http://jed.jive.com "We must imagine [him] happy." Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:35:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I recently read an edited collection of five stories, Metatropolis; the stories are set in a common world the authors developed together. This is a near future in which nation state authority has eroded and in which new social processes have grown up and have a big role in ... http://jed.jive.com/2010/08/turking-the-idea-and-some-implications/ Avatar just keeps demanding a bit more analysis. To recap, I agree the story is an embarrassingly naive retread of the "white man goes native and saves the natives" plus gooey nature worship. But... I also believe the world Pandora, as shown to us in the movie, can't be ... http://jed.jive.com/2010/01/the-two-faces-of-avatar/ James Kwak has an interesting post Design or Incompetence? in which he discusses the ways banks are delaying and obstructing customer efforts to get benefits the banks have offered. In addition the banks are misrepresenting their own actions and obligations. As the title suggests he wonders whether this ... http://jed.jive.com/2010/01/untrustworthy-by-design-or-incompetence-just-untrustworthy/ Bloggers who I greatly respect feel Avatar is just another Dances with Wolves -- a way of putting a romantic gloss on native authenticity and then appropriating it by having a "white man" out-native the natives. So I want to think a bit about where I agree and disagree ... http://jed.jive.com/2010/01/interpreting-avatar/ We still find ourselves debating whether an obviously false statement is due to lying or stupidity. I hoped this question would become less relevant with the end of the Bush administration but I was over-optimistic, as the recent health care "debate" has shown. But trying to make this ... http://jed.jive.com/2010/01/lying-stupid-just-untrustworthy/ I've had another thought about the backstory implicit in Avatar (see my previous post). Probably not that profound but it seems worth mentioning. Humans are tool creators and tool users, our technology consists of tools that have grown bigger and more powerful and become weapons, vehicles, computers, prostheses, ... http://jed.jive.com/2009/12/two-kinds-of-technology/ Avatar is the best and most elaborate advertisement ever created for posthumanism. The posthuman message of Avatar is easy to miss because Cameron invents a new form of posthuman -- the Na'vi, apparently primitive children of Eywa (the "world spirit"). None the less, the conclusion is unavoidable. ... http://jed.jive.com/2009/12/avatar-and-the-posthuman-future/ Recently there's been a renewed attempt in the liberal / scientific blogosphere to figure out what's up with all the crazy social / political claims that keep erupting -- about creationism, Obama, health care, global warming, etc. A new and I think potentially major step forward in this analysis ... http://jed.jive.com/2009/12/analyzing-crazy-beliefs/ I just spent a while adding a feature to my blog, or from another point of view removing an annoyance from my writing. I found myself often experiencing a conflict between either (1) leaving out explanations or details that were likely to be useful or entertaining to some ... http://jed.jive.com/2009/12/designing-notes/ In a post several weeks ago, One Man's Moose, Timothy Burke discussed the social tradeoffs between regulation and respect for individual desires and needs. That post came out of a larger web discussion on game management in Vermont, and resulting conflicts with people who keep moose as pets. ... http://jed.jive.com/2009/11/of-moose-and-men/