> I like all the permutations of "an"... could simply be "a net" in the
> minimalist viewpoint. Or "a node".
Oh god. I was always thinking about nodes. That's just what it should be!
I mean, a node, one contribution to this huge network of people and
everything. Like hum-an and an/t. Individual but participating.
Potentially an-ything but alone so vague that only a-nothing.
a node. That's brilliant of you!
an-ode to you for that :) (can you say that?-)
> I think the USA tends to glorify machines and the Europeans are more
> interested in what machines can do... the nerds here may not have
> discovered culture yet :-), or they would rather hide behind their
Well hmm. I somethings think that the Finns are the most technocentric
people there are. Here in Amsterdam people at least make funny art with
it.
I guess it's global with nerds. I'm considered to be cultural (or at least
nultural) but have been living in Amsterdam several months now but haven't
been to *any* of the museums, even to Van Gogh's even though I love him.
There's always so much else like contemporary art exhibitions that go away
next week .. museums will be there and you can't meet the dead artist
him/herself there anyway :)
> technical expertise than be forced to think about social uses/abuses of
> computers and networks. Some believe that "science" is and should be
> independent of "culture", which I find naive and self-serving. Everything
> that humans do is embedded in culture and to pretend otherwise is hubris
> (do you know this word from Greek drama? I'm sure they teach it in
> Finland).
"hubris". is it different than hybris..? That's one state I know.
Sure they teach it but I was always in the computer class maintaining the
unix-server and giving people accounts?
Not quite, I did study my history, but can't remember greek mythology so
well. I do remember Dionysos because of the wine and some writers like
Aiskhylos 'cause I always thought it sounded funny.
In a way this narrow cultural knowledge is really a pity since I quite
often come up with the feeling that we're rediscovering the wheel in many
things we do as they are starting to be more related to philosophy,
economics, law and social science for example.
Fortunately being in the computer class tought also something so
askjeeves.com just told me to look at
http://www.perspicacity.com/elactheatre/library/pedia/greek.htm which
explains:
(...)
"The tragic protagonist is one who refuses to acquiesce to fate or life's
rules, either out of character weakness or strength. Most often, the
protagonist's main fault is hubris, a Greek (and modern English) word
meaning arrogance. It could be the arrogance of not accepting the hand
that life deals (i.e., fate, as in Oedipus Rex), the arrogance of assuming
the right to kill (Agamemnon), or the arrogance of assuming the right to
seek vengeance (Orestes). Whatever the root, the protagonist's ultimate
collision with fate, reality or society is inevitable and irrevocable."
(...)
I quit agree that what you said about people focusing in technical
expertise goes well with that. It doesn't mean that pure tech
people are evil or anything, they just don't take the
responsibility. Technical is easy and often not about real problems.
I think that's the case with the Internet now, or has been for some time
already. All the technical solutions are there, some have been for almost
25 years now, and many have really useful and easy for many years already.
So the issues are, like I guess ISOC knows better than anyone else, mostly
political, juridical and social. (or what would you put here?).
This always reminds me of the African Network Symposium in Inet'97 in KL
last summer. I don't know how the situation has changed since but then
they had some severe problems. For example in Ghana there was 5
independent ISP's or so and all the traffic between them went all the way
to somewhere in England and back and cost them a lot. Also when connecting
from e.g. South-Africa to some country next to it the traffic went to the
U.S. and back which of course cost them a lot.
My impression, without really knowing the facts, was that the AfriCIX and
AfriNIC plans were technically OK but the people couldn't agree on them
because of political and other "soft" reasons. Hopefully the next AFN in
Geneva will reveal more of that..
BTW: This our-thing-being-separated-from-other's -thing comes always up
with, not only technical and scientifical people, but also artists.
P.S. It may be irresponsible of them but I still think that, till some
point, they (we) have right for it. Parts of technology, science, art etc.
are evolving partly independently .. if you know what I mean .. when
specializing and concentrating to their own thing people don't (and
can't!) always keep everything else (politics, social issues) etc. in
mind.
I think it's ok as long as they have some sort of moral. Well, in a way
the moral includes all those politics and social issues but in such a
unconsciouss way that people don't have to be aware of it.
---P.S.2 I'd guess Bjork and Sanna are good examples of people who do good things without always being really consciouss about what they do (like our beloved protocol engineers too?). That's also what they preach:
"all that you've learned try to forget
fuck logic! fuck logic!
believe in instinct an-sweet intuition"
http://www.bjork.mmedia.is/lyrics/intuition.htm
That's my favourites too but quite often I'm the .. troubled one, one who tries to always consider and be aware of all. And yes, I seem to have this irritating urge to explain everything all the time. But why?
Sometimes I say I'm afraid of war. I remember talking about it last summer and in a way the InterNic-Alternic hassle and the Internetic root-server mistakes right after that last July (did you follow it, remember still?) felt like the first shots. Now it seems that net.wars is quite a popular subject, there's the on-line book at the University of New York and now this cyberwar fiction in the newest wired, did you read it?
Well, Bjork also loves to be in a state of emergency as you can see http://www.bjork.mmedia.is/lyrics/stateof.htm so I should be just happy.
Sorry about a long and messy message again, now it's time to head back home. From this home. Or something.
+ an + ~ Toni ~ : (t . !