Posts by Lucy Stewart
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Emma Hart,
I got to the word “internet” in the above, and snort-laughed REALLY loudly.
Remember that these instructions were given by the American State Department. They probably have some legislation requiring people funded by them to not be obscene. In case someone starts complaining that American Taxpayer Dollars Are Funding Obscenity, etcetera.
(It's not actually an unreasonable request - it boils down to "don't be a dick where and when it can be blamed on us", which, fair enough - but the wording was...memorable.)
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lilith __,
I just don’t want it googlable as I have a professional presence on the web.
Now I think about it, I do recall the nice Fulbright people handing out instructions about our web presence, including the request that we not be obscene on the internet while we were Fulbright recipients. Which...er, well, my PAS presence was established long before I even applied, and I don't think I've got more obscene. Depending upon one's definition of obscene.
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Lilith __,
It’s a nickname I was known by in a particular group of friends some years ago, so I guess that helps me feel that it *is* a real name, just not the only one :-)
You wouldn't be alone - I flatted with a friend for years who I first met on the interwebz. All of us called her by her internet pseudonym - I still do, in fact, I'm never going to think of her by her real name. (It would get really confusing when her family came to visit and were all "blah blah [flatmate's real name]" and I'd be all "who are you t- oh, right".)
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
You misunderstand me. Ben Wilson is my real name. But I have a pseudonym I've never used here, that is my other internet handle. It's personal, having been my nickname to friends, and I'm careful with it.
Ah, right. I do the same in other areas of the 'net, though someone digging around could connect the two if they tried without too much difficulty. It'd just require that they be looking carefully in the first place, which is enough protection for me. My admiration for your frank participation in this thread is now fully restored.
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to James Butler,
Hell, when even Google fails to understand (or rather, doesn't give a shit about) Internet culture, we're doomed.
Yeeeeeah, that's been a right cluster-fuck. A few of the science-blog people were caught by both screwups - including some who had established the pseudonyms they were using as essentially a legal second identity (they'd received mail, speech payments, and so forth under them.) Totally legal, but did Google care? Nope. Did Google then shut down accounts they'd been using for years? Yep. Extremely uncool.
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to BenWilson,
3 things I couldn't give a crap about except that they form a not especially memorable or uniquely identifying handle.
I had honestly assumed it was your real name - the style around here does tend to be obvious pseudonym or real name, not pseudonymous real-sounding-name. Good choice in that regard, though. (Certainly puts a different light on the rest of the thread!)
-
OnPoint: Transcription of new Rick Perry…, in reply to recordari,
This agrees with your earlier point, but I find it hard to see any system providing selective health care on a largely profit motive as being a ‘great system’ for anyone.
It's highly selective. If you have power and money, it can work wonders, and certainly patient interaction and therefore perception of the system is very good in those circumstances. For everyone else...not so much. Worth remembering, too, that the threat of lawsuits means doctors are far less likely to prescribe drugs just because they're getting a kickback for them to people who might sue if it goes wrong.
Overall, yes, it's thoroughly corrupted by the profit motive. I was more trying to explain why the powerful in this country actively choose to perpetuate a failing system - it doesn't fail them, or not that they can notice.
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Bart Janssen,
In many cases here those pseudonyms have a strength of voice of their own now.
There’s been a massive stoush on one of the main science blogging networks after it got bought out by National Geographic and the new owners insisted everyone start blogging under their real names. A lot of these people had given speeches, written articles, and had robust online existences for years under their pseudonyms, over all corners of the web. Pretty much all their best bloggers, pseudonymous or not, left over it. NG had totally failed to understand internet culture.
On the internet, after all, a name is mostly a label (even more so than in real life.) As long as your online presence is consistent, coherent, and accountable – who cares whether the label is your legal name, your porn star name, or a keysmash? All three have the same validity. You earn that validity through the body of your interactions under that label, not your Googlability.
It’s true that beginning a discussion under new pseudonyms doesn’t have the same force, for a community like this, because that history wouldn’t be there. But as the discussion continued I think that intensity would return.
(The main problem would be that a lot of the more vocal – voluble? – community members here would probably be just as identifiable through their writing style as through their names, even if they took up pseudonyms. It’s hard to be anonymous among people who know you, sometimes.)
ETA: Snap, Russell, Emma, on the writing style bit.
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Ross Mason,
If we have not developed our sexual pleasure via evolutionary means...then.....how?
Things can develop through evolutionary means without necessarily having an evolutionary purpose. Side-effects, accidents, and physiological workarounds all play their role. Certainly a lot of aspects of sex have no obvious selective pressure accounting for them.
It's true that sexual pleasure in some form almost certainly evolved to facilitate increased reproduction, but we're the only species that knows that. All the others know is that it feels good. Saying they have sex primarily to reproduce attributes way too much cognition and foresight to them, and to evolution. It's inherently backwards-looking. Animals that have enough sex reproduce; why they have sex is sort of beside the point. They don't have to "know", in any way, that sex produces offspring for the process to work.
(I'm presuming there's no good evidence of other sentient species making the sex->babies link, but primate and cetacean cognition isn't my thing (I'm probably not even using "sentient" correctly there.) Anyone?)
-
Up Front: It's Not Sex, and It's Not Education, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Well one very good reason for me to not have children is my incredible temptation to mess with their brains … because you can.
God. It'd be so tempting. I don't know how anyone resists, really.
(Well, they don't, which is why I spent really far too much of my childhood thinking my father's eyebrows were made of tiger skin and that you could be caught out in cricket if the ball bounced once but the fielder caught it with one hand.)