[ELECTRON] GLASGOW STUDENTS AGAINST CUTS: Monday 29th November: New Glasgow-wide day of education/planning against cuts and for resistance

[Philip Cunningham]

verbose?
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--- On Tue, 30/11/10, Thomas Coles <tomcoles at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Thomas Coles <tomcoles at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ELECTRON] GLASGOW STUDENTS AGAINST CUTS: Monday 29th November: New Glasgow-wide day of education/planning against cuts and for resistance
To: "Discussion list for the Electron Club" <members at electronclub.org>
Date: Tuesday, 30 November, 2010, 15:38

you mean "pretentious" and "lengthy" rather than eloquent or coherent (Literature degree raises its ugly head)
;)

On 30 November 2010 15:36, Ben Dembroski <ben at dembroski.net> wrote:

Yup.



A much more eloquent and coherent way of saying:



>       IMHO, politics enter the equation when the tech is used,

>         consumed or referenced within the wider context of human

>         interactions

>         and power relationships.



:)



On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 15:12 +0000, Thomas Coles wrote:

> In my opinion:

>

> Technologies are tools designed to manipulate our environments, they

> change one thing into another thing.

>

> The end for which they are designed, when political, makes the tool

> political. A microchip is a tool to process information more quickly -

> it usurps human minds and human abilities. When we have reached a

> stage where we can no longer write or design computer (machine) code

> directly, when we have programming 'languages', we have reached a

> stage where the vocabulary is more important than the tool. The very

> idea of repetition, of loops, of unending sequences, of the continual

> increase in complexity of knowledge and possibility, the computers'

> cold equivalence of data types.

>

> For me all these things are political, they mediate our understanding

> of the world and our understanding of each other. The fact that we

> have the luxury of these technologies, and others don't (that we have

> drones that can kill-at-distance with no risk) is political. Can we

> have iPods and Macs without the suicides at Foxcom? Computers are

> going to become more expensive due to Chinese embargos on rare-earth

> metals. In the end these tools do not exist in a vacuum, someone made

> them, someone designed them. If we use the Internet without

> remembering that it is a cold-war outgrowth, don't we risk buying into

> ideas we might not be aware of?

>

> The politics is contextual of course, but not only this, the types of

> tools available emerge from needs and ideas not necessarily our own.

> When Microsoft releases Genuine Advantage, or refuses to allow DVDs to

> play on their software due to copyright, these things are no longer

> tools, but also have inbuilt promotion of certain ideologies.

>

> Tom

>

> On 30 November 2010 14:57, Ben Dembroski <ben at dembroski.net> wrote:

>         The can be, but it certainly resides on a sliding scale with a

>         huge

>         range.

>

>         The use of Twitter by Iranian protesters is more political

>         than me

>         deciding to use an Arduino over a Basic Stamp to automate the

>         watering

>         of my house plants.  There's nothing inherently political

>         about

>         technology.  IMHO, politics enter the equation when the tech

>         is used,

>         consumed or referenced within the wider context of human

>         interactions

>         and power relationships.

>

>         I would hope that any of these topics would equally welcome on

>         this

>         list.

>

>         Equally important is the distinction that not everything

>         "political" has

>         a significant element of "technology" to it.

>

>         --

>         Ben

>

>

>         On Tue, 2010-11-30 at 11:01 +0000, M.Hersh wrote:

>         > Hi,

>         > I would also point out that technology itself and its uses

>         are political.

>         > Marion

>

>

>

>

>

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