Comments on: Technology as philosophy

By: Vinod Varma

Vinod Varma — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:00:50 +0000

I am neither an expert nor a student of sociology. But I believe what is happening on web 2.0 has a lot to do with sociology and many related subjects. I am quite impressed with this discussion

Rules of the real world are formed over centuries from experience and thoughts of visionaries and thought leaders from the past. It is time for norms of real world to be adapted to suit virtual world. Having said that, we need to admit that it comes with unique challenges.

Norms of society are evolved over centuries based on local culture and values, forming a foundation like tectonic plates. As virtual world is set to integrate heterogeneous social groups across the globe, it holds potential for significant friction along underlying fault lines.

By: A call for social systems for virtual world « Software Engineer’s Blog

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:16:57 +0000

[...] find discussion in the blog Technology as philosophy around this topic as timely, interesting and [...]

By: D'Arcy Norman

D'Arcy Norman — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:16:40 +0000

@george – I agree that most people are unaware or simply don’t know (or realize) the implications of online stuff on privacy/autonomy etc… Not sure how to get around that. People don’t seem to listen to the warnings, because the concepts are abstract.

By: dave cormier

dave cormier — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:32:29 +0000

Sorry. clarity has not been my strong suit today. My point is that, to the iranians, freedom and identity are not happening ‘in a digital world’ they are happening in the world, one facet of which happens to be digital.

By: gsiemens

gsiemens — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:01:36 +0000

@Dave – I’m not quite following your argument. My point was not about twitter or iranian freedom fighters. My point is (was) that we are forced to translate/renegotiate what freedom and identity mean in a digital world. As such, it’s not how a person uses twitter that defines freedom. It’s twitter itself (and facebook, blogs, lms, wordpress, etc.) that (re)defines freedom. Not the application of the tool, but what the tool itself enables or affords…i.e. the ideology embedded in the tool.

By: dave cormier

dave cormier — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:49:39 +0000

@gsiemens not objective across all circumstances george. My point is that, for the one freedom fighter in iran, the freedom they are fighting for does not somehow morph when they use twitter. Real people. And, to them, real freedom. It is all too easy to think that the thing we care about is the pivot point… there are pivot points to the meaning of freedom etc… I’m just thinking that it might not be the one you think it is… not that there aren’t any.

By: gsiemens

gsiemens — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:40:54 +0000

@D’Arcy – Twitter might not have been the best example. But Blackboard would work. Or any LMS. Or Microsoft. Or now Google. Or Rogers. Or three-strikes laws. Or concerns around MySQL & Oracle. Designers/developers build in freedom/control and most of us simply deal with the consequences. In spite of running through open source meadows holding hands and frolicking amongst the morning dew, what’s defined as freedom is different online than physical.

But, I’m curious of your views to the main point of my post: freedom/liberty/equity/individual autonomy are being renegotiated/translated to the online environment and most people are a) not aware, b) don’t care.

By: gsiemens

gsiemens — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:34:52 +0000

@Alan – I agree with gradients of open/closed and such. I don’t think I presented a binary distinction between democracy/not-democracy in my post. I was arguing that attention be directed to how freedom is being renegotiated in the digital world.

By: gsiemens

gsiemens — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:31:45 +0000

@Dave “Yes. Computers offer different affordances for the crushing of freedom… but is the freedom that’s being crushed really different?”

At the level of abstraction you are pursuing here, I’m not sure there is a difference (re: my comment to Chris on transportation). You’re raising freedom to a level that exceeds even the physical instantiation of it. In that sense, I guess you are right, freedom is the same base entity across all instantiations – physical, digital, post-digital or whatever. But this is an interesting stance for you to make, Dave. You sound like you’re appealing to an objective view of freedom. How shall I reconcile that with our previous discussions. I think you may be a closet objective knowledgist

By: gsiemens

gsiemens — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:25:18 +0000

@Chris – “I also wonder if you aren’t speaking from the future, a time after this turbulent transition, when it will probably make more sense, imo, to try to boil off all the “digital” references, when the activities and events whose existence depends on that the online/digital/virtual component will be so commonplace and mundane that there will be no difference between digital/virtual/online X and X– because right now, in the world *I* live in, there is most often a significant and important group of characteristics and implications that differ.”

Good point…I know Dave has a post-digital mindset. For me, however, the digital is still quite prominent. I’m not comfortable with reducing everything down to an all encompassing view of freedom that holds new unique attributes in either digital of physical realm.

By way of Dave’s burning off unique aspects of digital – i.e. when he collapses digital/physical “freedom” into one entity, I could just as soon say that air travel, car travel, or space travel are really just transportation. And, by Dave’s logic, I’d be right. But, each type of transportation permits different experiences…and different opportunities for the participant. To use transportation at such a high level renders specific discussions of it useless…