You Can Know A Coward by His Tools

“I must confess that I've never trusted the Web. I've always seen it as a coward's tool. Where does it live? How do you hold it personally responsible? Can you put a distributed network of fiber-optic cable "on notice"? And is it male or female? In other words, can I challenge it to a fight? --Stephen Colbert

Every few years there is talk about the death of Irony. Yet, like Sinbad’s the rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated. For that, I am incredibly grateful. Most of the people reading this either know or can guess with a fair level of certainty my personal and political leanings. That has little bearing on my appreciation of Stephen Colbert Report's dry wit. Stephen Colbert may be the best fisker outside of the internet. It is always fun to watch the public, press and pundits get tweaked. I enjoy this show most, however, because of the service it provides to me. ,

The best episodes of the Colbert Report like all really good satire remind me that the idea of infallibility has no place in politics. The paradox of demorcacy is that it is most trustworthy. When its citizens act distrustful. Sometimes, however, the authority that must be questioned are your own assumptions. That’s why the best episodes of the Colbert Report leave me uncertain as to who or what is being mocked.

An excellent example of this can be found in the sketch he did on Wikipedia. Wikipedia was clearly the primary subject of this satire. who gets to be the informational gatekeeper is of incredible relevance to everyone. Yet it cannot be forgotten that the show has an important message at its core.

Although, The Colbert Report is a funhouse mirror of cable news channels, it is still a mirror. Each show,is a satire of the way the press deals with complex issues. These issues are treated as raw material for an industry that will use the 24 hour news cycle to chew these complex issues into sound bites. Which the Bill O'Reillys and Al Frankens of the world will present for consumption. These news shows present a reality based less on facts and more on marketing and economics. Colbert spoke of information management in this sketch. This idea is increasingly less funny in a universe that according to the Pew Foundation ensures that the more you watch Fox news the less informed you are likely to be. Incidentally, This same report indicated that the viewers who are the most informed largely watched...The Daily Show. Which the parent show of the Colbert Report

So in the end who is Colbert really mocking? Those people who get their information from Wikipedia or people who get their information from News shows.

G3ND3R

Considering my interest in the convergence of the Internet and Democracy., Two articles were recommended to me recently. One had the intriguing title: The Internet is a fine place for Women. In this article, the author Charles W. Huff discusses online gender relations. He also argues that the tremendous capacity for communication provided by the internet makes it especially attractive to the female user.

The other to an article called Gender Gap in Cyberspace originally published in Newsweek in 1994 by a bestselling author named Deborah Tannen. Dr. Tannen is a well respected professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Much of the work she has done for both the academic audience and the general audience centers around the differences in communication between the genders. Dr. Tanner's article explains that Gender Differences in communication are responsible for her lack of expertise. This anecdote served as an illustration of the differences between the genders that serve as a stumbling block for many women who otherwise may have considered computer science as a career of hobby. This is why I am so hopeful.

This article serves in stark contrast with information that is more recent. Much of this latter information mirrors the conclusion of Hiroshi Ono and Madeline Zavodny of the Stockholm School of Economics. For the sake of context much of their abstract is quoted below:

The objective of this study was to "examines whether there are differences in men's and women's use of the Internet and whether any such gender gaps have changed in recent years."

Methods.We use data from several surveys during the period 1997–2001 to show trends in Internet usage and to estimate regression models of Internet usage that control for individuals' socioeconomic characteristics.

Results.Women were significantly less likely than men to use the Internet at all in the mid-1990s, but this gender gap in being online disappeared by 2000. However, once online, women remain less frequent and less intense users of the Internet.

Conclusions.There is little reason for concern about sex inequalities in Internet access and usage now, but gender differences in frequency and intensity of Internet usage remain.

Although, the Internet is still far from a Utopian Sanctuary. It gives me hope to realize that that is particular aspect of the digital divide is becoming less divisive.

Hiroshi Ono, Madeline Zavodny (2003)
Gender and the Internet^* Social Science Quarterly 84 (1), 111–121.

Huff, Chuck. "The Internet in a Fine Place for Women." A Virtual Commonplace. Dec. 2007. Computers and Society. 5 Apr. 2007 -http://college.hmco.com/english/amore/demo/ch4_ r3.html-.

Tannen, Deborah. "Gender Gap in Cyberspace." A Virtual Commonplace. 16 May 1994. Newsweek. 5 Apr. 2007 -http://college.hmco.com/english/amore/demo/ch4_r1.html-.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty

Recently, both the traditional media as well as the blogosphere have made much of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's s showing in the "money primary". Many credit the freshman senator's surprisingly successful performance on his apparent comfort with a new political process.

A new political process that encourages people to use the internet to become take part in it.

Many people have heard the call and placed themselves within the process. Some have added themselves to the process through the creation of sites like Conservapedia, a website that markets itself as a Wikipedia for conservatives. Others, like the creator of the "Vote Different"ad, Phillip Vellis, use technology to change the process itself. Even blogs like those of Daily Kos ,Andrew Sullivan, Scripting News and Instapundit and even smaller ones like this one attempt to observe the process and almost like Heisenberg they change it by observing it.

All of these changes to the process encourage people to take part. Most importantly, it encourages people to take part in whichever manner they are most comfortable. Barack Obama can testify to the success that comfort with the idea of dialogue can bring. However, if you listen closely you can still hear the ghosts of John McCain and Howard Dean's 2004 bids warning to beware any magic bullet that can guarantee losing 20lbs overnight or political success.

Undoubtedly there exists an enthusiastic blogger or technologist willing to claim that this election cycle comfort with the digital dialogue is enough to guarantee success. This enthusiastic blogger, however, is willing to claim that this election cycle, discomfort with the digital dialogue is enough to guarantee failure.

 

 

 

High Octane Troll Food

Recently, I've been reading a lot about a simple experiment that's getting a lot of press. This experiment seems so simple, in fact, that many people assume that it must be terribly subtle and complex. It isn't. This experiment Wikipedia seems complex only because it ignores tradition and common sense. Tradition, after all argues that decisions are best left to experts. Wikipedia however is based on the idea that experts should not be the only "gatekeepers" of information. That information should be "free" not like free as in beer but like without confinement or gates.

Unsurprisingly, many experts hate this idea. Encyclopedia Britannica's very public fight with Wikipedia is one of the most public and telling examples. However other examples are present in both print and blogs across the web. The blogs of the free range librarian are another example of the genre. In one post she writes:

"In Wikipedia's current manifestation, all contributors are on equal footing in terms of editing power and authority (and that's not even getting into the issue of scope; Wikipedia is built haphazardly, like building a library by buying the first fifty books you find walking into Borders). With no editorial workflow, no significant mechanisms for (and no emphasis on) acknowledging authority, and no way to give expertise its due, Wikipedia functions primarily as high-octane troll food, fueling lengthy "Lord of the Flies"-style shout-downs between, on the one hand, cranks and malcontents, and on the other, the vastly outnumbered experts who care to be bothered to contribute in the first place."

In short, she contends that Wikipedia's dependence on primarily knowledge renders it unreliable. The implication is that Wikipedia cannot be considered reliable until it mirrors the librarian's respect for expertise. Professor Paul Cartledge of Cambridge University perfectly encapsulates the distrust of the masses at the base of this type of criticism when he says that academics:

"…deny specifically that the sort of knowledge available to and used by ordinary people, popular knowledge if you like, is really knowledge at all. At best it is merely opinion, and almost always it is ill-informed and wrong."

Professor Cartledge, however was not referring to Wikipedia at all. This excerpt actually refers to the criticism that many academics in Athens shared regarding this idea called Democracy.

Aristotle and Plato, to name but two of the most famous names, considered the ability to govern to be beyond the ability of the common man. The masses could not be trusted. They could be too easily led down dangerous and foolish paths. Demagogues skillful in rhetoric could shift the direction of a nation on a whim.

Government was too important an institution to leave in the hands of the governed. Plato and Aristotle's criticisms like those of their spiritual descendants were eloquent. But, this idea although simple and counterintuitive, was powerful. Democracy was attempted over and over again. Eventually this idea would change the world in ways that no one could have imagined.

 

 

Schneider, K. G. "Free Range Librarian." 22 Mar. 2007

http://freerangelibrarian.com/archives/052905/wikipedia.php

 

Strenski, Ellen, comp. "The Wikipedia/Encyclopaedia Britannica Controversy." University of California, Irvine. 22 Mar. 2007 -http://compositioncafe.com/25950/wikicontroversy.html-.

Cartledge, Paul. "Critics and Critiques of Athenian Democracy". BBC. 22 Mar. 2007 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekcritics_01.shtml

Cartledge, Paul. "Critics and Critiques of Athenian Democracy". BBC. 22 Mar. 2007 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml

 

Steal ThisBlog

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

French Post-Impressionist painter (1848 - 1903)

 

Two things happened this week that birthed a thought churning in my gut. First, tragically a few days ago Baudrillard died of cancer. In many ways, he and Umberto Eco framed my first thoughts on the place of copies and originals in reality. Exposure to his thinking influenced my ideas of the real and the hyperreal. Thinking about him again helped me to discover a flaw in my thinking. A few posts ago I asked who gets to determine reality. That was the wrong question. The right question didn't occur to me until a professor Wayne State University brought up Boswell and his dictionary. It made me think of the arguments that Boswell had with ????? about the evolution of language. I realized then that increasingly an assumption is being made, an assumption that "information wants to be free". This assumption is at the heart of documents like the Bellagio Declaration. Scores of bloggers like Laura at Laurablog and the entire team at Stay Free! serve to document the gradual awakening of Western Society to this fact. Although this statement can be heard more and more frequently, few understand its implications. Information has always found a way to make itself free. No matter the obstacle or the condition Information always finds ways of replicating and evolving. This isn't idealism or wishful thinking. It is an observation of history. When print is nonexistent oral traditions spring up. When the transmission of information is suppressed, it is smuggled like the art of Florence before Savranola or schoolbooks in the slave quarters of the antebellum south. It transforms itself like the navigation codes disguised as spirituals sung in the plantations of the south. Other examples are easily seen if you choose to look. Another truism is that past patterns are the best indicators of future performance. For further confirmation read the two page article in Wired in Jan 1994. In this article Rebecca E. Zorach points out some of the parallels between modern techy society and that of the Medieval monastic society. Whether the holders of the information be analog or digital, western or eastern, monastic or hedonist information always spreads and always evolves.

 

Digital Windmills

My last few posts, have tried to address some of the issues voiced by Lawrence Lessig's book Freeculture. This is in no small part due to Lessig's eloquence as a speaker and charming writing style. His ability, unfortunately, far too rare among lecturers allows him to make potentially dull subjects interesting and interesting subjects riveting. Accordingly, I have been greatly enjoying this book and was looking forward to his conclusion. I was certain that the conclusion of this story would share the rational and insightful tone that despite the grim tone consistently comprised the lion share of this work.

Perhaps, this explains why the change in Lessig's tone when recounting the Eldred case and its aftermath was so affecting. Initially, I thought I was merely reacting to the self flagellating tone that increased as he recounted his disappointments. I realized that I was reacting to more than that. In his conclusion, Lessig shares his disillusionment with a system that has been very good to him. This disillusionment reminds us of an important lesson. Although, we may be able to listen to the audio of this case or read an analysis of it. This case is about both far more and far less than abstract theories abour ones and zeros. This is about the actions of individuals. A Wired Article published before the Eldred case perhaps provides the most important lesson Professor Lessig can offer the reader.

From the outside, it seems that Larry Lessig's existence has been privileged. Nice upbringing. Ivy League education, then Cambridge and top law schools. The best clerkships. Tenured law professor. And now an acclaimed author, speaker, and, ultimately, Supreme Court litigator. Yet he doesn't see it that way at all. "I always feel I should have been better at each of those steps. I bring to it this expectation that there's a lot more somebody else could have done."

"So far I've lost, lost at every level."

Yet he continues to try.

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.

Levy, Steven. "Lawrence Lessig's Supreme Showdown." Wired 10 Oct. 2002. 1 Mar. 2007 <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.10/lessig.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=>.

Toasters in a Vast Wasteland

Legislators, spurred by fear and prodded by Industry Lobbyists, are restricting innovation and the culture that spawns it. Lessig documents this devils' bargain in the second third of his book Free Culture. This section documents the increasingly draconian interpretations of intellectual property law. A few posts earlier I shared my thoughts as I read Free Culture. Lawrence Lessig's grasp of the facts and gift for rhetoric remains undeniable. One facet of this thesis leapt out at me.

The issue of monopoly and media concentration is crucial to the United States. Numerous parallels in history exist to demonstrate the dangers to liberty of allowing a small group to be gatekeepers of information. Lessig's description of Congers provides us with cautionary tale. A few words removed however creates an eerie sense of immediacy to remind us how vigilant we must be.

they were increasingly seen as monopolists of the worst kind tools of the crown's repression selling liberty of England to guarantee themselves a monopoly profit…. Many believed the power the booksellers exercised over the spread of knowledge was harming that spread, just at the time the
Enlightenment
was teaching the importance of knowledge and education spread generally. The idea that knowledge should be free was a hallmark of the time and these powerful commercial interests were interfering with that idea.

The historical effects of monopoly is still readily apparent. Its impressions can be found in innumerable places including but not limited to the American Constitution. The most superficial research shows Thomas Jefferson and James Madison greatest concern was not whether Monopolies were good, rather the letters show the two founding fathers discussing whether any monopoly even a temporary one was advisable.

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.