[Tokolosh]

What are your views on the internet phenomenon?
I found this a very interesting read. It's long, but well worth while.

http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/opening.htm

[whorefrost]

interesting read.. although yr thread title is misleading; the article really doesn't have anything to do with the internet and religion

[Tokolosh]

Misleading thread names do the job.
I started asking myself a lot of questions, since I read that.
The evolution of the grid is a mystery, and only time will tell.

[Glice]

I have an opinion on this, but a forum for an American rock band is not the place for it.

I will go so far as to say: Interesting that he repeats the American ideological fallacy of talking about freedom, anarchy and liberties beyond the perview of the 'conventional' tenets of 'power', whilst commiting himself to a (probably Hegelian) dialogue of polar positions, opposition and neo-power structures. Which is often why very few people take American intellectuals seriously.

Edit: Oh, and I also like how the grandest stretches of his imagination meant he could only type 'Florida' as an ideal retirement vista.

[king_buzzo]

internet. fuck yeah!

[Tokolosh]

Originally Posted by Glice

I will go so far as to say: Interesting that he repeats the American ideological fallacy of talking about freedom, anarchy and liberties beyond the perview of the 'conventional' tenets of 'power', whilst commiting himself to a (probably Hegelian) dialogue of polar positions, opposition and neo-power structures. Which is often why very few people take American intellectuals seriously

I'd be interested to know what you read, on such matters?

[atari 2600]

The title of the thread stinks.
I can never understand why people think they have to kill off God to kill off religion. Whereas religion always puffs itself up to be God-as-Fear, to anthropomorphize God, the actual God can't be killed off...
because as long as we are still human, we love, we suffer and we make art & music and while we do these things here on Earth, gravitation, electromagnetic energy & the strong & weak nuclear forces are ordering the entire Universe.
It's as absurd as trying to kill off any of those.
And it's precisely when we began to use primitive tools (technology) that we realized our own semi/quasi-divinity and our wills.

Someone bashed another's head with a rock long before anyone figured out they could use the rock as a flint to start a fire.
Freedom comes complete with the accoutrements of enslavement.
You don't have to pay extra, they are included in the price at first. The real bill, however, comes much later, when the accessories have become trappings, and it is too late to be able to pay.
Information Technology has become Big Brother.
People revere it with awe, mostly unquestioningly, and in many cases, are intimidated by it. People will pay five hundred percent markup or even more for IT work because there are only so many people in the population that have a skill set that understands some of the elements of the digital age beyond the rudimentary. Naturally, as a result, those who maintain IT systems, through their cognitive conceit, at the very least, overcharge their clients, and in the worst case, con them outright.
One can observe roughly the same mechanism at work in the case of a five year-old trading their three year-old sibling nickels for dimes whilst explaining to the young one that nickels are worth more because they are larger.

The internet has done much though for leveling the playing field and opening up free enterprise again in the marketplace, but of course, that too will soon be over. So-called Net Neutrality is just the first major spectre witnessed thus far.
What will grow is a world where advertising and marketing based on the gathering of your personal information is a mainstay of all aspects of life and we've already seen how the internet has naturally borne this bad to rotten fruit.
I didn't read anything from Tokolosh's link yet, but I can imagine that it presents some of these elements and then goes into a "what is to be done?" mode informing the reader that "information is power" and that we must utilize internetworking as a vehicle to empower ourselves.

Interesting strategy...good luck. Although the index for knowledge-gathering as been vastly expanded, the knowledge-processing ability of most people is akin to a bowl of Campbell's Alphabet Soup. Until people wake up from denial of death and discover Socratic self-knowledge, all is lost. On that note, I'll say three hail Dostoyevskys, embrace my suffering and go burn a Chernyshevsky book.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Interesting strategy...good luck. Although the index for knowledge-gathering as been vastly expanded, the knowledge-processing ability of most people is akin to a bowl of Campbell's Alphabet Soup. Until people wake up from denial of death and discover Socratic self-knowledge, all is lost. On that note, I'll say three hail Dostoyevskys, embrace my suffering and go burn a Chernyshevsky book.

At what point did 'self-knowledge' mean self-deprecating humour?

Yours,

Shocked, England.

[atari 2600]

Oh, I just read it. PLW's is a very good speech. It presents many elements that may be commonly-held observations, but orders the information in a relative, applicable manner. Tokolosh had to sensationalize things, as he alluded, to gain attention.

Of course, in the end, PLW doesn't offer any real answers, & that's reflective of how things truly are more than it is a failure.

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

I read the first paragraph and I don't think the internet can gain control over man, but I do feel that technology can. When it comes to computers I feel the same way about all matter and life. I understand they work but I don't understand the sub levels of them. Like life, where the hell did it come from? With computers I still don't understand how computers read data, I realise it's all 1's and 0's but how can a computer read even that?

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Tokolosh

What are your views on the internet phenomenon?
I found this a very interesting read. It's long, but well worth while.

http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/opening.htm

appears to me as unreadable prose. i don't have the time nor the energy nor the inclination to pursue this. any chance you give us the short version? say, a couple of sentences? many thanks.

--
actually, i take it back. it's not the prose but the horrid typography that gets me cross-eyed.

[porkmarras]

Technology over man?Fuck off!Who creates the fucker?Eh?Who?

[atari 2600]

It's actually not that long at all of a read.

The typography/font seems okay to me.

There is one typographical error in the transcription that I noticed. It's towards the end.

[!@#$%!]

ugly cramped oversized sans-serif fonts (is that helvetica?) remind me of the early days of the internet.

i tried reading the source code instead (it displays nicely in courier, in my browser). i change my mind once more: it's dull, unreadable prose. maybe the man is a genius, but not of style. i'll save the page for when i'm feeling insomniac.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

appears to me as unreadable prose. i don't have the time nor the energy nor the inclination to pursue this. any chance you give us the short version? say, a couple of sentences? many thanks.

--
actually, i take it back. it's not the prose but the horrid typography that gets me cross-eyed.

Skirts around cyborg theory. Throws some waffly liberal rhetoric around. Contradicts himself. Makes no claims, solid or otherwise.

[porkmarras]

Bite!Bite!

[Tokolosh]

I thought that it was interesting to post the link I found while surfing the web, and almost all the posters had something negative to say. If it's not the thread title, it's the poor information. It even gets to the point where the font type seems to make a difference. I thought this forum was a place to share information instead of bitching about irrelevant things.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Tokolosh

I thought that it was interesting to post the link I found while surfing the web, and almost all the posters had something negative to say. If it's not the thread title, it's the poor information. It even gets to the point where the font type seems to make a difference. I thought this forum was a place to share information instead of bitching about irrelevant things.

I don't think anyone was criticising yourself. I think handbag's criticism of the prose is a good one. The way something is written is 99% of the time more important than its content. It isn't the easiest of reads, in spite of the fact that the content is quite simple. Unfortunately, the necessity of his point is to elude direct statements, hence my criticism of waffly liberal rhetoric. I particularly dislike his pseudo-anarchist/ 'freedom' trope which he tries to back up by offering dialectical positions. If you enjoyed it, fine, but please don't take people's criticisms as a sleight against yourself. It's worth reading, but just because I've read it doesn't mean I agree.

[porkmarras]

I haven't got the force to read the whole thing tonight but i will and you'll hear back.Nothing personal(And why should it be?)

[Tokolosh]

Originally Posted by Glice

I don't think anyone was criticising yourself. I think handbag's criticism of the prose is a good one. The way something is written is 99% of the time more important than its content. It isn't the easiest of reads, in spite of the fact that the content is quite simple. Unfortunately, the necessity of his point is to elude direct statements, hence my criticism of waffly liberal rhetoric. I particularly dislike his pseudo-anarchist/ 'freedom' trope which he tries to back up by offering dialectical positions. If you enjoyed it, fine, but please don't take people's criticisms as a sleight against yourself. It's worth reading, but just because I've read it doesn't mean I agree.

I can respect that.