And more, these are funny!
The Group and its Protagonist – Archetypes of Cyberspace
I completed this psychodrama thesis in 1999 after working on it one way and another since about 1984. One feature of this paper is the discussion about the sociometric matrix, a notion that influences my ideas about cyberspace as well and were at the root of another essay I wrote – Archetypes of Cyberspace
I stumbled across this better pdf version of the The Group and its Protagonist – linked to it on my Writing page.
I’m wonering if there is some way to publish something based on these papers?
Jesus the man, Jobs the man
To make sense of this post you may need to read my last entry.
Also you may need to know who Barnum was:
And read: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/theater/mike-daisey-discusses-the-agony-and-ecstasy-of-steve-jobs.html?src=dayp that my friend Amy just sent me.
Jobs may well be a Barnum, and like Barnum he creates a new medium for communication, but it is not just the man. It is as if humanity is ready for a jump and it finds a vehicle to make it happen. Unfortunately it has to make in the capitalist context, given the failure of the German revolution after World War one. While Jobs is a creative guy, no doubt, and while he is enough of a Barnum to pull it all off in the world as it is, the world was ripe for a new leap in communication, to go beyond printing presses and beyond tele type machines. It took someone to make the next leap actual. Zuckerberg is another such. These steps in the evolution of the psyche are all distorted by the fucked up relations of production. The agony is to live in a sick social system, the actual agony of children in chinese factories and the agony of collusion, alienation and powerlessness for many others of us.
The leap in relations of production that we were on the edge of in capitalist countries at the start of the last century did not happen, history missed its natural turning. If we were in an era of new social relations of production the miserable state of psychological developments would not be the context for these technical innovations leading to huge cultural global shifts sweeping the world. However Rosa Luxembourg was assassinated, the social democrats subverted the revolution, industrial revolutions happens in the name of socialism and distorted the history of possible new relations of production. But that is how it is.
So what of new developments? Everything we create or do is in a backward social system. Creativity is social and public, but ownership lags behind, it is private and coercive and seeks out Dickensian situations such as china to maximize profits and to avoid failure in the market. I don’t think Jobs sold out on his vision, I imagine there was agony in making it happen.
Should he not have made the mouse, the first personal pc? Should we not use the technology? It is tempting as every object contains the labour power of the poor and exploited. I don’t think it it’s the answer to smash the tools, unless there was a mass movement of boycott. Even then the much needed jump is nothing to do with the tools, but in the relations of production, and this not because “we” collude with Chinese fascism, as Mike Daisey implies in the NYT interview. It is more that capitalism went global, that it is alive and well as a system. Not so well actually, perhaps in its vicious death trows. Who will lead that transition we are now on the edge of? We are ripe for another leap.
The revolution, innovation, the next big thing will not be technological but social and political. People who lead this next leap forward won’t be just great writers like Marx or orators like Lenin and Trotsky but people able to lead using the new orality of the Internet, even though its built with an unjust system of production. The screens are not the same thing as the humans who communicate via those screens. Revolution won’t be be because of the the Internet, but it can’t happen if people throw away their telephones and everything made in China, we live in this world.
The reflection I’m making, if it is not obvious, is that there are mighty forces at work, and that no one man Jesus or Jobs is really the cause of them. There is always someone who gives expression most fully and effectively to a collective urge. The power of leaders is not only because of what they do or say, but because of the ripeness of the culture they speak to. The culture chooses leaders.
Making sense of myths
I finished the book by CK Stead “My name Was Judas” recently. I quite enjoyed it. For someone who was not bought up in a Christian church tradition it is amazing how much of the story of Jesus is in my bones. Ive absorbed it from the culture.
CK Stead presents Judas (who is alive 40 years after the crucifixion) as a modern humanist. He has good values, and thinks Jesus went a bit crazy to claim he was the son of god. It all makes good sense. Miracles are exaggerations developed by people with wishful thinking.
I’m not a humanist, and I’m not a Christian, so the book was not satisfying at a deeper level. I’d like to see a sequel where Judas begins to see that the literal story of Jesus was the foundation for a myth. An important myth where the divinity of humanity began to be grasped by humanity. That people co created the story of Jesus as devine and to see through the absurdity into the real meaning of the story.
It’s like that with 2012. To think next year will be somehow different because of the date is absurd. but there is power in the myth! We live in extraordinary times. The myths makes them even more extraordinary and might even have a self fulfilling aspect to them.
This last idea is pretty much what Jean Houston says in an interview by Tami Simon on www.mysteryof2012.com.
Sociodrama in a Changing World
By Eds. Ron Wiener, Di Adderley, Kate Kirk
Paperback, 384 pages
| Price: | $33.65 |
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Sociodrama is a flexible, creative, spontaneous way of working with groups, both large and small, to explore the systems we live in and which impact upon us. Originally part of J.L. Moreno’s teaching, sociodrama is used across the world in endeavours such as: conflict management, school and higher level teaching, team building, cross-cultural exploration, problem-solving, change management, role training, community and organisational development, consultancy, story-telling, understanding the news, future planning, political change and much more. This book brings together examples of the work of sociodramatists from around the world, together with a wide-ranging collection of views on the current debate ‘What is Sociodrama?’
Edvard Munch
I like these, and most of his work. There is a sense of line texture and colour that I like. His smoothing of the world and boldness. It is these qualities I seek in my work.
Lift – Achieve Anything
We don’t know much about this app. One thin I know is that the name and subtitel are fantastic. Getting these things right is such an art. The image of a rocket on the site works well with the slogan. if it is a flop it might be that it will be hard to live up to the promise of the name.
I find it inspiring. Trying to name a couple of personal & professional development groups at the moment. Id like to have the skills of this team look at my ideas.
Twitter’s founders have taken the decision to fund a new project, to the excitement of many fans of the wildly popular micro-blogging platform. The new project, called Lift, is still very much shrouded in secrecy, but the funding was reported by CNN in a recent article by John D Sutter. News of the app has prompted a flurry of excited coverage all over the internet, even though no one really yet knows much about it other than the name (the app is still in alpha testing at the time of writing).
Evan Williams and Biz Stone, co-founders of Twitter, set up their Obvious Corporation in early 2011 with the laudable aim of developing “systems that help people work together to improve the world.” Lift is the corporation’s first investment, and so industry interest has been at fever pitch.
Hidden in the new website’s code is the slogan “Lift. Achieve anything.” The app is thought to be broadly similar to Twitter in the way that it works, but with more structure, and until a few weeks ago was called Mibbles. Mibbles was been described by readwriteweb.com‘s Marshall Kirkpatrick as “a very simple tracking and encouragement tool”. This description chimes with another, more high flown summary from the app’s backers, who describe Lift as “an interesting new application for unlocking human potential through positive reinforcement.”
It is fairly clear that Lift will be offering some kind of new spin on social networking, which is something about which Williams and Stone know a great deal, with Twitter recently surpassing professional networking site LinkedIn in monthly traffic. Jon Crosby and Tony Stubblebine are the app’s creators, and they are names in the tech and software development world in their own right.
When the site was called Mibbles, its purpose was clear enough. Users would flock together to join groups based on a goal they hoped to achieve (the readwriteweb article uses the example of ‘I want to keep my dog happy’), and then give themselves awards when they made significant experience towards that goal. These updates of progress towards a goal would then be shared in their friends’ timelines, with the idea that people with a common aim would then cheer each other on and offer encouragement and support.
Status Update by Wikileaks on Facebook
*Wikileaks* (wikileaks)
Posted at 2:03 AM August 17, 2011
Walter
Snow at Mt Lyford
The big snow of 2011. Went out in it today and this is the photo I liked best.
Gratuitous Decoration in Apple Software
I am into how things look on a computer. It was one of the factors in shifting over to a Mac. The hardware is so elegant. The software is usually fine too. Apple websites are good. But they have gone rilly wird with the Contacts and the Calendar on iPad & now on the Mac. I don’t use either much on the Mac as I have a use Google calendar & contacts on the browser, but the decorations are horrendous to my eye. How can they do this in the midst of such a strong aesthetic. They must have sat around and talked about it, what did they say. Perhaps it was a compromise to get rid of animated ducks or background music, or fur.
Here is someone who agrees.
I say that flat is the new black; that 2D is the new avant-garde; that a surface doesn’t have to be ashamed of being a surface. Technology users of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but your bas-relief buttons. Let us march forwards together, spurning chrome, into a cleaner, lighter future.
Thats from:
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/02/against-chrome-a-manifesto.html
Perhaps the most absurd and brainachingly stupid example of needless chrome I am aware of, the most terrifying villain on the loose in this episode of Chromewatch, comes from — oh, hello again, Apple!
This is the iBooks app. Notice how lovingly the designers have made it look like you are in the middle of reading a physical book by drawing a little pseudo-3D evocation, down each vertical side, of the pages you have read and the pages you have still to read. What do you think this looks like when you are on page 2 of a book, or 2 pages from the end? I’ll tell you what it looks like: exactly the same. It still looks like you are right in the middle. That’s correct: because of the sentimental and unnecessary chrome, the app ends up lying to you about where you are in the text you’re reading.