Speaker: Copyright Must Change
2201 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 34 35 36 37 38 … 89 Newer→ Last
-
Um, nope. Enlighten me.
(Ooh, maybe they're too busy, y'know, teaching?)
They have a job that means they don't sit at a computer all day. Which, in between snickers, ought to make you perhaps reflect on how their ability to participate in public debates may be affected. My partner is a childcare worker and I can assure you she's keenly aware of these shifts. Which is not to say that the existence of a platform for dialogue that can reach a very large group indeed (perhaps unprecedently so) of students, office workers, journalists, academics and the like is a bad thing, of course it isn't. But it privileges and empowers certain people, and not others. Those people ought to perhaps try to bear it in mind, instead of assuming that they are the voice of democracy and speak for everyone.
-
Did you get out of the Grumpy Bed this morning?
not that Giovanni needs me to speak for him but his comments have never come across as grumpy.
He is focused and direct maybe, but never grumpy, angry or in anyway abusive, and certainly not in comparison to some. -
Oh, I don't know about that, Rob... :-)
-
those expenses would be there whether she wrote a book or not.
true but if they're not dealt with then she'd have to get a job flipping burgers (or paua fritters) and if she's doing that then she's not writting and so on.
an hours writing costs the same as it always has, digital hasn't changed that drastically and until computers write books themselves it'll still be people devoting time to a task, which requires a wage to pay for that time, unless its all amateur in approach, which is all well and good for the first couple of works but after that it becomes an issue both for the artist who can't sustain the endeavor and for the consumer who never gets to see more than a couple of amateur level works by an individual who never gets to hone their skills.
-
Oh, I don't know about that, Rob... :-)
I did say comparatively, and I should have quantified that with a "that I've seen" comment. maybe you've done your nut in on some other threads I don't read.
Mark's calm and collected when compared to a shark attacking in still water.
-
da-dum, da-dum, da-dum...
-
Besides, "reduced cost" doesn't necessarily mean "no cost" to the creator.
very true but the advances in digital have been heralded to mean no cost by many and its simply not the case.
And there are some appalling pieces of crap dumped on us by labels with engineers forcing loudness to the detriment of the music.
equally true but you'll find the people who do the loudness thing where you notice it are often the amateurs. There are ways of making your track competitively loud without ruining it and to do that you need someone experienced, someone like don bartley in sydney who does some of the best mastering around.
Experience doesn't have to mean tired and old, sometimes it can mean knowing how to achieve something you don't have the skill or knowledge to do yourself.as no-one was talking about the quality of the work,
the quality of the work as in how it achieves the goal it sets out to achieve is completely relevant when you're using the argument that home studio technology has reduced costs of recording. if it sounds over compressed and loud then the money saved on home studio is wasted if you wanted to make it big and wide.
I'm seeing a lot of people who have spent the last 3-5 years with home studios coming out and asking for help now. its not necessarily as simple as hit record. the difference between the sound they hear in their head and the sound coming out of their speakers can be quite sizable, and I'm using the word quality to mean artists desired result, not technical purity of signal.
-
They have a job that means they don't sit at a computer all day. Which, in between snickers, ought to make you perhaps reflect on how their ability to participate in public debates may be affected.
My partner is a childcare worker and I can assure you she's keenly aware of these shifts.Her capacity to participate may be diminished, but her opportunity is not. That's the empowerment. As with anything, it's up to the individual's decision to make the time to participate or to do other things they consider to be more important (and I'm not saying they're not important, before somebody speaking for you jumps all over that - my point is that individuals choose how to allocate their own resources).
I know plenty of people that do make time to participate in these sorts of discussion (I don't know about PAS, precisely) in several fora around the net - in their spare time, after work, in between shifts etc. Perhaps not as much as thee and me, but even I have to earn a living and step away at times. I'm not criticizing those who don't - I doubt that every living Athenian of the time actually spoke out in the agora . But they could.
Which is not to say that the existence of a platform for dialogue that can reach a very large group indeed (perhaps unprecedently so) of students, office workers, journalists, academics and the like is a bad thing, of course it isn't.
Good.
But it privileges and empowers certain people, and not others. Those people ought to perhaps try to bear it in mind, instead of assuming that they are the voice of democracy and speak for everyone.
Ooh, nice snark. But irrelevant. I speak for me, not those myriad others. I look at what is, and talk about what I think it should be, having applied logic, analysis and a sense of history. You may disagree with me, and it would be boring if nobody did, but not on the basis that I speak for everybody. I've never claimed that, to my memory. Feel free to cite any occasions when I have.
-
equally true but you'll find the people who do the loudness thing where you notice it are often the amateurs.
Well, yes, I'd certainly cite Metallica in that bracket.
the quality of the work as in how it achieves the goal it sets out to achieve is completely relevant when you're using the argument that home studio technology has reduced costs of recording. if it sounds over compressed and loud then the money saved on home studio is wasted if you wanted to make it big and wide.
Then no-one will want to listen to it, and they'll want to listen to stuff that is well made. Thus the "problem" is self-correcting.
I'm seeing a lot of people who have spent the last 3-5 years with home studios coming out and asking for help now. its not necessarily as simple as hit record. the difference between the sound they hear in their head and the sound coming out of their speakers can be quite sizable, and I'm using the word quality to mean artists desired result, not technical purity of signal.
Then they'll be filtering back into the studio to do their recording and all your worries about that will be groundless.
-
Her capacity to participate may be diminished, but her opportunityis not. That's the empowerment.
See, that's just not true. She's not going to spend her nights at the computer, but even if she did, she wouldn't be as empowered, as able to speak, as somebody who's spent the day on it as well. It's the bias of the technology. You may think it's all great and good, but it's not as if people didn't have ways of organising before. I grew up in the day of school and factory assemblies, of greater volunteerism and many different attemps at direct democracy. The Net didn't invent social organisation and activism, and in some ways is actively supplanting the old ways of going about it. As a result, the make up of the participants has shifted; some people have more power, others less. You keep implying (or saying it out right, in this case) that everyone is equally empowered to speak - if only they chose to do so. And that's a very pervasive and to my mind dangerous kind of thinking - I've tried to challenge it in my dissertation as well as more recently here (reluctance to self-link be damned).
You may disagree with me, and it would be boring if nobody did, but not on the basis that I speak for everybody. I've never claimed that, to my memory. Feel free to cite any occasions when I have.
Well, you have been talking about the good of society a fair bit, and I always understood it to mean the good of the networked society, made up of the mysterious and not otherwise defined "individuals" you were talking about no longer than one page ago.
-
all your worries about that will be groundless.
all my worries? care to list them cos if you think all my concerns are based on people using studios then you haven't understood much of the big picture.
my comments in that post relate directly to the argument that all is good cos recording is free, or that digital has changed a writers expenses so they can write books cheaper, or cheap enough to have them taken for free. That's a simplistic view that doesn't understand the complexities of creative sustainability an one that is too often used to brush over a much more complex and serious situation.
-
Well, yes, I'd certainly cite Metallica in that bracket.
I wouldn't.
part of their use of loud is to increase the brutality of their sound.
but it depends which song and which album you're talking about. -
To pick a category of people almost at random, have you ever wondered why so few teachers write on PAS, by any chance?
My mum is also a teacher. She reads Hard News, but stops short of daring to venture into the comments. I asked her why. The answer was interesting: She assumed that it must be full of brag and abuse, and uninformed comment. I told her that it certainly was, but there was good stuff there too, including plenty more by Russell, which was what brought her to Hard News (having liked what he wrote in the other old-skool media she still likes to ink her fingers with). But her real reason was that she doesn't have enough interest to take the time. In other words, she has chosen self-exclusion.
I privately opine that she is also heavily influenced by her profession's (she teaches Media Studies at Tech) distaste for the entire genre. Tertiary teaching has always been an offshoot of academia, and always wants to hover around the cutting edge of that. Academia is pretty hostile to the way things are published on the net (straight from brain to audience, with very little editing in many cases). Not so much hostile to the existence of it, but hostile to the idea that it's a challenge to what they themselves do. It can be crushing to someone who has studied something their whole life to be told by a rank amateur something that they'd never even thought of about it.
Personally, I don't feel that way about my area of expertise. It's just happened too damned often, that end-users see a better way that the software could work than the engineers who wrote it. We learn to just roll with that.
-
My mum is also a teacher.
Not to quibble, but I didn't mean teachers in the tertiary sector, who I think have far less contact time with the students and spend more time in front of the computer. I've had several occasions to experience the hostility to the medium and its participants that you describe - and your explanation of it is depressingly plausible.
Plus there's nothing like mentioning Wikipedia to a room full of academics. If you look closely you can see their eyes becoming reptilian for a split second, like in The Visitors.
-
Not to quibble, but I didn't mean teachers in the tertiary sector, who I think have far less contact time with the students and spend more time in front of the computer
Techs may be the exception to this. They're organized a lot more like high schools in that respect. But even still, while I forgive my Mum for not wanting to know much more about the blogosphere, I won't take much criticism from her of it.
If you ever get chased by reptilian academics, I've heard that running in zigzags works best. Something about the long tail makes it hard for them to turn.
-
Decided to check mythbusters on that one, and it turns out that our most famous predatory reptiles, crocodiles and alligators, don't need to be evaded by zigzagging. If you escape the lunge, they give up. Does this generalize to reptilian academics? Probably. If you're outside of their pool of specialty, their kill-zone, you'll be safe enough.
-
To pick a category of people almost at random, have you ever wondered why so few teachers write on PAS, by any chance?
I actually don't think you're correct there. At various times, we've had a number of people out themselves as teachers. Not under-represented at all, methinks.
If you were talking about spraypainters, I think you'd be right. According to Nielsen, we're also below the market average for Maori, but way above for people with tertiary qualifications. Which is ironic, given my own lack in that department.
From what I can tell, the major block to participating in discussions here is that people feel intimidated by the level of discussion and fear they might be slapped down. Almost invariably, when those people do break cover and make a debut post, it's well worth reading.
But how did we get here anyway? I thought this thread was about me and robbery ;-)
-
At various times, we've had a number of people out themselves as teachers. Not under-represented at all, methinks.
I was quite struck by the low number (two) at the time when Tolley was being discussed. And I've been keeping an eye of sorts out since - but of course you'd know much better than I about this. I'd be very interested in your polling data in temrs of professsions, but I'm sure it's confidential
-
giovanni's point is valid,
purely by the medium that PA occurs in it is bias to the people that frequent it, not that it should apologise for that, but just that you should acknowledge that if me or mark or anyone else held down a day job in a factory we wouldn't have the inclination to spend hours debating the finer points of the word "steal".Giovanni chose to pick teachers at random but you could equally as easy pick sailors or retired bus drivers.
The point was that this place has a tendency toward computer literate people, people who use computers in their daily lives. many people still don't, but of those that do and come here a sizable proportion appear to be comp tech leaning, or maybe comp tech leaning people are just more inclined to speak their views, loudly
-
I thought this thread was about me and robbery ;-)
if you biuld one they will come.
-
I was quite struck by the low number (two) at the time when Tolley was being discussed.
I can think of half a dozen off the top of my head.
I'd be very interested in your polling data in temrs of professsions, but I'm sure it's confidential
I'd love to know myself, but Nielsen don't go into that detail for the money I can pay.
-
purely by the medium that PA occurs in it is bias to the people that frequent it.
Sure but that doesn't refute the idea that a lot of people have been mightily empowered by the net, and that looks likely to continue. I'm curious in what ways Gio thinks people have been disempowered by it, as a source of his fears about the 'dangerous kind of thinking' involved in pointing out how empowering it has been. The pool of literate people was small in times past too, but has anyone ever said that becoming literate was disempowering? Or is he claiming that becoming literate disempowers other people by giving you some unfair advantage?
-
I'm curious in what ways Gio thinks people have been disempowered by it, as a source of his fears about the 'dangerous kind of thinking' involved in pointing out how empowering it has been.
The, er, what now?
The pool of literate people was small in times past too, but has anyone ever said that becoming literate was disempowering? Or is he claiming that becoming literate disempowers other people by giving you some unfair advantage?
Being able to write well confers a very big advantage in discussions here, which is why I so greatly admire Steven Crawford's hard work in getting past his dyslexia to take a full part in the community. In some ways, he's my favourite PASer of all. He's more than paid his dues to be part of it.
But without having to go through back-posts, I'll argue all day long about the empowering virtues of the internet.
Two words, basically: Trade Me. It's classless and pervasive and it does require people to interact effectively with each other through text (they also discuss the issues of the day). I also know for a fact that it has offered real options to people who had otherwise failed in the economy. Some of the top traders are in that category.
-
The, er, what now?
I'm not about to think I really understand Gio's point until I've finished reading his dissertation. So I hope he doesn't take umbrage at my possible misunderstanding.
Being able to write well confers a very big advantage in discussions here
For sure, but I was actually talking about being able to read and write at all which some people still can't. But that doesn't mean that being able to wasn't an incredibly empowering thing for the human race, even if a lot of humans never took advantage of it.
Gio was suggesting that whilst the internet is surely empowering to some, as a result it may have undermined other institutions that were doing some good, and thus has simply shifted power, rather than 'generally empowered humanity'.
Oh, and TradeMe is awesome. Both for buying things, and for researching alternatives. I could have been led to believe that an electric bike should cost $3000 if I went only by what retailers offer them for. I got mine for $200 delivered, and when I went to test one of these $3000 ones to compare, it was basically a little bit more shit, at 15 times the price. Now my cycling is quite literally empowered.
-
I'm curious in what ways Gio thinks people have been disempowered by it, as a source of his fears about the 'dangerous kind of thinking' involved in pointing out how empowering it has been.
Not disempowered as such, but it doesn't include everyone, and it most likely never will. The people it does happen to include have an obligation I think to examine their privileged speaking position, and not assume that they represent a totality, *the* people.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.