overdrive labelling any dissent no matter how trivial as an act of TERROR! For Fuck Sake! Get a grip a people.

What happens? The US leads a coalition of very unwilling in arms against a bunch of third world Arab states who happen to have the misfortune to be sitting on a large chunk of the known oil reserves and a whole shitload more people die, most of them innocent poor nationals of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile private security multinationals collect a fuckin windfall in government money as they covertly roll out the next police state at home.

Here’s a bloody position for you dear reader. The acts of 9/11 are over. Sure they have echoed a few times around the world but they didn’t and don’t herald a new wave of popular armed insurrection that transcends national boundaries. In breaking news it appears that most people just want to eat sleep and be fuckin merry. The last ten years has handed back power to private interest after any social gains that might have occurred in the preceding 100 years. Wealth is increasingly disproportionate in its distribution, a very important consideration if you subscribe (as I do) to the belief that the usefulness of money is proportional to its distribution. In other words, money becomes more useful and powerful when it is not distributed evenly.

Oh and then there is the little matter of global warming. Remember a few years ago (I do, I went to Al’s little film one night in a George Street movie house)…global warming was going to get us and the culprit was humanity’s greedy consumption of all things carbon. The scientists, bless their little empirical socks, happen to by and large agree. The powers-that-be got a bit nervous, what if widespread populism actually motivated people to act? Well government can’t have people acting for themselves and the economy certainly wont put up with people absconding from their consumer responsibilities so let’s have a RECESSION and remind the wavering where their loyalties lie, with the economy!

So there. Three positions. The War on Terror is morally, legally, socially, ethically, emotionally completely WRONG! The re-distribution of wealth to the rich and the ongoing preoccupation with making and selling shit is utter FOLLY. And the mainstream political system in cahoots with big business should all be sent to Antarctica so they can bask in the new found warmth of a carbon enhanced globe. Cus sure as shit stinks, these things will bite us all on the bum one day, and probably sooner than later. Call me a greenie, a socialist, a lapsed hippy or whatever label comes with the position, frankly I don’t give a damn.

Oh and I think Milton was a closet misogynist who found it easier to attribute evil to women then admit it in himself.

The dangers of intellectual and moral relativism

Margaret Warner from the PBS in the US has a story on the Pope’s reservations about the internet which apparently can also lead to “multiple forms of degradation and humiliation”.

Think embarrassing Facebook fotos, maybe.

But the Pope who is the leader of that wonderfully enlightened organisation called the Catholic Church (remember the inquisition) is obliged to tread carefully since openness and transparency have become synonymous with the idea of liberal democracy that is so fashionable in the western world.

It isn’t hard to understand why the Catholic Church might not welcome moral relativism since its authority is founded on having a special relationship with God, the ultimate and most absolute source of authority. Should widespread relativism ever take hold Richard Dawkins might have to re-examine his logic.

Tea Party NY Gov Candidate’s E-Mails Exposed: Racism, Porn, Bestiality | TPMMuckraker

I confess, I have a fascination with American big “P” politics where it seems that discussion about policy becomes intertwined with attitudes towards sex and race in the blink of an eye.

Germaine Greer used the phrase “the personal is the political” but in a weird coincidence it seems that a native New Yorker Carol Hanisch used the term in a brief essay called “The Personal is Political”.

I dare say the republican candidate for governor of NY is not acquainted with Carol’s essay…wealthy real estate developers usually have other things on their minds.

Tea Party NY Gov Candidate’s E-Mails Exposed: Racism, Porn, Bestiality | TPMMuckraker.

Populate or perish? – Crikey

Interesting comments…you might notice that of the dozen posted so far those that seem to think the ACF and the rationale of the article represent an affront to humanity do not actually discuss the issues raised by the writer, ie carbon pollution, water availability and land use. Rather they focus on the notion that growth is inevitable and part of our human nature which is hardly the point. At some stage the physical limits will come into play and at some other point some of the hypothetical constraints, such as unlimited growth in a finite world, will also manifest themselves.

The debate about human population growth must be discussed but it is so entrenched in the dominant orthodoxy that its proponents can simply duck the issues and resort to unassailable rhetoric. Last time I looked there wasn’t a spare Earth that we can easily move to…

Populate or perish? – Crikey.

The Press Association: Britons ‘waste £52bn on gadgets’

This story arrived in my inbox yesterday and like all good headlines it did grab my attention but the more I read the story and similar related ones doing the rounds the more curious I have become about the source and its methodology.

The source of the story seems to be a British based magazine called Stuff. Stuff is apparently a “mens” magazine which is code for a magazine which will frequently pander to sexual appetites of men in a softly pornographic way as this collection of google images illustrates. Now being a men’s mag shouldn’t count heavily against Stuff but it does raise a question over its methods and since it appears to be the source of the story about eWaste I am inclined to think that the story is doing the rounds as a form of indirect marketing driven by connections between the Haymarket media company and other media enterprises in the UK.

The fact that Haymarket (the parent company that makes Stuff) is apparently owned in part by Michael Heseltine the one time British conservative politician and now Baron in the UK makes the Stuff story a bit more interesting. Here we have a suite of glossy men’s mags bombarding readers with rave reviews for the latest technological gadgets which makes money from deals with advertisers (usually the makers of said gadgets or related services) gently chastising its market for the amount of eWaste the process creates presided over by a man, who we can safely say, knows absolutely no financial hardship and suffers not from the pangs of unrequited consumerism but instead enjoys a powerful position in the British establishment.

The motivation appears to be whatever sells works and guilt is a close companion to sex so the two combined should be a winner for the future Stuff however, looking at the UK’s Telegraph site the first line in their story discloses an immediate fallacy in the claim. It’s not that fifty two billion pounds of new gadget promptly wind up in the UK trash can every year, rather it is a somewhat lesser observation that -

the average Briton only uses half of the functions available on their gadgets

So what can we expect now the news has broken that the good people of Britain are frittering away their hard earned wages on gadgets they don’t use? Well a publicly funded education campaign is one possibility, the sort paid for by taxpayers and run by private consultants that buys up expensive media space in magazines like Stuff or perhaps, a public declaration by Michael Heseltine admonishing the great unwashed for their wasteful ways is another possibility. Are we likely to see a concerted media exploration into the morality of consumerism or a huge public outcry about the waste of resources? I think I will leave the answer to your imagination…

The Press Association: Britons ‘waste £52bn on gadgets’.

To beat terror, defeat its ideas | The Australian

Interesting…

How to you defeat an idea? Shall we put two ideas in a ring together and see which one is victorious after a number of rounds? The two ideas can slug it out for the amusement of punters and the financial benefit of the promoter.

But the metaphor is inadequate since a defeated idea can simply go away to lick its wounds and come back another day. No, defeating an idea is not that easy, if it was a lot of human history might never have happened.

Carl’s article is the war on terror Version 2. The enemy is now within, no one can be trusted. Who is thinking what ideas? Perhaps there is a terrorist in the minds of people already, maybe our teaching system is exposing children to the risk of an unwanted idea. And how shall we defeat these ideas? With money and public policy?

Part of the liberal western tradition is founded on plurality of free ideas as opposed to say a more doctrinarian approach. Supposedly the liberal approach to ideas creates a more flexible and more durable society which is evidenced by the dominance of the west so it is strange to see anyone in the west advocating a more tyrannical approach to what can be thought. Frankly it seems to indicate a faltering of the western liberal tradition to be discussing how to kill any idea.

In the contest of ideas it isn’t the worst ideas that are killed off, rather it is that better ideas prosper. The failure of the war on terror and what could become the war on ideas is they have not defeated bad ideas with better ones. The extreme questions the terrorist have posed to the west have not been answered with superior ideas and until they are, the idea of terrorism and its actions will continue to prosper. Spending money and devising policy might be a response but it’s never going to address the heart of the matter.

To beat terror, defeat its ideas | The Australian.

Miranda Devine – stating the obvious

Ms Devine has a habit of penning some enticing lines, I mean the topic of Gen Y and politics seems enticing as does her exploration of the Green Police ad that screened during the US Super Bowl but her article simply fail to deliver anything new.

When Labor came to power in 2007 only the supremely optimistic could possibly believe that a new government was going to achieve anything worthwhile on the question of climate change and the environment and such optimism rapidly becomes unsustainable in the face of our daily experiences. Miranda asserts that it is only Gen Y that smells a rat when its obvious that any thinking person is capable of perceiving the folly of mainstream politics.

If Gen Y’s are giving voice to their scepticism and doubts then I expect to see revolution in the streets sometime soon but a different picture emerges if we consider the forces trying to influence the mindshare of Gen Y. South Park and the Simpsons might be entertaining as is a clever car ad that pokes fun at the notion of a green police but they are hardly inspiring people to achieve better.

You can sum up the contribution of such mindnumbing mediocrity in a simple motto – social consensus is undesirable so look out for yourself. A message brought to you by Rupert Murdoch (owner of the Simpsons) or a car maker (Audi) is hardly a source of “real answers”.

A greater moral challenge isn’t invoked by the consideration of a new “green diesel” powered car, nor is it invoked by a carefully orchestrated TV meeting with the PM. When the serious and savvy people decide that the institutions which used to serve a purpose are no longer suitable for these times, then Miranda might be able to claim the future is in good hands. Until then it seems like we are just witnessing the ongoing sublimation of dissent through the time honoured practice of sophisticated rhetoric and amusing time killers.

Miranda Devine.

No shadow can take your place…

A song by the wonderfully talented Tiffany Eckhardt tells me to shine today, something I’m sure Auntie Gertrude would agree with, my lack of illumination not withstanding, yet I am sorely troubled by two things that have surfaced on my screen in recent times.

The first one I want to share is a job ad. I won’t bore you with all of it, just the summary should suffice.

“Are you passionate about changing people’s understanding and attitudes toward death and dying? Do you want to contribute to social change…”

Now I don’t know about you (I mean really I don’t, drop me a line sometime and tell me) but being passionate about death and dying? Okay there is the bit about attitudes and understanding as well as social change but is this really the right tact? If I think about people who are passionate about their interests artists and musicians come to mind, and accountants… actually no, sorry accountants don’t have an entry in their system for passion but I digress. This idea that one can be passionate about death and dying or changing people’s attitudes to it is intriguing. The only other people I can quickly think of who want to change social attitudes towards the end of our days usually come knocking on my door nicely dressed in suits and or dresses clutching copies of the Watchtower and offering to shine a bit of light into the dark corners of my troubled soul.

That is not to say that social attitudes to death and dying couldn’t do with a nudge but given the constraints of a part time position for ten hours a week just how much change could we expect to see? Society is a big scene and one person for ten hours a week hardly seems like social changing event but maybe I’m just cynical. On the other hand it might just be a cover for some kind of evangelical organisation that’s busy recruiting passionate people to spread the word that it’s okay to die because our suffering and death leads to a better world.

The other thing that crossed my screen this morning that deserves some reflection is (warning…adult material) this. News from the Expo is slowly making its way into the mainstream press which I guess just goes to show how easy it is to get publicity if you smile sweetly. But something about this easy adoption of the sex industry by the traditional conservative mainstream media is worrying me a little and it coincides with the avalanche of publicity over eReaders that has swamped the tubes recently.

Volumes have been written about the sex industry and my opinion is covered somewhere by someone so I’ll skip most of it. What I do find interesting about the “industry” is its implication for relationships between the sexes. Douglas Hines illustrates the point perfectly. A middle aged man sitting next to a piece of plastic that he can have sex with. Sure sex dolls are nothing new but people like Douglas are making money out of selling dolls to other men presumably because they can’t have a normal sexual relationship with another human being. It’s hardly surprising that women simply go and buy an unobtrusive vibrating thing that neatly fits in the drawer next to their bed but men have to buy a “recreational innovation” that can talk but still ”has a full C cup and is ready for action” for a quiet little $7000.

That the sex industry is primarily directed towards fulfilling heterosexual male fantasies is pretty much beyond question but what does it say about our societies? Like the 3D experience that Lance Johnson and his muse Breanne Benson are selling (and a virtual reality scenario putting it all together can surely be just around the corner) I am inclined to ask, is this the pointy end of the capitalist system as applied to our fundamental desires? It certainly seems like it. Create an environment where sex is commodified, regulate supply through various social agencies which increase the demand and then sell a solution. That would simply be business 101.

Am I passionate about death and dying…is selling sex ok? It’s worth thinking about, death as something we end up doing alone and sex as something infinitely more meaningful when it’s done with someone else.

Why Twitter Will Endure – NYTimes.com

Twitter has been on my mind a bit lately and David Carr’s piece reminded me of a draft post I have in the pile of unfinished stuff lying around. At first I thought the two lines of thought might cross over but Davi’d article takes a fairly familiar line so I guess my Twitter Confession will have to wait.

I am going to have a look at David’s article because I am starting to suspect that Twitter is more hype than substance but it may yet become something. What? Well I think Twitter is a ready made tool to replace the News and Advertising industries that until recently was married under the auspices of the newspaper industry. I think there are some reasonable grounds to make that assertion but let’s have a look at some of David’s claims with regard to Twitter.

First, there is the claim that Twitter is somehow an essential part of the internet plumbing, that the internet service provided by Twitter is so deeply meshed with all the other services that it must survive. An example is this blog, where you can tweet this story using the “share/save” button. This groovy little bit of code makes it easy for you to send these words anywhere else with just a few mouse clicks. If you take that functionality and apply it across the web then you can get some sort of picture of the sort infiltration that David means by his quote

“Twitter is looking more and more like plumbing, and plumbing is eternal.”

Okay, Twitter is part of the landscape whether or not it does anything. With such built in connectivity it is likely that Twitter will achieve some sort of critical mass and take on a life of its own. Possibly it is already there but before it becomes entrenched it will need to do a couple of things. First it needs to start making money for someone because no web service can survive for free over time, either they are subsidised by another profitable activity or they make a buck in their own right. The hard fact of life is that there is nothing free about providing a service on the net. This site costs money, facebook costs money to the people supplying it, Google costs money.

So Twitter will eventually have to attend to business. When it does then we will have a better idea about motivation and rewards, until then however Twitter’s business model seems primarily one of garnering sufficient mindshare to justify its existence.

The other thing Twitter will need to do is establish a much better track record in terms of service availability. Twitter Fail is fairly common in my experience and this is tied in with the business side of Twitter. To put it simply, providing a 99.999% reliable service on the net costs money, more money than Twitter can probably afford. So the gurus at Twitter probably sweat their arses off hoping it all holds together until someone comes up with the money for them to deploy a better service. In the meantime we get lots of “we are working on it” type announcements.

David acknowledges the issue of service reliability in his article but he seems more concerned with what Twitter can do for you and me. According to David, Twitter can keep us informed and up-to-date. It’s the electronic pulse of humanity, you just need to put your finger on the right spot.

It’s at this point that I think we need to stop and look seriously at what is being claimed for Twitter. According to Clay Shirky who David quotes;

“Anything that is useful to both dissidents in Iran and Martha Stewart has a lot going for it; Twitter has more raw capability for users than anything since e-mail.”

How is this raw capacity defined? It sounds like an impressive claim but one that David fails to substantiate. He then goes on to parrot the now familiar lines that Twitter represents some collective networked intelligence, a claim that may be true but one that begs the question of so what? According to David, this collective intelligence is best deployed helping him decide what netbook to buy or what is going on with flights during a US style terror scare. It seems uncritical thinking on his part, and it avoid the corollary. That is just how much time and mindshare is absorbed by being part of the Twitter experience.

And it is at this point that I really depart from David’s line of thinking. From my experience Twitter is a interactive now type of internet service. What is happening now is millions of tweets are filling up cyberspace with what’s currently of interest to the authors. And then there are the retweets and the corresponding conversations, but all of it is very NOW. Switch off twitter, as I have done for the last month or so of my break from uni, and suddenly life seems slower.

What you get from Twitter depends on who you follow and how often you use the service. For journalists and other media professionals I can easily see the usefulness of Twitter after all currency is the what drives the News industry. For the average punter I guess there is some value in tapping directly into the mindshare of the masses when something is happening but the question remains is it something we need? And given the business imperative that Twitter must deal with sooner or later, what will commercial interests do once they figure out a way to exploit the collective mind?

The bottom line for me is that Twitter is another time sink. It is also another mind grabber. Sure I can ration my use, I can organise my internet patterns so that it’s sitting in the background but the fundamental fact remains that unless I actually engage with Twitter, which means time and effort, it does nothing extra for me. The collective wisdom is what Andrew Keen discussed in his book “The Cult of The Amateur” and although I disagree with his predictions with regard to the creative mind, his points about the wisdom of the masses are well worth considering.

David is probably right in the sense that Twitter is here for the foreseeable future even if the retention rate of service adopters remains at it’s current level. It is hard to see Twitter disappearing overnight but it is also hard to see what is going to take Twitter to the next level of a “must have” internet service. Hype of the kind that David and other evangelists preach might drive a few more people to look at Twitter but the constant on feature is not, as claimed, a bonus in terms of our already busy lives.

Why Twitter Will Endure – NYTimes.com.