IRC: #boycottnovell @ Techrights IRC Network: Sunday, September 22, 2024
2 AM, September 22
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3 AM, September 22
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6 AM, September 22
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noon, September 22
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1 PM, September 22
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5 PM, September 22
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8 PM, September 22
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> fwiw here are some questions for xxxx, he has not responded to past
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > emails so perhaps he can get them via you this time?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Hi, Roy if you don't mind forwarding my responses I'd be most
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > grateful, thankyou. Sorry for if I've missed people's questions.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; I already relay what can/should, trying to omit names if so they prefer :-)
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 1. What is the goal of the article?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > It's to get readers to re-examine their idea about rights and think
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > more about responsibilities.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > (( A strong feeling that we need to do some painful examination of
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > where "software freedom" stalled as a social/political movement.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Daniel Cantarin's painful rebuke to Alexandre Oliva was a
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > spark. Daniel's objections are legitimate, yet they are also
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > self-pitying and angry apologetic that fails to ask the salient
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > technical and political questions. He buys the official "security"
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > narrative hook, line and sinker, apparently accepting violation of his
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > rights as a given, inevitable and unstoppable fact of the world. Then
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > he turns this into a position that necessity makes morals optional,
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > which I experienced as a sad sort of defeatism. Because ironically,
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Daniel is speaking from a position of responsibility, as a family
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > provider, carer and breadwinner, tormented by poverty and
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > bureaucracy. He is acting in the most moral way while trashing morals
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > as a "luxury". So at the same time he fails to see the responsibility
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > we each have as a technology user to all our fellow beings. ))
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > So the aim of my essay is to ask why we are talking past one another,
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > trying to win the "more oppressed than thou" race. I think the answer
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > is that "rights" are a weak formulation of social relations and that
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > if we try to reposition around "responsibility" it will have more
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > power.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 2. How have the changes to university financing contributed to the
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > current mess?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Read Prof. Wendy Brown. I'm no expert and she puts the complex shift
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > from corporatism to global financialism far more eloquently than I
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > could possibly. See "Forum 22: The End of the Corporate University and
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > What We Are Now" youtube:Z5EWYohECRQ
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > In a nutshell global money made everything that is
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > moral/ethical/public unprofitable. One may still have morals, and it's
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > still possible to do humane research or help people, but you will pay
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > for it dearly.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> And how is it possible that science and the arts have taken a
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > distant second place to economic profit?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > I don't quite understand that question. Clearly money /has/ displaced
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > human values, and in a way it doesn't matter "how" or "why". The
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > question of "how?" is if there is any political, social or
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > psychological remedy - because clearly it is pathological to the
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > species.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 3. What are the analyses of the reasons for how we got into the
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > current mess?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Again, I'll defer to other smarter authors, Wendy Brown, Benjamin
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Ginsberg, Noam Chomsky and John Taylor Gatto.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Synthesising all their views as if I were an LLM ... Acadmia has been
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > infiltrated and destroyed by vain, shallow, selfish impostors who are
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > complete cowards. They pushed out all the truly intelligent but less
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > aggressive people. Nobody cares, because (eveyone hates eggheads and
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > real geeks anyway) universities are now an "industry" that makes a lot
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > of money selling dreams and limiting class mobility. Soon an enormous
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > cultural and intellectual debt is going to get called-in that will
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > collapse Western society which has no innovation or creativity plan-B
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > to fall back on. "AI" is the last desperate bet of Peter-Pan
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Capitalism to keep living in Never-Never land.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 4. Who benefits from the current mess?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Nobody. It's a complete fucking lose-lose mess.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > In the short term maybe about 100 financiers. But nobody actually
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > worth mentioning.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 5. Why are IT magazines completely silent about these problems?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > I don't know much about IT magazines. My friend Daniel James once
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > wrote prolifically for some of them and has given me the impression
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > they are saussage facories just like any other area of journalism that
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > needs to sell advertisement. I also think all tech media is still
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > stuck in "chirpy optimism mode". I mean, I'm an optimist, but that's
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > not the same as living in abject denial. It's like they're obliged to
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > repeat the uncritical mantra about "enormous benefits to society".
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > So, for me they're irrelevant because they're the last place on Earth
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > that would ever print "depressing cruft" from someone like me.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> 6. What are possible routes out of the current mess?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Personally I'm setting up my own university. It's a long and hard
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > process that's going to be a lifelong work. If I can educate just one
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > student the proper way it will have been worth it.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Already I've experienced the pressures and peverse incentives that
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > shape the current shitshow. For example: employers couldn't give a
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > crap about knowledge, creativity, innovation... they just want monkeys
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > to wind the handles. Finding students whose primary motive isn't just
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > getting an entry-level tech worker job is a challenge. The only people
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > who value knowledge are a dwindling minority of intellectuals and
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > philosophers. Besides, students don't really want knowledge
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > either. They want a certificate that says they are OK. It's all about
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > assuaging deep inner insecurity that's been planted in their minds
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > since infant school. If you do challenge their knowledge they fall
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > apart so fast bystanders get by the shrapnel.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >> ^ also possible topics ?
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; >
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > Yes I think all of these points are wonderful topics to explore
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > further. Some of the conclusions are a bit depressing though. More
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > than the question of "can humans move beyond empty consumerism?" is
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > "can we change /in time/" becasue the clock is clearly ticking now.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > At some point we won't be able to raise an educate a smart-enough
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; > generation in the remaining time window for survival.
20:49 schestowitz[TR2]; Relayed verbatim to the 'provocateur'. Thank you, very insightful.