In the follow-up video to "Reading and Time" (a discussion of hurdles that face a philosophy grad student, with animation generated by a computer program that transforms text into audio, xtranormal Text-to-Movie) YouTube user Seferin simply copied and pasted remarks from the earlier video's comments section on YouTube to generate the next video--which discusses the first one. Seferin described the second video as "the sequel that wrote itself."
Das Geschäft mit der Philosophie | Video des Tages
Der Meiner-Verlag, ein Hamburger Familienunternehmen, hat sich ganz der Publikation abendländischer Philosophie verschrieben. Gegründet wurde das Unternehmen 1911. Heute führt Manfred Meiner den Verlag in der dritten Generation.
Meiner Verlag linked to the story with the following caption:
Meiner in 5 Minuten
Im Rahmen der Serie "Made in Germany" hat die Deutsche Welle soeben einen kurzen Fernsehbeitrag über den Verlag gesendet, der auch im Internet zur Verfügung steht.
The new technology operates very significant social, economical, and political transformations. Its most important effects are the empowerment of individuals and the coordination of masses. It naturally offers more potential to the many, the people, to the detriment of the few in power. This will lead to the democratization of means of production, to a broader redistribution of wealth, and to more freedom.
Science and technology are important motors of social change. We are all amazed by the technological advancement in the last 100 years. In some aspects, our society today is unrecognizable, and yet the fundamentals of our social, economical, and political institutions are quite the same as two centuries ago, they are not in tune with the new reality anymore. Tensions have risen between the guardians of leading institutions and the proponents of change. These tensions are real, and they follow a very familiar pattern. Inertia comes from the ruling class, which relies on the current system to maintain its supremacy. On the other side, the impetus for change comes from those who aren't profiting as much from the system, but master the new means to accumulate wealth and to access to power. The proponents of change, the people, have in their possession not only the tools necessary to propel themselves to the governance of their own society, they are at the same time laying down the foundation of a radically new social order. They are shaping existing institutions and proposing new ones, gradually melting away the conditions of existence of classical mechanisms of power. This is what we call themultitude social revolution, aconstructive revolution.
For the first time in modern history, hierarchical institutions, governments, and large corporations have lost their monopoly on the means of creation of value. The GNU/Linux project shows how normal individuals deprived of capital, but knowledgeable and motivated, can get together and create a very complex and valuable product, one that can compete with Windows, created by the most successful software company in the world. The monopoly on information is also dissolving with the advent of the internet. It is within the reach of any knowledgeable person to create content and to broadcast it. By the same token, education is going through a democratization process, blowing away the ability of the ruling elite to form their slaves. On the political arena, the ability to organize critical mass social movements is now also in the hands of the multitude. Powerful communication, collaboration, coordination, and logistical tools are offered by the new technology at marginal costs. The only thing that stands in the way of the multitude revolution is the will of the people.
In more than one occasions in the past, the ruling class failed to cede to the pressure created by the introduction of new means that empowered the oppressed. The much feared change still happened, but in a more violent way. Violent revolutions were avoided from time to time, when a more organized and knowledgeable ruling class understood the necessity to change, and managed to maintain some power. Therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between the pace of scientific and technological change (or the pace at which the ruling class is surpassed in potential by another social class) and the ability of the ruling class to adapt to the new conditions. If institutions are made too rigid and if greed and narrow-mindedness is the norm among those in power, social pressure rises and change can occur suddenly and/or violently. It is crucial to understand this!
Change isalready occurring naturally, as the society is readjusting itself to the new spectra of possibilities introduced by the new technology. The multitude is better positioned than the ruling class to take advantage of this change. We don't need bloody revolutions this time. They are destructive and they induce chaos. The multitude revolution will happen gradually, as the level of individual potential and the level collaboration and coordination within the masses increase, and new decentralized organizations emerge in the social, cultural, political, and economical arenas, outcompeting the classical hierarchical structures through superior creativity, agility, adaptability, and better productivity. We need to think constructively, to channel our energy into extracting potential from the new technology and to steer the change towards a better society. In other words, we need to create alternatives based on more humane principles, by exploiting the new potential offered to us. What we are proposing here transcends the socialist/capitalist dichotomy, which, at this moment, can only be used to stir up emotions, but not as a conceptual base on which we can model our future society.
French
artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the
rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways.
For
his installation in The Curve, Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though
aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and
other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine
activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment,
they create a captivating, live soundscape.
What the HELL is social media explains in 2 minutes using 10 key facts why brands need to take notice of social media. [previous text from YouTube poster timetogetsocial]
The video argues for the importance of social media--from a marketing/advertising/PR perspective.
'A hilarious parody of lazily edited news reports from Series 2, Episode 2 of Charlie Brooker's Newswipe [on BBC].' [Text mostly from YouTube poster eightySeventh]
WiseMonkey ventures into Atheistland to see what wisdom he can glean from its inhabitants [all text from YouTube user TheraminTrees, posted on December 18, 2009]
—
MANY thanks to the wonderful YouTubers who made this project such fun to do:
Since ancient times, many attempts have been made to account for the relationship between mind and body. This video examines the inherent flaws in the philosophy of substance dualism, along with some of the fallacious reasoning often put forward to support it. [text from YouTube user QualiaSoup, December 12, 2009]
'Remember that we’ve always been told that free markets and free people go hand in hand? That was a lie. It turns out that the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state, fortressed with American “homeland security” technologies, pumped with “war on terror” rhetoric.’-Naomi Klein
Antonio Negri was denied a visa for entry to Japan, evidently based on political accusations surrounding his alleged relationship with the Italian Red Brigades in the late 1970s.
As the United States congress debates the FISA bill, or more importantly - the retroactive immunity for telecom companies currently under consideration, the surveillance society is continually strengthened and a police state expanded. And while it seems that the government and telecoms are immune from law, above law, and therefore sovereign - a study released last week says that 1% (actually 1 in 99.1) of their subjects [Americans] are in fact in violation of law and currently in prison.
As reported on the sci-fi blog io9 (part of the Gawker brand), Amazon.com has run into some opposition now that the fact that many books which deal with same-sex themes have had their sales rank removed has caught the attention of Twitter users. They have labelled the move "AmazonFail." (updated yet again)
Thomas Horn's book, Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers, warns that genetic engineering may allow the 'Giants' described in the Genesis creation story to rise again.
In the context of the US conflict in Vietnam 1968 is predominantly remembered for the Tet Offensive, which marked the beginning of both spring and the largest northern offensive in southern Vietnam. For the US government, the offensive coincided with increased opposition to the war at home, heightened expectations, and strategic miscalculations, all of which would ultimately turn global popular opinion against American involvement. A story that is often overlooked however is the internal struggle occurring in “southern Vietnam”.
Geoff Nunberg reports that the metadata for the works in Google Books' online library—the means to finding books in the first place—has been seriously mis-managed.
Editor B., of the long-lived online television show (perhaps the first), ROX (on BCAT in Bloomington, IN), has recently posted an audio clip of a discussion of ROX and the whole internet 'thing' from a "drive-time radio show in St. Louis" in 1995: ROX on KSD FM.
As reported in the London Times, the Cologne city archive was destroyed on Tuesday, March 3, 2009, when the building unexpectedly collapsed. The archive housed one-of-a-kind documents—such as manuscripts by Marx, letters by Hegel, documents from Heinrich Böll, and continuous Cologne town council minutes reaching back to 1376—many of which have no known copies. Brian Leiter has a link for anyone who happens to have saved scans of the documents or who can offer assistance.
The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics has now made articles from the latest issues available for free in PDF format (the default language for articles is English).
A new Australian publisher, re.press, dedicated to publishing works in philosophy, has adopted the Open-Access standard and publishes as many of their books as possible as free, downloadable .PDF files under an Open Access copyright, while simultaneously publishing them as physical, print-on-demand books, with titles ranging from new translations of Hegel to works by and about Alain Badiou.
The artist and professor Steve Kurtz, who has been fighting charges of bioterrorism for years, has now seen the federal indictment against him dismissed by a judge. Story from the Progressive magazine | CAE Defense Fund. The government has until May 21, 2008, to appeal the dismissal.
Life Before Death is a sombre series of portraits taken by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta of people before and after they had died. The work consists of recorded interviews with the subjects in their final days and their thoughts about living and dying. The exhibit runs from April 9-May 18 at the Wellcome Trust in London.
This years Greener Gadgets Design Competition showcased Jim Mielke’s wireless blood-fueled “tattoo” - a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls, visible through skin. It's powered by a fuel cell that converts the energy found in blood with a non-toxic substance used to draw electrons from glucose.
The European Commission has awarded a grant of €2.75 million to project SEMAINE which aims to build a Sensitive Artificial Listener (SAL) system, which will engage with users by perceiving their facial expression, gaze, and voice.
A Review of Manuel De Landa, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History New York: Zone Books, 1997.
by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young
(From electronic book review, Jan 1, 1999)
