Controversy over Web 2.0 - Habermas questions...

[Knotted]

To go back to the point I was making. I don't think academic philosophy encourages thought - it encourages work. I might be wrong, it is just my impression. But my sentiment expressed here is the biggest difference I have with gorski. I don't assossiate thought with work. In fact I see thought and work as antagonistic if anything. I'm not sure where I picked up this prejudice - the education system agrees very much with gorski. It really is true for me. Reading is such a passive activity. Writing is such a pointless, fussy activity. Thought happens only when you shut the book and put down the pen.

I should add that all this philosophy that I've been reading lately is a sure sign that my brain is rotting. I must give it up.

 

[gorski]

True in some cases - when it comes to novelty - but a prejudice, when unqualified, sure. Missed the dialectics bit... In that case one goes out and debates and then it's just a starting point, not the end of Universe as we know it... And then you may even act, who knows... Only this time, hopefully, a little more meaningfully...

Selling? How, if you do not own the rights to your ideas?

 

[Knotted]

True in some cases - when it comes to novelty - but a prejudice, when unqualified, sure. Missed the dialectics bit... In that case one goes out and debates and then it's just a starting point, not the end of Universe as we know it... And then you may even act, who knows... Only this time, hopefully, a little more meaningfully...

The difference I have with you here is a personal difference, it has nothing to do with philosophy. What I understand thought to be is quite different to you, based on a very different personal experience. Its largely to do with cognitive strangeness on my behalf.

Selling? How, if you do not own the rights to your ideas?

I don't know how it works exactly. Maybe a composer will get commisioned to produce a work and will get paid regardless of how popular it is. Even then the pay will not necessarily reflect the effort put in. An author could write a book and not be able to find a publisher and will get paid nothing, or on the other hand they could be JK Rowling in it.

 

[gorski]

Sorry, not good enough. Not ever close! You wouldn't dream of not paying your plumber or baker, or hairdresser or...., non?

 

[Knotted]

Sorry, not good enough. Not ever close! You wouldn't dream of not paying your plumber or baker, or hairdresser or...., non?

I've tried but its impossible - there's no polite response to that. Complete incomprehension.

 

[gorski]

Yesterday Manuel Castells spoke at LSE on internet myths etc.

To him it's all cool and value neutral, tech is just a tool, can be used in any direction, nothing to worry about, as it intrinsically doesn't carry any problems, since all those potential ones mentioned by the critics [who have no data but he does] "peter out", generally speaking, over a period of time - or so he thinks of himself and his musings on the topics...

Only to "admit" at the end, asked by David Held about solidarity etc. values/bits to it, that he thinks we are only "disjointed/fragmented" ethnic, religious etc. communities fighting each other...

Ergo: "value free" and "descriptive" only my foot. Extremely poor, methodologically speaking, superficial and vacuous... Grrrrr...

 

[_float_]

...[traditional media]...focuses the attention of an anonymous and dispersed public on select topics and information, allowing citizens to concentrate on the same critically filtered issues and journalistic pieces at any given time. The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralised access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus.

I think Habermas is raising an important issue here about the nature of "public debate":

In a room of 100 people, unless there is an actual 'focus' of debate (eg one speaker at a time perhaps?) then all you get is lots of private one-on-one conversations, possible all duplicating each other. It isn't the same thing as a 'public debate'.

The old print media with a limited number of national newspapers and TV/radio channels provided a 'focus' for debate, so that at any one time a certain issue would become a hot topic for discussion and debate.

If you have a vast number of niche channels then there is a sense in which there is less focus and therefore maybe less shared and unified 'public debate'.

I would argue that this issue of 'focus' is separate from the issue of 'authority' or elitism. You can even see the same issue in u75 where having too many separate forums can end up dividing up debate and debaters too much (or where too few forums would also make deate more difficult). This is to do with the dynamics of debate and discussion vis-a-vis the number of participants and number of channels or arenas of debate.