The internet is so powerful, but very much so to those who use it. Those who are preoccupied with net porn are at once feeding an industry which helps fuel tech, at least indirectly, but also are neurologically exposing themselves to powerful changes.
The idea of Utopia is at the heart of hedonism for the positive minded. They see a limitless expanse of good feeling and compatibility and in some ways porn captures that idea.
But when the physical effects of such powerful interfacing cause the onset of lopsided views upon reality, the subject of this mutation must take stock of the change.
The problem is in the highly rigid codes society uses to function and which are totally subverted and skewed online. In a major city on any day, one would never behold the sights one could easily conjure with technology behind closed doors. If one values the private experience too much and never links it with the rest of life's responsibilities and cause and effects one ends up isolating into a realm of illusion. When interested parties follow in order to rescue, the shame of one's preference causes panic and damage.
If society instead allows for the reality of fanatical fantasizing and educates and assists those who wish to put it into perspective, the problem is ammeliorated.
The other problem is children. Child sex abuse and the access to pornography for children is an issue which those currently in authority never had to face. The internet is new. As such there are massive areas of ignorance and apathy regarding the facts, or there is over reaction and uncontrolled wrath. Balance should be sought as changing norms continue to dictate our shared futures.
Kids are our greatest resource and responsibility. Their education, happiness and strength produces powerful, compassionate people to help our species ever evolve. Children must be protected but not merely by way of control. Instead of just attempting to police people's minds, instead offer sober and healthy world views at every turn. Inspire the masses to continue to seek the highest and best good for all.
PEACE and keep on improving!
Stanley Gemmell
Friday, March 30, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Response to Bill Gates' Education 2.0
Response to: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Topics/Education/Education-2
GREAT ARTICLE, BILL GATES IS AWESOME
[I had to shorten the reply to 3000 characters at The Gates Notes, this is the original, full version.]
All this is very good. However we must manage resources at the very top! Thank God Bill Gates is a good man. The use of technology freely given to the disenfranchised, the ease of use with which the machines are operated, such niceties are laudable. But what happens if the power falls into the hands of evil? That is the issue today in certain places which are using the internet to locate and oppress political enemies. Online learning should take precedence because it is fast and good, because it is user enabled and impossible to cheat with if programmed correctly, but it should always be backed up with paper! The most important elements having rightful places in culture even during blackouts!
Next issue... resistance to computing in classrooms can always stem from ad filtering. The intimate relationship between advertisement and media consumption can wreak havok upon the education scene. Learning and marketting HAVE to be kept as far away from each other as possible. The simple reason being that PROPAGANDA is its illegitamate and evil progeny. If you have kids who need a lunch room and then Walmart and Target rush to make the lunch room only on the condition that their logo be displayed, you have officially sold out your lunchroom to the highest, private bidder. IF the logo display REMAINS optional and the kids receive an announcement explaining that yes private industry helped fund their public space, BUT that space REMAINS public and is not beholden to such corporate interests, ever, at all, THEN the learning remains unfettered and the young minds FEEL un-oppressed. This is not a light issue, although it is under reported. The psychological effects of legality and presence are huge, if not well understood in today's 2012.
The simple fact remains that, take marijuana for instance, it being so popular, and so illegal sets up a culture clash of great proportions yet which is swept under the rug and ignored. Any activity which a citizen personally enjoys and truly regards as harmless yet which is made illegal and is used to defame LESSENS the impact of the TRUTH regarding TRULY heinous and illegal, hurtful activities. As Flach put it in, "The Secret Strength of Depression", an early 80s popular self help book, we experience moral numbing because there are too many opportunities for guilt. If we narrow in on what we want people to feel bad about, instead of spreading it so wide that folks have to decide what is right and wrong from the menu of their personal "recent-choices" we can better SPIRITUALLY ENFORCE our rules. There were only TEN commandments while the rest of the rules were left off of the marquee.
As far as learning in the computing age goes, THE BIGGEST VICTORY is the equalization of geographical limits in our world. The fact that an impoverished student with a brilliant idea in South Africa can make it to the world forum stage of Hollywood, for instance, is now commonplace and absolutely wonderful for the self esteem and practical plans and hopes of the avid student.
Learning is still taken for granted because it has not been singled out enough as one of the COMMANDMENTS of our modern world. Advertisers are reaping the fruit of its importance by placing their signals in its midst, yet are not being explicit enough in making EDUCATION cool and sexy, because they don't want to be seen as nerdy. Overly simplistic and reductionist aesthetics are using complex and detailed systems for the transmission of their (arguably non-)messages and it is time people woke up to the fact that unless we really really make a big deal out of grades, homework, degrees and just in general SMARTNESS, unless we pin point that specific IDEA as the biggest, best, coolest, most awesome thing... we stand in danger of undoing the progress that our cultural educative journey has gifted us with!!! CHEERS AND KEEP UP THE AWESOMENESS - PUT SMARTS FIRST - INTELLIGENCE RULES, THE DOLLAR DROOLS! :-)
GREAT ARTICLE, BILL GATES IS AWESOME
[I had to shorten the reply to 3000 characters at The Gates Notes, this is the original, full version.]
All this is very good. However we must manage resources at the very top! Thank God Bill Gates is a good man. The use of technology freely given to the disenfranchised, the ease of use with which the machines are operated, such niceties are laudable. But what happens if the power falls into the hands of evil? That is the issue today in certain places which are using the internet to locate and oppress political enemies. Online learning should take precedence because it is fast and good, because it is user enabled and impossible to cheat with if programmed correctly, but it should always be backed up with paper! The most important elements having rightful places in culture even during blackouts!
Next issue... resistance to computing in classrooms can always stem from ad filtering. The intimate relationship between advertisement and media consumption can wreak havok upon the education scene. Learning and marketting HAVE to be kept as far away from each other as possible. The simple reason being that PROPAGANDA is its illegitamate and evil progeny. If you have kids who need a lunch room and then Walmart and Target rush to make the lunch room only on the condition that their logo be displayed, you have officially sold out your lunchroom to the highest, private bidder. IF the logo display REMAINS optional and the kids receive an announcement explaining that yes private industry helped fund their public space, BUT that space REMAINS public and is not beholden to such corporate interests, ever, at all, THEN the learning remains unfettered and the young minds FEEL un-oppressed. This is not a light issue, although it is under reported. The psychological effects of legality and presence are huge, if not well understood in today's 2012.
The simple fact remains that, take marijuana for instance, it being so popular, and so illegal sets up a culture clash of great proportions yet which is swept under the rug and ignored. Any activity which a citizen personally enjoys and truly regards as harmless yet which is made illegal and is used to defame LESSENS the impact of the TRUTH regarding TRULY heinous and illegal, hurtful activities. As Flach put it in, "The Secret Strength of Depression", an early 80s popular self help book, we experience moral numbing because there are too many opportunities for guilt. If we narrow in on what we want people to feel bad about, instead of spreading it so wide that folks have to decide what is right and wrong from the menu of their personal "recent-choices" we can better SPIRITUALLY ENFORCE our rules. There were only TEN commandments while the rest of the rules were left off of the marquee.
As far as learning in the computing age goes, THE BIGGEST VICTORY is the equalization of geographical limits in our world. The fact that an impoverished student with a brilliant idea in South Africa can make it to the world forum stage of Hollywood, for instance, is now commonplace and absolutely wonderful for the self esteem and practical plans and hopes of the avid student.
Learning is still taken for granted because it has not been singled out enough as one of the COMMANDMENTS of our modern world. Advertisers are reaping the fruit of its importance by placing their signals in its midst, yet are not being explicit enough in making EDUCATION cool and sexy, because they don't want to be seen as nerdy. Overly simplistic and reductionist aesthetics are using complex and detailed systems for the transmission of their (arguably non-)messages and it is time people woke up to the fact that unless we really really make a big deal out of grades, homework, degrees and just in general SMARTNESS, unless we pin point that specific IDEA as the biggest, best, coolest, most awesome thing... we stand in danger of undoing the progress that our cultural educative journey has gifted us with!!! CHEERS AND KEEP UP THE AWESOMENESS - PUT SMARTS FIRST - INTELLIGENCE RULES, THE DOLLAR DROOLS! :-)
TRIPLE SACRIFICE
THE THREE MODES OF APPROACHING GOD mentioned in Irwin Kula "You Shall Rejoice In Your Festival" downloadable here: http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2540 are:
THANKSGIVING
NERVOUSNESS
GUILT
If one looks at Pharmakon as related by Jacques Derrida in "Dissemination" the drug may be seen as part poison, part cure, part magic charm.
Drug as poison is when it harms either intentionally or not. Drug as cure is when it heals. Drug as charm indicates an intensification both for good and/or ill.
The three modes of sacrifice indicate an approach to God based on self truth. Thanks to God when all is well, a nervous approach when one needs help and an approach asking forgiveness when one knows one did wrong.
What if the Drug is a catalyst for these three approaches? If when one ingests, one automatically reacts according to deep rooted logic of mystery necessary for elevating one's state? When you take a psychedelic, depending on what kind of voyage you take, the result being a more integrated awareness and more fully developed skill set for action...
The only responsible, educated use of a psycho active substance is one which more securely enhances one's ability to think, know and act. If drug users take more notes from long established traditions in the ever growing area of soul-mind-body inter-action, more life-improving experiences will be generated using psychoactives ofr vehicle! CHEERS
THANKSGIVING
NERVOUSNESS
GUILT
If one looks at Pharmakon as related by Jacques Derrida in "Dissemination" the drug may be seen as part poison, part cure, part magic charm.
Drug as poison is when it harms either intentionally or not. Drug as cure is when it heals. Drug as charm indicates an intensification both for good and/or ill.
The three modes of sacrifice indicate an approach to God based on self truth. Thanks to God when all is well, a nervous approach when one needs help and an approach asking forgiveness when one knows one did wrong.
What if the Drug is a catalyst for these three approaches? If when one ingests, one automatically reacts according to deep rooted logic of mystery necessary for elevating one's state? When you take a psychedelic, depending on what kind of voyage you take, the result being a more integrated awareness and more fully developed skill set for action...
The only responsible, educated use of a psycho active substance is one which more securely enhances one's ability to think, know and act. If drug users take more notes from long established traditions in the ever growing area of soul-mind-body inter-action, more life-improving experiences will be generated using psychoactives ofr vehicle! CHEERS
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Real Time Online
Time is precious, of course. But our perception of it directly affects the quality of our use. If we are rushed we do not engage fully in life, and if we are bored we do not value life enough to get really creative and fresh. I am an artist and a lover, so, for me innovation is key. In both life areas I want to present both what is pleasing, and what's never really been seen, just so. Innovation clings to tradition until the moment it casts itself in flight toward the promise of glory. Stagnation clings to habit fearfully, until the moment it is overpowered by the realization that something fresh and not one's own has replaced the central interest. Time moves more quickly or slowly to one's mind depending on so many factors, yet, we all want time to slow when we are pleased and to rush when we are not. How does the world wide web, which intensifies so many areas of our minds, while paralysing so many spheres of behavior, how does the world wide web become the most useful tool for all in terms of maximizing benefit while minimizing cost? I speak of the benefit of the luxurious sensation of having all the time illy n the world, and the accompanying sense of primordial security, while I speak also of the cost which can be understood as a terrible feeling of doubt, ineffectiveness, insurmountable distance, hardcore loneliness and self-identified strangeness? If the web has great powers of both alienation and assimilation, it should be shot thru and peppered with wildly beautiful chaos, nurturing strands of adventure, which ride atop an ocean of unbreakable glass, like the screen, and which represents stability.
Controlled and useful chaos must depart from the tradition it defines itself in contrast to. Daring first, to dare, it must not view itself as anomalous. Like a child who just gets the hang of it, or an adult who has at long last succeeded, the sense of the new which accompanies the harmonious unity with safely controlled chaos both happens naturally, and can just as gracefully be hard-won.
The internet is a rare opportunity to condense, maximize, benefit from and refine such areas. By being contained to the screen, but also by virtue of its great reach across many dividing fences, by being at once anonymous and perfectly named (for what better name is there than that which you give yourself, and by the same token, since there are only names, are not all names reduced to the same level of intimacy, which is that of pure faith, since you are not communing with somebody immediately, physically present) by being a place where you can gather the items of your totem at your leisure and with little fear of substitution, and by being a place where you can choose to shed such items at will, the internet is a wonderful, varied, hyper immediate and available thing.
First, let's look at getting cut off. Like an awards speech or something... I find myself constantly wondering in the back of my mind if I am getting through, if there is somebody who is being reached by my activity. By the same token, this activity, often virtual, which means in name but not in fact, this activity can often seem hollow or lifeless. The same monstrously powerful and undeniable surging of our collective brains oozing connectivity and amplitude, resonating and synching, that same energy has a kind of "off-switch" which has nothing to do with factual power.
I mean real time. The sense of contiguous reality, can be accepted or rejected, spontaneously during any moment of computer use. If there is a sudden menace and our fragile eco system of mind, fingers, keyboard and screen is suddenly jeapordized ("Hey, I got to go do dishes," is one example). Or if a connection you have made, or an artwork you have been fascinated by keeps you up until the moment you must leave for work. These splices of real time are becoming integrated into our human experience and are therefor held to human accountability.
We struggle with this. From the indexing and consequences of cyber-crime, to the silly beautiful minutes of the day when someone dear hits "Like" on our post, we people are engaged in the organization of existence by way of mediaitc extension everyday. Creating a set of rules to live by, for parents who want their children to not always be available as an electronic series of code signals representing who they are, or for a former misfit who has finally found the perfect circumstances in which to thrive, these new rules are being made spur of the moment, and ONLINE, as well as offline.
The internet is a mystery of presence. An unfolding like no other. Yet is filled with poverty as well. In the world of ideas, mimicry is a kind of poverty, and the creative underachievers can sometimes feel a sting of despair at having their perfectly formulated dream represented to them from an alien source.
Like Love being that unheard of and longed for confluence of what one wants and what is available and freely given, when the INternet does that, one often feels cheated. This acute awareness of real life and I mean a life which contains that which cannot be ignored, the real being defined as what is left over after you remove all other things, this sharp reality can become the cliff face upon which the waves of our conceit hurl themselves at each day.
Preoccupation with morality finds a dizzy sense of possibility here. The web can make so many murky things clear. But by the same token the daily ethics of life create the vehicle which shares in the transport of both dream and memory.
Computers are a mystic record of what we have been, and an enormous portal to who we will become. The ideas which ripple beneath the surface of its pooled resource, the millions of sets of eyes from every corner of the planet, are truly infinite, yet painstakingly present in the sense of limit, and the mortal's sense of doom.
Online we make our own chapter breaks, and life and death comingle. Entire personas are created, recreated, spliced, mixed, added to, evolved and lobotomized or dismissed. Whether we habitually set our modes of operation to flux with the many or the few matters less than we think of the time we spend doing it. The word here may not be time MANAGEMENT, so much as time APPRECIATION and INFLUENCE.
The liquid page is always, already a little bit beyond our control. As in poetic composition it is less a matter of directing force with authority (since power schemes organically shift, sway, reverse and speed up independent of our sustained vector) and much more a matter of cajoling, seducing, helping and awaiting for authoritative force(s) to converge.
Like the waves of the ocean, the waves of humanity swirl and glide in beautiful and luminous patterns upon the surface, with roiling, untold deeps below... SURF ON! Cheers,
Stanley Gemmell
Controlled and useful chaos must depart from the tradition it defines itself in contrast to. Daring first, to dare, it must not view itself as anomalous. Like a child who just gets the hang of it, or an adult who has at long last succeeded, the sense of the new which accompanies the harmonious unity with safely controlled chaos both happens naturally, and can just as gracefully be hard-won.
The internet is a rare opportunity to condense, maximize, benefit from and refine such areas. By being contained to the screen, but also by virtue of its great reach across many dividing fences, by being at once anonymous and perfectly named (for what better name is there than that which you give yourself, and by the same token, since there are only names, are not all names reduced to the same level of intimacy, which is that of pure faith, since you are not communing with somebody immediately, physically present) by being a place where you can gather the items of your totem at your leisure and with little fear of substitution, and by being a place where you can choose to shed such items at will, the internet is a wonderful, varied, hyper immediate and available thing.
First, let's look at getting cut off. Like an awards speech or something... I find myself constantly wondering in the back of my mind if I am getting through, if there is somebody who is being reached by my activity. By the same token, this activity, often virtual, which means in name but not in fact, this activity can often seem hollow or lifeless. The same monstrously powerful and undeniable surging of our collective brains oozing connectivity and amplitude, resonating and synching, that same energy has a kind of "off-switch" which has nothing to do with factual power.
I mean real time. The sense of contiguous reality, can be accepted or rejected, spontaneously during any moment of computer use. If there is a sudden menace and our fragile eco system of mind, fingers, keyboard and screen is suddenly jeapordized ("Hey, I got to go do dishes," is one example). Or if a connection you have made, or an artwork you have been fascinated by keeps you up until the moment you must leave for work. These splices of real time are becoming integrated into our human experience and are therefor held to human accountability.
We struggle with this. From the indexing and consequences of cyber-crime, to the silly beautiful minutes of the day when someone dear hits "Like" on our post, we people are engaged in the organization of existence by way of mediaitc extension everyday. Creating a set of rules to live by, for parents who want their children to not always be available as an electronic series of code signals representing who they are, or for a former misfit who has finally found the perfect circumstances in which to thrive, these new rules are being made spur of the moment, and ONLINE, as well as offline.
The internet is a mystery of presence. An unfolding like no other. Yet is filled with poverty as well. In the world of ideas, mimicry is a kind of poverty, and the creative underachievers can sometimes feel a sting of despair at having their perfectly formulated dream represented to them from an alien source.
Like Love being that unheard of and longed for confluence of what one wants and what is available and freely given, when the INternet does that, one often feels cheated. This acute awareness of real life and I mean a life which contains that which cannot be ignored, the real being defined as what is left over after you remove all other things, this sharp reality can become the cliff face upon which the waves of our conceit hurl themselves at each day.
Preoccupation with morality finds a dizzy sense of possibility here. The web can make so many murky things clear. But by the same token the daily ethics of life create the vehicle which shares in the transport of both dream and memory.
Computers are a mystic record of what we have been, and an enormous portal to who we will become. The ideas which ripple beneath the surface of its pooled resource, the millions of sets of eyes from every corner of the planet, are truly infinite, yet painstakingly present in the sense of limit, and the mortal's sense of doom.
Online we make our own chapter breaks, and life and death comingle. Entire personas are created, recreated, spliced, mixed, added to, evolved and lobotomized or dismissed. Whether we habitually set our modes of operation to flux with the many or the few matters less than we think of the time we spend doing it. The word here may not be time MANAGEMENT, so much as time APPRECIATION and INFLUENCE.
The liquid page is always, already a little bit beyond our control. As in poetic composition it is less a matter of directing force with authority (since power schemes organically shift, sway, reverse and speed up independent of our sustained vector) and much more a matter of cajoling, seducing, helping and awaiting for authoritative force(s) to converge.
Like the waves of the ocean, the waves of humanity swirl and glide in beautiful and luminous patterns upon the surface, with roiling, untold deeps below... SURF ON! Cheers,
Stanley Gemmell
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
SIGNIFICANT CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS FOR ME
DISMISSING YUCKY LIFESTYLE CHOICES AND REWIRING MY HABITS STEP BY STEP TO AVOID CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY HURTING OTHERS
EXAMPLES INCLUDE:
BALANCING HEDONISTIC IDEALS WITH SERVICE IDEALS WHILE KEEPING THE IDEAL OF LAW CENTRALLY BETWEEN THEM AS FULCRUM
this way the law reminds one to not indulge at others' cost and the law protects the service you do and keeps it effective
IMPROVING MY COMPOSURE COURAGE AND DELIBERATISM WHILE TROUBLESHOOTING MY REACTIVE BEHAVIORS WHILE KEEPING REBT CENTRALLY BETWEEN THE TWO AS ENGINE
this way Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy functions to steady my hand during my attempts at good work while also preventing paralysis in the form of self sabotage after times I fall short
BLESS AND TALK SOON!!
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