<nettime> nettimespace unentangled - part 1

[brian carroll <human@electronetwork.org>]

[the following notes relate to the thread 'nettime as idea' which seek
to clarify the _context for the comments made regarding the charges of
'abuse' in that issues of complexity, perspective, relativism may all
be facets of a larger shared experience - yet which may mean different
things to different people. an impersonal accounting will be followed
by a personal accounting of this issue, from my given perspective.]

---

* having signed onto nettime years ago, it has been a great resource
for ideas, for years, no doubt. yet it has had 'high hopes'
expressed in its agenda, about what is needing to be addressed,
engaged by thinkers and doers, and questions about how to go about
this oftentimes are presented. world issues, local vantages,
online and offline coordination, etc. this aspect of nettime, its
'purposefulness' as a list, having some agency or greater purpose
for ideas, in which they are put into actions, in larger and smaller
scales, has been one of the most intriguing and hopeful aspects,
and this is a nettime that has potential to do things needing to be
done, if only some of the issues or hurdles could be overcome. how to
do that is a perennial issue and how this questioning occurs, also.
'Empire' could be seen as one instance, another 'tactical media', as
others. i believe in this nettime, in this purpose, in these efforts
and experiments, even if the ideas are problematic as to stated
goals, there is undeniably the intention to effect positive changes.
i respect this nettime, these nettimers, and yet find the ideas are
questionable as to what is being claimed versus the actual situations
- as they are being modeled, as ideas, in terms of logic, truth, fact,
reasoning.

i am not sure this is problematic in any way, excepting not buying
into these approach to resolving the issues, and instead offering
substantive critiques of many ideas, in hopes of refining them through
debate, with regard to what is more actually going on. such as with
issues of Empire and empiricism, or Tactical Media in relation
to electromagnetic infrastructure, say. this is common fare for
ideas, to dissent views and debate positions and seek some greater
understanding through this process. yet, on nettime, this process is
pretty much one-way, and the criticism is never answered or responded
to, directly, in terms of ideas. and it seems that this external
criticism of these approaches, of challenging the critics and their
own critiques, becomes an issue of contempt over a period of time,
in that this devalues the purity of consensus around which people
gather and continue developing such thinking. that is, the thinking
itself appears to be set-in-place around a set of assumptions about
how things work, which is self-supporting within a given culture
or ecosystem, if academic, and it can sustain without need for
modifications as to the ideas, as they are capable of pursuing things
without need for additional adaptations beyond the confines of the
users.

the issue with this is oftentimes these ideas are 'grounded' in
philosophies which have been extended and have become the platform for
agendas, and in a sense are used as justification and legitimation of
such an approach - based on ideas - yet which, if the ideas themselves
are merely utilitarian, may have the agenda turn against the original
intent of the ideas. D&G stated this in Anti- Oedipus to some extent,
i think it was, in that to simply apply the ideas is not enough,
because they are corruptible as ideas. (my paraphrase, and it can
be said in another way: that accepting something as true, and then
extending that truth beyond its originating circumstances can detach
this truth from the facts which constitute it, and as such, truth
can be separated from reality, and reason can be separated from
a responsibility to this (shared) truth, which -- if this is all
based in philosophy -- would need to be respected, and not ignored
as secondary to another agenda, if it is the basis for actions. in
this case, this is a difference between ideas that are open to being
questioned (criticism) and ideas that are closed as if an answered
question, which becomes ideology.

thus, in challenging ideas, based in philosophy, as to their truth in
relation to rather large grand sweeping claims of totality (reality,
value, justice, purpose, politics, etc) - it would seem 'fair game'
to question the ideas that underly this system of thinking - which
is rather pervasive and consistent as a 'school of thought' in terms
that there is some monoculture in all of this, academically, that
ties in with certain theories of how things are, how they should be
approached, and that this is justified based on big ideas in important
books.

so there is book knowledge and there is understanding of the issues
in relation to being able to personally and successfully reason the
arguments as to the claims being made. that this is challenged by an
outsider is part of 'discursive practice' one might be led to think,
and part of the tradition of 'the academy' no less, in that the
accretion of knowledge is a process of questioning and refining of
ideas, often between people who share interests in the questions yet
different views, by which to better understand the questions and the
ideas, and in this to learn and improve understanding by addressing
known issues and conflicting views by using shared facts within
reasoning, based in logic. this could be considered 'foundational'
or fundamental and a basic requirement for philosophy, which helps
build up ideas across a large swath of viewpoints in which all who
participated benefit from this process of engaging idea and refining
ideas through reasoning, in that views may differ and it may become
more clear why and how they differ, through reasoning itself, which
in turn adds value because all benefit from this exchange, even if
of different viewpoints. that is, with respect to the truth of a
situation under question, if this is considered the value of the
philosophizing, and not something more profane such as the use of
ideas in the application of power, which tends to ideology.


* now, it could be that a recent exchange with the nettime moderators
during a time of severe strife in sending a post with cut-throat
dimensions had the unfortunate consequence of asking for a priority of
sending it onto the list, before a certain date, if at all possible.
this stepping on toes was immediately realized and apologized for,
twice as seemingly necessary, - and it was wrong to ask and it was due
to stress, and i do not think this interaction was the reason for the
calls of 'abuse' -- that is, to use the power of a poster to nettime
to try to control the procedures of getting an e- mail onto the list,
that is, trying to manage the list itself. of previous run-in's with
moderators, i have lived and learned and do have respect for this
and so it is not a serious complaint though there is tension in any
of this - which to me is more related to the above issues. and so,
this writing is an attempt to clarify what this issue of 'abuse'
to me really is getting at, and why this is not a fair charge, in
that context, and disrespectful to ideas, even petty if it is to
be considered 'abuse', if not bigoted and prejudiced which may be
included as another perspective later.


* the issue to me is that, in believing in nettime as an idea, it is
oftentimes to run up against the ideology of academics today (decades
worth), in terms of ideas as they relate to issues of truth, reason,
logic, etc. and, if someone is making claims as to how things are or
should be, it would appear okay to question the ideas in this process
of learning, by pointing out inconsistencies which contradict the
argument and which would require clarifying or refining the argument
to address these known fractures, which do not support claims. in this
area it has been consistent that instead of this process occurring in
which ideas are refined, the larger sweeping claims become an issue
of choice: to believe or not believe in the existing perspectives.
it may be alot to ask, online, yet if someone is using philosophy
or extending it to pursue an agenda or goal, that this philosophy
and its relation to truth would also be important- else, it could
become separated from this truth and have no grounded: becoming a
free-floating concept, maybe even some kind of new artform. this
is consistently where 'theory' places itself, with regard to the
grounding of ideas that are used to justify major claims about the
world and its reality and how it functions - if it is taken in a
public perspective in which knowledge was once public and that this is
where the value of philosophy is found, when it can be shared across a
range of viewpoints and built-up and passed-down, in a process which
is error-correcting and self-checking and balances claims with what
can be reasoned more actually exists, based on facts, truth, logic,
experiment, proof.


* this aspect of demanding some kind of grounding for claims of
theorists and 'intellectuals' is not excessive or overwrought, it
is necessary if the ideas being used are going to be considered in
relation to truth, logic, and reality, or another approach altogether
such as 'creative writing' or what is essentially language games. it
is in this detachment from a responsibility to this 'public' empirical
knowledge based in shared facts, truth, knowledge, peer review, that
'privatizes' ideas, via championing the Privilege of Perspective,
which is both the blessing and curse of relativism. as an idea it can
allow wonderful explorations of ideas never before considered through
the unique meanderings of any given viewpoint and pathway, novel and
inventive. it can also distort and bias a point of view so much that
it can be 'unreplicatable' as to the claims being made by an observer,
of a situation observed, and thus gives a status of authority to a
point of view which may or may not be more actually the case, which it
is impossible to tell the difference if facts, logic, and reasoning
are not possible for peer review, outside of these private dictates.
there may be some truth or actuality, yet it may be at most only
partial unless one approaches a religious status which elsewhere might
be called as a viewpoint of a divine despot, (as mentioned in Lewis
Mumford's Myth of the Machine), where such status can lead someone to
believe they have a direct connect to divine knowledge, and the system
that exists (in states and in academic, it could be argued, by way of
theory) is built with this pitfall, of divine dictatorship.


* the point being that there is a divorce, in the ideas, from facts
and truth and reasoning which oftentimes is justified based on
'theories' which have been proven to be without empirical proof in a
realm of public facts, as to the claims being made, and that people
may develop their work based on these theories does not further
legitimate the underlying ideas or extend them, necessarily - and may
in fact contradict the original truths these were built on, because
of the bias and distortions built-into this process which allows
'reason' to exist beyond the responsibility to its grounding in truth,
logic, and even reality. this is the problem of relativism, of the
loss of empirical knowledge in the educational system, the melange
of postmodernism, a many interesting yet increasingly fragmented
and particularized points-of-view - which never add up to more than
another view of the many that co-exist. this condition of ideas could
be considered historical, impersonal in that it is inherited and it
is engaged in ways it is most capable of, given these conditions.
which is to say, there may not be a way of resolving these issues and
they become assumptions, a basis by which to accept as a reasoned
trade-off to pursue ideas which go beyond these limitations. which has
many positive benefits, in terms of the particular, yet the general
knowledge and understanding and claims being made about this can be
quite unstable in terms of grounding them in relation to facts, truth,
logic, versus statements of belief and faith which may become more
of a religious than technical philosophy, the latter (scientific)
not being optional for claims being made in a physical, material,
tangible world, in a process of refinement through addressing a larger
philosophy of what exists, why, what to do, etc.

while it may be useful that a metaphysical *magic* is introduced to
fill this gap, akin to mysticism, this does not work so well when
talking about things technical, and using this magic to justify
this technical aspect in relation to a balancing of facts versus
representations or modeling of what is going on, how, who for,
etc. it is a problem that was at the beginning of science, which
there may have been 40 goats on the moon to describe why something
is the way it is, and another may have seen that it was that the
mountain groaned which made it so, yet until this could be described
in a shared perspective and not just the relative views, it was
not possible to get a shared accounting of what was more actually
going on. this 'supernatural' aspect of reasoning being one of the
things that supposedly differentiated 'the West' as a culture which
developed things such as the internet, such as Thales figuring out
electrostatics in amber, which opened up the electromagnetic universe
to reason, understanding, shared empirical knowledge - and a grounding
for the magical dimensions, which does not negate them, only provides
a technical context in which they co-exist, it does not refute the
additional dimensions of reality found in multiple perspectives, it is
only to provide that there is a shared domain also, a public 'empire'
that is nature, ideas, that can be understood empirically by methods
which build understanding based in facts, truth, experiment, peer
review, challenges, debates, and criticism which is grounded in these,
not for its own sake as some formulaic game of rhetoricians.


* so, if people are talking about the internet, yet cannot talk
about amber in relation to it, it is not because it is an issue of
perspective or point of view or relativism, it is that the empirical
connection that exists in facts, truth, logic, and reasoning between
these two events becomes optional, it can be ignored as a choice or an
option as to the privatization of thinking, which says this is only
another relative viewpoint, take it or leave it. this is corrupt.
in terms of ideas this is the basic lie which begins to erode the
larger works and efforts, too. in that there is a responsibility
to acknowledge, respect, and honor the truth of this connection so
as to better understand the issues, say, with the Internet, its
development, its grounding in the physical world, as such the realm
of physics, and this general view adds to greater understanding and
refinement of both the whole and part, in questioning and answering.
that is, various views, if grounded in empirical knowledge, would
be cumulative and combine to develop a larger shared perspective --
which is not happening today. the point being that while people talk
and do their work, that this divorce from this requirement to ground
ideas in a shared and public realm of facts, has given way to many
competing fictions, which becomes an industry based on the production
of relativist perspectives, which often privatizes the learning
process, to one that is equivalent to religious indoctrination in the
school systems, notably in the university systems.

it is not only electromagnetism (though it is related to everything
which has an electromagnetic dimension and thus, is relevant and
'real' and requires being included in observations - not simply being
ignored) it is also aspects of logic, of psychology, of language,
mathematics, which also equally need to be observed in relation to
claims being made versus what can be reasoned to more accurately
exist, in such a process. a process which is _not optional, if
engaging in philosophy and ideas and reasoning and law. this must be
respected - and today it is not. -- today, it is not -- in schools
themselves. -- by teachers, educators, even.

whose fault is this? it is systemic, it is part of a larger condition
which could be described and modeled in empirical terms, excepting
that this can be ignored by those who choose not to believe in such
a viewpoint. that is, this responsibility to 'enlightened reason'
which once defined 'the West' and supposedly upholds its cultural
superiority, in that it constituted a shared public zeitgeist that was
apparently more evolved -- has become privatized, without centering,
and is collapsing from within, including within individuals who uphold
some previous notions of truth which now has devolved into a private
despotic system of beliefs and faith in views that become detached
from reality, truth itself, becoming delusional, fictional, even
completely mad.


* now imagine if this private dictatorship of the mind, which the era
allows, (in that power can become truth as a way of defining reality
as if by sheer determination and ambition alone), replaces the public
zeitgeist with a private worldview, in which by social darwinist
competition the greatest relativism prevails to conquer this private
empirical mountain and thus represent the whole state of affairs, say
in the .US government. in such a situation the facts and truth and
reasoning would be distorted and biased toward a given point of view
or particular relative perspective (in a panoptic situation) to which
all other views would have to adjust, including polarized views, in
opposition or dissent. {since there is no possibility of including a
diagram as an attachments, this cannot be visualized when much has
been put into making such things very clear}.

in such a case, it could be successfully reasoned that, based in this
empirical knowledge, the claims being made by those who are believed
to stand against the policies of today are no different than those
they are critiquing, in view of these issues. that, in contradiction
to this, that this very status quo of existing dynamics necessitates
the current environment to exist and behave the way it does, because
the way things now are.

this is to say that the means and methods by which things are done
are contributing to the way things are, and that this status quo
is inseparable from the development of fascism in the cybernetic
organization of the state and its policies. that is, if there is
fascism and a dictatorship, this did not develop in a vacuum, it is
pervasive in the daily environments and their functioning, including
decision-making of individuals, and in particular, the way ideas are
turned into actions and what level of accountability there is between
truth and lies, fact and fiction, reasoning and rhetoric, ideas and
ideology, in terms of grounding this in a shared view, a public view,
by which to consider what is going on, how it is going on, and what
can be done about it.


* if this is pre-scientific, it would exclude looking at the role of
the individual observer or person or citizen in co-creating these
larger cybernetic events. it would not be able to look at the private
relativism of individual views and how this is mediated in the day
to day, exploited even to one's own benefit at the cost of others,
which could simply be ignored. and thus at a certain point there may
be the inevitable 'leap of faith' into the assumptions of trusting
this viewpoint is somehow not part of the larger whole, that it is
different, relative, that what is 'over there is not here.' this
betrays the truth, logic, facts, and physics. and if choosing such
a route it would be to choose ignorance over reason, as to what is
expected if addressing these issues in a responsible manner, and not
that of individual despotism, which exploits relativism in the name
of power and not of truth. it could even become an issue of ego and
self-righteousness, the privilege of perspective allowing a superior
moral relativism over other things, say, corporations and their
policies which oppress, while the hypocrisy of this position need not
be accounted for, by those speaking against such things, while it
exists in their own positions, in their own internal corruption of
the logic, language, reason, truth, when it is balanced in a larger
viewpoint. that is, if the ideas are forgotten and only ideology is
truly and faithfully believed. this distortion and bias becoming
dictatorial, enabling actions which may be influential, yet no less
corrupt than the things being railed against- and even oppressive
against the very goals seeking resolution if not to accurately model
situations beyond the limits and distortions of any given perspective.
which may, in effect, get things stuck in a certain ideological
approach which can no longer function, in terms of shared and public
reasoning, by which to effectively address goals. which in turn may
even be institutionalized, to become another bureaucratic mechanism
which requires indoctrinating others into its beliefs so that it
too can be sustained and grow. this view would be a counterpoint of
the utopian initiatives which have upper limits as to what is being
claimed versus what is effectively being addressed by any given
actions taken on its behalf, as ideas and as ideology-- what is being
sold often contradicts what is being claimed.

for instance, without a grounding in empirical reason, in the largest
sense that it is an open and public forum in which all ideas can
contribute and not just those allowed or controlled by private
gatekeepers, the .US elections could be seen as an issue of political
parties and from this perspective, one the parties are changed
that the overall dynamic of private corporate dictatorship would
be changed. this is fundamentally not the case, if taking into
account empirical evidence where the status quo is what is developing
fascistic decision-making, on its behalf. and what is scarier is
that, if it were represented otherwise, in that there would be some
fundamental change by switching political parties, that this fictional
accounting which is not based or grounded in shared reason and
public facts, truth, and logic could continue this fascistic policy
as it is necessitated by the structural setup of the state as it is
constituted, unless it can successfully be abolished and reconstituted
by reasoning which successfully conveys the reality of this situation,
which presently can simply be ignored as another point of view among
many in a society devoid of philosophy.

this is to say, whatever replaces the present .US administration
would likely and arguably be even worse in terms of fascist policies
because the underlying structural problems, say to do with corporate
dictatorship and enslavement of populations as part of 'the way things
work' in given constitutional bias and distortions, would continue
as it has as the status quo, and would continue to undermine any
advances beyond past failing which undermine all change. the next
adminsitration could turn out to be more fascist than the last, if
having the powers of the police state to enact policy changes without
the need for grounding in shared and public truth, facts, logic,
and reasoning, which balances the diversity of views in a greater
understanding. taking into account difference, and addressing these,
rather than ignoring them and using brute force of ideology to move
things ahead. the 'status quo' also consists of this ideology, and as
50% of it is created by the Demoncrats, it is unlikely any of these
will be substantially challenged or questioned within governance.

it is all part of the same deception of thinking, which while one can
vote for this approach, defies the truth of the situation and its more
dire dimensions -- that this is not simply a game, not only about
opinions, options, and instead - that this is about life and death,
good and evil, truth and falsity, reason and ignorance, and where one
places themselves in this binary situation, and how they go about
doing so: faith and belief or reason of facts, truth, logic, with
some sense of how one's own psychological identity is modeled in this
complex decision-making, so that ideas are consistent and supportive
of actions, and not contradictory at the level of the self. the only
way through this process, successful, it would seem is to acknowledge
that a larger empirical reality exists and to respect and observe
this, in addition to the public responsibility of ideas to not ignore
things that may contradict beliefs and instead to work through them,
to gain understanding. to benefit from shared views which are diverse,
which are complex yet elegant in the larger formations they compose,
over geographies yet also over millennia and mediums, that this is all
part of the same domain.

without this 'soulful' dimension, which acknowledges a larger truth
and greater reality, beyond the limits of any individual observer or
particular viewpoint or school of thought, that these are all tied
together into a larger empirical situation, and all fit in relation to
one another, in some developing connectedness which validates their
own partial truths and refines those requiring it (all), then it is
still a question of relativism of beliefs and faith in what amounts to
'chaos' by way of ideologism, beyond evidence of actual ordering.

* this is to say that this empirical truth and modeling of reality
must be observed and respected and there is a responsibility to
engage and address it that cannot simply be dismissed. no matter
who is making claims to the contrary, from whatever position of
power or administration. the truth prevails, and justice is served.
if this 'truth' is denied, so too is the integrity of reason,
corrupted. argument, discourse, debate mean nothing. it becomes a
mere formalistic exercise in a mimicking of authenticity, as if by
pretending, it will make it real, legitimate it through some formulaic
approach by which to manufacture a given set of beliefs, procedurally.

that is, while one may take a simplistic view of events and argue them
at this level, such as with the Iraq war, or the War of Terror, or
9/11, that unless the *full empirical dimensions* are accounted for,
that an accurate portrayal and representation of what is going on is
impossible, in that there is no way to achieve an accurate model of
the situation if based in bias and distortions that are inherent in
relative viewpoints. so that, in effect, argumentation about these
issues which limit the perspective would exist in largely unreal
portrayals as to these situations, which would limit actions based
on the accuracy of the ideas themselves and their relation to truth,
logic, etc. as to the situation that more accurately exists. it is
only by including this (objective) empirical dimension, accounting
for individual bias and distortion and issues of perspective that
this can be taken on, accurately, philosophically, in which to relate
ideas with actions within shared reality. thus, if this modeling
necessitates considering the state as a cybernetic organism to do so,
this is not an option or opinion, this is necessitated by empirical
reason, in order to develop alternative options for this situation. it
is not a matter of preference or choice or self-promotional agenda, of
citizens to take on such a role. it is a duty, requirement of those
living in a democracy, based in rule of law, and not of private men.
so too, abolishing the federal government, so as to save the state
from this path of its own self-destruction. to ignore these dimensions
is to deny fundamental reality. and this is problematic for those who
claim to be engaging issues yet denying empirical knowledge, and in
turn, placing their support for this fascist status-quo, including
the ways of thinking which have become institutionalized and even
professed, by which this mechanism controls and grows itself, beyond
grounding in truth and a responsibility for it and ourselves, versus
serving a machinery that is basically dehumanized, automated, and has
us now enslaved.


* we all share in a basic situation yet all have different viewpoints.
the only way to resolve this is to figure it out, how we relate and
how we can leverage our situation to change things according to
shared goals, even if our experiences and positions are different. in
this moment, it would appear that it is this exists as a transition
between the failures of 20th c. relativism and the requirement of
an emerging 21st c. empiricism, in which 'theory' has played an
important albeit limited (and limiting) role, which now must be
changed. it is as if, as the old ideas are fading into the past, this
general magical quality of metaphysics took hold over this event
and went into abstraction, as if the end of one reality begetting
the beginning of the new, yet it is not in the chaos of entropy and
fragmentation that this new empiricism is naturally emerges, instead
it is the question of ordering at the world-scale in order to engage
world-issues as they exist, in ideas which become a basis for actions.
this is where the utility of theory becomes a drawback, unless it
can become contextualized in this larger empiricism, which is what
this (writing all of this, writing on nettime for years) has been all
about. that, 'in the beginning' there is a need for this open-ended
exploration and experiment yet then there is a phase change or new
stage which requires the many views to be grounded, solidified,
connected, in a new framework of relation and scale which incorporates
what is known and shared as knowledge, across the many views, and then
builds this into a larger shared and public accounting which can be
checked and balanced as a system of knowledge. that is, a foundation
for the new reality. this is not about men, this about laws. facts,
physics, peer review, reason, proof.

the problem with metaphysicians or their followers (who can be
ideologues, unwittingly) is that this may be seen as an issue of
faith or belief, versus that of reason and responsibility to a shared
empirical truth. and as such 'the priesthood' of theory, which holds
onto the existing paradigms, has a conflict of interests if it is
not willing to give up its religious if theological 'universalist'
leanings, for ones that are grounded in facts, in which peer review
can disprove claims being made, versus having theorists making up
universal laws which their believers/followers repeat as truth, and
extend this thinking as disciples of a given school of thought, which
becomes ideological if it is detached from truth, facts, logic,
reason, and cannot be itself critiqued, nor is allowed to acknowledge
disproval of claims, simply by ignoring them and choosing to believe
otherwise. the issue of inauthenticity and contempt with regard to
ideas is 'critical' here, as there is something to be gained in this
lie, which is private power over a greater truth which transcends
theorism.


* to challenge this is a responsibility of any thinker who encounters
it. it is the basis for shared reasoning, by which through this
process, ideas are refined. that is the potential which the internet
and mailing lists and nettime could provide. yet, oftentimes, it
appears that there is an upper and lower limit to where 'discourse'
is allowed to go. this adventure necessarily stops rather abruptly in
proximity to these issues. and dissent of these, - which i contend is
what is being referred to simply as *abuse* by those who feel wronged
by this obligation to be respectful as to issues of truth, and a
responsibility to uphold these principles, especially if making claims
on their behalf, that this is an issue of hypocrisy if considered in
these very personal terms about what are very big issues about very
big ideas which are very important as to what is going on today and
how it will or will not be dealt with, by people such as ourselves.
instead, i offer this perspective as to the necessity to dissent to
this trade-off of allowing relativism to dictate private viewpoints
which compete for privileged positions of power by which to seek to
influence the larger situation, which lays waste to true reason which
is grounded in fact and in a shared worldview, versus exploiting and
manipulating this based on the particular benefits gained for one's
viewpoint, which can tend towards the corrupt and the despotic.

this would be an instance of 'reversing the panopticon' even, if
the hypocrisy of such a position were to be taken into account as
to claims being made of 'abuse' in such a situation-- for is this
abuse actually in the demand to mediate truth in accurate terms, in
the philosophical context in which it exists on the nettime list?
and that this disgruntles those who would rather just go about their
private business and not have to be bothered by viewpoints which
contradict their own, cause doubt, challenged, even shown that there
is error that must be resolved between the relativist beliefs and the
empirical facts-- and that this is upsetting and becomes an issue
of how people psychologically process these *feelings* versus the
thoughts themselves, internally, that this may be hurtful to realize,
and thus could be considered an affront that is otherwise unnecessary
or could be said in much more respectful tone as an opinion which
could just be ignored?

unfortunately, this is not personal. this is the more impersonal
and objective process of reasoning which has developed in which,
within given imperfections, the general truth would win out in such
circumstances and if the truth is to be observed, respected, by those
responsible for grounding ideas in the world-- it would not be a
choice or an option - it would be necessary to acknowledge and work
through this difference and to figure it out together, to resolve
it so as to move beyond it, everyone benefiting from doing so who
participates in such empirical development in a shared (public)
worldview, which cannot be achieved by ignoring the basic trade-off,
which is both between the self and with others, and ultimately the
larger state of affairs. that is, there is a public dimension, that
this is about public thinking, public facts, public logic, public
language, public identity which can unify what now only exists
in chaotic fragmentations of speed. whereas, this is timeless,
unchanging, if grounded, in essence (which may be the metaphysical
truth).

* so, for instance, here is a link from Robotwisdom.com which is
oftentimes insightful and it is about 'gamers' who do not like
'abuse'. if it were considered in the normal paradigm of tradition,
the status quo, it could be seen that the claims of upsetting things
could be equated with this view. yet, if one were to model that
the status-quo itself is fascist, in its development, that merely
by existing it is increasingly pursuing its own dehumanization via
cybernetic organisms in a socially darwinist end-game to colonize the
planet-- then the person who may be deemed as 'abusive' may be the one
who is calling this situation for what it is, and those who partake
do not like this, and the more actual abuse may be the hypocrisy in
denying the fascist dimension exists, and not wanting to mediate
things in such a way, while making claims about how this is being
dealt with by those who occupy a given game, such as nettime. this is
to say that _context matters, and not everyone shares the same point
of view in the panopticon by which to perceive these dimensions, by
which claims are made, such as abuse, versus what could be another
viewpoint of this shared reality, which is why i am writing this post
- no longer with hope in seeing this situation transformed, only to
let it be known that i reject this portrayal and find it degrading
to spirit of exchanging ideas and insulting to a very high degree
because it is a lie as to the actual situation, the actual issues,
the actual efforts, and the abuse of a position of power by which to
leverage such claims, behind the wall of silence, when not addressing
these issues out in a public forum by way of engaging in the process
of public reasoning, which apparently cannot be done or has become
unnecessary, which then means it is time to move beyond this hope.


Gamers don't want any more grief -- Players who abuse others in online
games may soon be ostracised as virtual communities start to police
their own environments

Martin Davies, Thursday June 15, 2006, The Guardian
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1797198,00.html

* while it can be understood that it may be grating to have someone
challenging the basis for a given point of view, this is an entirely
legitimate and necessary activity in the realm of ideas, and to
condemn this as if it is a personal vendetta is questionable as to the
intention - it is suspect because it is unreasonable. that is, there
is some cost or -price- to ideas, this being they can be proven wrong
or untruthful. which mine are likewise rife with errors, which can be
corrected and refined by those willing to partake in the reasoning.
yet if this process of checks and balances (democracy, no less) in
representing a point of view, which claims a greater universality than
may otherwise be shown not to exist, with regard to certain facts
or dynamics yet which does not deny the truth and legitimacy that
does not rely on this that is largely completely functional, then to
claim that this upholding (not denying) this obligation to ideas is
_abusive, by seeking and even, in terms of the intellectual funhouse
that theory can become, which demands such grounding by anyone who is
serious about ideas, firstly, and not using them primarily for other
agendas, actions, self-interests, etc. then it would be respected
that this is a legitimate, responsible, and dutiful obligation to
uphold as a public principle which differentiates a public knowledge
from a private realm which may have conflicted interests. this is
understandable, and maybe 'reason' as it exists, in e-mail words,
cannot bridge this divide until there are opportunities to meet
and have conversations face to face, which it would be seen are
not contentious and instead collaborative, taking 10 minutes what
would take 10 years online to get beyond. yet this is not an option
for some, and views may only build and polarize until this then
necessitates they be resolved. which is why maybe this exchange is for
the better, in terms of reasoning. maybe the personal objective truth
of it cannot be ignored, though I will be adding some of my own then,
to balance this out a bit more.

[cont.]


  brian thomas carroll: research-design-development
  architecture, education, electromagnetism
  http://www.mnartists.org/brian_carroll
  http://www.electronetwork.org/bc/





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