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Adelaide and Fringe, Feasible Socialism and French Films
The visit to Adelaide and the Fringe Festival was very enjoyable. Most days spent with Paula and seeing her play 'Bugger Me Dead' (a faux Australian war veteran has troubles with hippie daughter and contracts cancer on retirement), seeing Gail's JPG inspired tie-and-scarf fashion parade, and meeting in real life up with Morrigan77 (hooray!).
The Fringe Festival, considered second in the world only to the Edinburgh festival, certainly had its attractions for cabaret, theatre, comedy, visual arts and music. I didn't get to see much, preferring more comprehensive visits to the State Art Gallery and State Museum. One pleasant encounter was The Kilted Generation, a meeting between trad-scots and punk. I just had to buy their CD, entitled "Liverdance".
Two disappointing items included The Baudrillard Brothers, an alleged comedy show with excellent copy ("What happens when Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes walk into a bar?" etc), but poor (indeed, pathetic) execution and a sloppy Cajun band with French spoken with an Australian nasal twang. The Computerland exhibition - old computers from yesteryear - wasn't as good as longi could do. The exhibition was small (less than a dozen) and most of them I'd owned or worked with in the past. Also there wasn't much of an interactive element - I mean, what's the point of computers if they aren't interactive? Grumble..
Anyway, I did take the opportunity to work further on my thesis. For the first time in over I year I composed it into a single document. Over 140,000 words and over 520 pages. The spell and grammar checker crashed at page 123. At this stage I'm looking at the broader issue of changes to social formations with the introduction of communications technology. With reference to books on the history of telegraph (including a pithy document given by caseopaya, "The Victorian Internet") and radio I am leaning against postmodern interpretations of the Internet and more in favour of a modernist "industrialisation of information" orientation.
In the meantime, not to separate the means of communication from the relations of production, I took the opportunity to read Alec Nove's, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (2nd Edition 1991) which is believed to had significant influence in the transformation of the Eastern European economies. Nove's mainly critical of Marx's assumptions of abundance, central planning (ex ante assumptions prior to ex post justifications), the transformation between labour theory of value to exchange value and the disappearance of the division of labour. In general, I agree with Nove's criticisms of Marxian socialism (which in no way invalidates Marx's criticisms of capitalism!) and in fact, his "feasible socialism" is actually more "socialist" than something I would advocate. I would not, for example, claim that capitalisation is "unearned income", as he does. I do however hold that copyright and patents are. In many ways, I think my ideas about economics are a lot closer to Henry George than Karl Marx.
Have been thinking about seeing parts of the French Film Festival. (Ugh, what a terrible website). Except the copy presented for each film is very disappointing. The following may get my viewing...
Since Otar Left
Princes and Princesses and
Bon Voyage.
But in general, it's slim pickings this year. So what has happened to French culture and especially French film culture? Why has it become so self-referential and inward looking? Insidious postmodern theorists?
The Intelligence Report. Well worth a read.
www.aph.gov.au follow the links to committees, joint committee on ASIO, ASIS and the DSD.
I must admit I was warned about this debacle with
Australia purchasing US tanks. Via Lederhosen. Who also reminds us of that campaigns that attempt to divert the course of nature simply don't work. The failure of teenage sexual abstinence.
Sometimes you can't win. I thought about doing a book on basic systems administration. So I went to google and typed in "basic systems administration". What did I get?
The Fringe Festival, considered second in the world only to the Edinburgh festival, certainly had its attractions for cabaret, theatre, comedy, visual arts and music. I didn't get to see much, preferring more comprehensive visits to the State Art Gallery and State Museum. One pleasant encounter was The Kilted Generation, a meeting between trad-scots and punk. I just had to buy their CD, entitled "Liverdance".
Two disappointing items included The Baudrillard Brothers, an alleged comedy show with excellent copy ("What happens when Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes walk into a bar?" etc), but poor (indeed, pathetic) execution and a sloppy Cajun band with French spoken with an Australian nasal twang. The Computerland exhibition - old computers from yesteryear - wasn't as good as longi could do. The exhibition was small (less than a dozen) and most of them I'd owned or worked with in the past. Also there wasn't much of an interactive element - I mean, what's the point of computers if they aren't interactive? Grumble..
Anyway, I did take the opportunity to work further on my thesis. For the first time in over I year I composed it into a single document. Over 140,000 words and over 520 pages. The spell and grammar checker crashed at page 123. At this stage I'm looking at the broader issue of changes to social formations with the introduction of communications technology. With reference to books on the history of telegraph (including a pithy document given by caseopaya, "The Victorian Internet") and radio I am leaning against postmodern interpretations of the Internet and more in favour of a modernist "industrialisation of information" orientation.
In the meantime, not to separate the means of communication from the relations of production, I took the opportunity to read Alec Nove's, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (2nd Edition 1991) which is believed to had significant influence in the transformation of the Eastern European economies. Nove's mainly critical of Marx's assumptions of abundance, central planning (ex ante assumptions prior to ex post justifications), the transformation between labour theory of value to exchange value and the disappearance of the division of labour. In general, I agree with Nove's criticisms of Marxian socialism (which in no way invalidates Marx's criticisms of capitalism!) and in fact, his "feasible socialism" is actually more "socialist" than something I would advocate. I would not, for example, claim that capitalisation is "unearned income", as he does. I do however hold that copyright and patents are. In many ways, I think my ideas about economics are a lot closer to Henry George than Karl Marx.
Have been thinking about seeing parts of the French Film Festival. (Ugh, what a terrible website). Except the copy presented for each film is very disappointing. The following may get my viewing...
Since Otar Left
Princes and Princesses and
Bon Voyage.
But in general, it's slim pickings this year. So what has happened to French culture and especially French film culture? Why has it become so self-referential and inward looking? Insidious postmodern theorists?
The Intelligence Report. Well worth a read.
www.aph.gov.au follow the links to committees, joint committee on ASIO, ASIS and the DSD.
I must admit I was warned about this debacle with
Australia purchasing US tanks. Via Lederhosen. Who also reminds us of that campaigns that attempt to divert the course of nature simply don't work. The failure of teenage sexual abstinence.
Sometimes you can't win. I thought about doing a book on basic systems administration. So I went to google and typed in "basic systems administration". What did I get?
no subject
Unlikely the commodity sector would bother unless the information was relevant to them. Highly unlikely we'll ever have a government which would force them to by taxation.
Fundamentally, without a profit motive, there are works out there which take too much out of their authors (time away from family, emotionally, health, fatigue from dealing with tedious material, etc) for simple food on the table and a bit of backslapping from their peers to recompensate them for their efforts.
If, as you feel, "intellectual capital is prettty worthless in the Internet age" then I suspect a lot of these people will simply sigh and not bother or hang up their wordprocessing software a lot sooner than they should. I don't regard that as a win, personally.
no subject
You'll hardly find that I am arguing that the original production of knowledge doesn't command a price - indeed, it is quite time consuming and expensive to produce it. However, the replication and distribution costs are virtually nil - protectionist copyright legislation notwithstanding!
If the education sector is funded via the commercial sector (generically, rather than tied funding), then it is inevitable that the education sector will be producing knowledge that is commercially viable. They'll want to grow, like any other subsystem.
There is the other side of the profit motive to look at - the reduction of costs. Whilst the technology provides the resources of low cost replication, open source provides the opportunity for maximan efficiency in resource allocation - think of how many researchers have replicated the achievements of others simply because they didn't know about it. Indeed, we owe so much of our wealth in modern society because the academic world operated in a collegial manner - even at the height of the cold war.
One other matter, which I think is very important to this debate: Is there an alternative?