Relevantly Irrelevant
Εμπιστοσύνη by Αμάντα Μιχαολοπούλου
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Ένας μυστηριώδης φόνος ενός κριτικού λογοτεχνίας στην Πάρο. Μια λεσβία αστυνομικίνα η οποία ερωτεύεται μια από τις υπόπτους. Ένα καλοκαιρινό, ανάλαφρο διήγημα· το έκανε ακόμα καλύτερο το ότι το διάβασα στην μέση του χειμώνα. Θέλω τώρα να διαβάσω περισσότερα της Αμάντας Μιχαλοπούλου, κάνει ωραίες περιγράφες και έχει πρωτότυπες ιδέες (και είναι ελαφρώς λεξιπλάστης· τι άλλο να θέλω;)
Digital Media Ethics by Charles Ess
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Facebook, privacy, video games (I’m writing an assignment of VGs and morality! ^^J), pornography, piracy, copyright, definitions of identity… all parts of the greater discussion on digital media ethics, options, moral frameworks (and consequently ways of tackling them) and institutional approaches showing more or less malevolent understanding of the current cyber-landscape’s true nature. There’s not much else out there on the matter and even if there was, Digital Media Ethics would still probably take the cake as the most comprehensive book on the matter out now.
One of the good things I got from it was how it really helped me understand the differences between the frameworks that exist to tackle ethical problems. Chances are each one of us, seldom with us being conscious about it, has a combination of degrees of the following:
Utilitarianism → For the greater good (ethics quantified)
Deontology → But you promised! (positive and negative human rights)
Feminist ethics → Ethics of care and emotion (stop DUALISM cartel! Logic of both/and )
Virtue ethics → Practicing excellence as a human (can’t you use your time any better?)
Confucian ethics → We are our relationships (I’m a different onion layer with everyone)
Meta-ethical frameworks:
Ethical relativism → Oh, you know, this tribe… (Hitler = Mother Teresa)
Ethical absolutism → I hold the end-all be-all truth! (Dogmatism much?)
Ethical pluralism → There must be a single truth out there… (…but all we can see are multiple interpretations of it!)
My explanations derive from Charles Ess’s very clear and easy-to-understand writing.
Another reason I like this book, perhaps the most important, is because he was the teacher for the Digital Media Ethics course I took in Aarhus University as an exchange student last autumn. It was a pleasure to take this course but now I have to have my respective assignment ready within less than two weeks. Wish me inspiration and hard work.
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Douglas Adams proved with this book that he wasn’t just a brilliant science fiction writer with a virtually unrivalled wit and sense of humour; it went to show that he had an admirable, enviable even, sense of social and ecological responsibility, taking him, as far as I am concerned, from the “brilliant writer” tier, to the “paradigm of humanity” club, reserved only for those people (and there’s not a lot of them around) that can work as sources of true inspiration for me. Last Chance To See is a manifesto on almost everything that’s wrong or imbalanced in the world today — and it was written more than 20 years ago. The Douglas Adams impish vibe that is so cherished by many serves as little more than a tasty side dish for this book. It is that good.
My edition has a foreword by Richard Dawkins who has a similar opinion of the late man as I do. While I do not really agree with his flagship Atheist views (even if I would much sooner classify myself as an Atheist than a “Creationist”), he does do a magnificent job of summing up the point of this book in just a few words:
Of the endangered animals that Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set out to see, one seems to have gone for good during the intervening two decades. We have noew lost our last chance to see the Yangtze river dolhpin. Or hear it, which is more to the point, for the river dolphin lived ina world where seeing was pretty much out of the question anyway: a murky, muddy river in which sonar came splendidly into its own — until the arrival of massive noise pollution by boat engines.
The loss of the river dolphin is a tragedy, and some of the other wonderful characters in this book cannot be far behind. In his Last Word, Mark Carwardine reflects on why we should care when species, or shole major groups of animals and plants go extinct. He deals with the usual arguments:Every animal and plant is an integral part of its environment: even Komodo dragons have a major role to play in maintaining the ecological stability of their delicate island homes. If they disappear, so could many other species. And consercation is very much in time with our own survival. Animals and plants provide us with life-saving drugs and food, they pollinate crops and provide important ingredients for many industrial processes.
Yes, yes, he would say that kind of thing, it’s expected of him. But the pity that we need to justify conservation on such human-centered, utilitarian grounds. To borrow an analogy I once used in a different context, it’s a bit like justifying music on the grounds that it’s good exercise for the violinist’s right arm. Surely the real justification for saving these magnificent creatures is the one with which Mark rounds off the book, and which he obviously prefers:
There is one last reason for caring, and I believe that no other is necessary. It is certainly the reason why so many people have devoted their lives to protecting the likes of rhinos, parakeets, kakapos and dolphins. And it is simply this: the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them.
[…]
He [Douglas Adams] saw with his own eyes how quickly such painstaking edifices of evolutionary artifice can be torn down and tossed to oblivion. He tried to do something about it. So should we, if only to honour the memory of this unrepeatable specimen of Homo Sapiens. For once, the specific name is well deserved.
My respect also goes to Mark Carwardine, who has continued to bring the word out all these years, as well as to all the people all over the world, described in the book or not, that have devoted their lives to noble and moving ideals.
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Terry Pratchett is in the same category as Douglas Adams. They are, or were, remarkably clever and ingenious writers that can say the truest things about life in a matter-of-fact way and leave you looking for your jaw which has gone wayward because of getting bored of all this rattling and the vibrations, trying to find a quieter place, away from all this laughter.
In this book in the Discworld “mythos” (using this word in the least serious way possible), for the first time ever, there seems to be a female wizard. In fact, a little girl with a staff. Terry Pratchett really makes his statement on “equal rites” with strong female characters and ridiculous male ones. What more might one want — it’s social commentary on the “real world” and Pratchett, two in the price of one!
The only qualm with the book I had I can think of is that we do not see an adult Esk. It would have been even funner.
The Ethics of Computer Games by Miguel Sicart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Excellent blend of philosophy (chiefly ethics) and a game design analysis. The main idea presented by Miguel Sicart is that gamers take their morality in the games they play, that players are moral subjects with certain cultural and individual backgrounds when they come in contact with a game and cannot be analysed individually without a player-activator. That is to say that as an object turned into an experience by a moral subject cannot exist on its own and thus should not be analysed as an experience players would enjoy passively (as is droned by politicians and the media concerning violent games). The best comparison he gives is that games provide a moral skin for players to wear over their normal subjectivities. This skin is the basis for all interaction with the game world, whatever the player’s role might be within it.
For Sicart, ethical games are games that allow a certain freedom of choice to the player but do not impose their own morality on them as Knights of the Old Republic or Fable would do, both examples of games he deems unethical exactly because the subject that creates the ethical meanings out of the game is not the player-subject herself.
I have never read a more up-to-date and complete reading on games and ethics together and I can say that I generally agree with the author, even with his bolder suggestions. I’m still not sure, though, what exactly makes Custer’s Revenge an example of poor design if it can, in the end, make the player-subject reflect on her actions nonetheless. But I’m prepared to cut him some slack. I mean, an in-depth analysis of BioShock and DEFCON, mentions of obscure little gems like Cursor*10 and Daigasso! Band Brothers?
Miguel Sicart is a philosopher gamer. We need to read more from other people with similar critical abilities and back-catalogue of game experiences. Until then, this book will remain the definitive literature on the subject.
The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“[…]with admirable, though misdirected intentions, they [altruists] have seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.
They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive, or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.
But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it[…]”“[…]the past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future we have to deal. For the past is what man should not have been. The present is what man ought not to be. The future is what artists are.”
“[…]a man is called selfish if he lives in the manner that seems to him most suitable for the full realisation of this own personality, if, in fact, the primary aim of his life is self-development. But this is the way in which everyone should live. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one’s neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.”
Oscar Wilde’s take on Utopia, “the realisation of progress”. In this enjoyable and obviously very quotable essay, he gives his thoughts on how private property does not let people make the best of their potential, to be the perfect artists of themselves. Under Socialism, says Wilde, people would be able to concentrate on being perfect, selfish (in its positive definition, described above) individuals. It is an intriguing but unusual take on things, since Socialism as an ideology has been condemned for its apparent murder of the individual. No, argues the author. That would describe a totalitarian Socialist society, the kind of which wouldn’t appear before several decades after Oscar Wilde had written these words in the late 19th century.
The Soul of Man Under Socialism is an ode to virtue ethics under which each person’s goal, and what makes him or her human, circles around personal excellence and eudaimonia. As an artist himself, Wilde went on a great deal on how artists can be true individuals, but he kind of awkwardly robs this privilege from poor people, whose jobs “more apt for beasts” have little to do with what it really is, or better, what it can mean to be human. For Wilde, Socialism could destroy poverty at its roots, giving people of every class (or what we would today understand it to be) the opportunity to reach their true individualist potential, free of the restraints of posession. After all, “the only people thinking about money more than the rich are the poor” (paraphrase).
There are some very interesting concepts here and I find myself in agreement with most of what I read. However, it’s always clear that Wilde writes from his awesome vantage point of the upper class. His patronising of the less fortunate people among us, however justified and well-argued, just reeks of a kind of superiority complex. Wilde couldn’t decide if he wanted to be an elitist or not and it shows in this piece. He defies his own definition of selfishness by inevitably being selfish himself. Still, as one of the great writers and artists of times past, perhaps we should admit him this privilege to have been able to exercise his full capacity of individualism.
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Logic. The paragon of human superiority. People have achieved so much because we’re plain smarter than everyone else on this planet. Right?
Maybe not so right. David McRaney, creator of the You Are Not So Smart blog which inspired this book, thinks that people are greatly overestimating their ability to rationally make heads or tails of the world. With a collection of almost 50 articles based on a rich bibliography of psychological, neurological and sociological studies, the author deconstructs, bit by bit, all of your sense of personal superiority, security and general feeling of “I’m simply smarter”. But it’s OK, the author re-assures us; deluding ourselves is part of what makes us human.
After reading the book, one might feel that he has gained some valuable knowledge that might just make him this much smarter. I felt that way too. But alas, this is also another delusion that was unfortunately not included in the book. Read all about the Illusion of Asymmetric Insight. It would have been the perfect conclusion.
Read this book and second guess your life. If you dare.
(I have mentioned this blog in another post of mine: Link)
You’re the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. You’re living it pretty much large, not giving a second thought to anything in your life — like most of us. You consider yourself successful — and you are. One day, as you’re testing that new BMW for the magazine, entirely out of the blue, you have a stroke. This stroke leaves you completely paralysed. Completely? The only way you can communicate with the world is by blinking your left eye and slightly moving your head.
This is the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby and how this stroke changed his life. He writes about his experience in the hospital, how he spends his excruciatingly long hours frozen in his bed, what his family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues make of his situation. Almost everyone is frightened of him. I’d be frightened of him; I only hope this book might have made me think twice about my reflex reactions.
Every word, every page counts, when the only way to share it with the world is by blinking once for “YES” or twice for “NO” at a series of letters recited to you for every letter, of every sentence…
It didn’t have as much an impact on me as the film, probably because I came in contact with the latter first. But the film shocked me. I’m not sure which medium would be better suited for this story. Picturing the loneliness and disability through the written word in your own head is one thing, of course, a very powerful thing. But watching the masterfully shot film that gives life to Jean-Dominique’s daydreams, his only form of entertainment, as well as taking it away from his stagnant reality, showing how terrible it can really be, moved me in a whole different way (pun unintended).
Every time I catch myself being bored nowadays I think of Jean-Do and what he could be doing in my body instead of me. It works — for now. We humans are notorious for our exceptionally bad memory and how it comfortably lets go of the things that matter the most.
E S A R I N T U L
O M D P C F B V
H G J Q Z Y X K W
TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Dense book with complicated ideas and deep meanings. Makes me question the importance of eloquence and elegant writing when it can create noise in the work itself. TechGnosis shows how technology, digital media and computers have not made magic and mysticism obsolete but merely replaced them with something else, at times proving themselves to be great catalyst for the fusion of the two worlds (like technopaganism or scientology). Unfortunately, I can’t remember much of it book because of the way it’s written. I hope one day I can sink my teeth deeper into it. I also hope that same day a new edition will come out that will illustrate even better how technology has infiltrated a lot more into our lives since TechGnosis was written in the late ’90s.
The Meaning of Liff (link to full text/book)
By Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
In Life*, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.
On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.
Our job, as wee see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society.
Douglas Adams
John Lloyd
*And, indeed, in Liff.
Some favourite picks:
OSHKOSH (n., vb.)
The noise made by someone who has just been grossly flattered and is trying to make light of it.
WIMBLEDON (n.)
That last drop which, no matter how much you shake it, always goes down your trouser leg.
SIMPRIM (n.)
The little movement of false modesty by which a girl with a cavernous visible cleavage pulls her skirt down over her knees.
SCROGGS (n.)
The stout pubic hairs which protrude from your helping of moussaka in a cheap Greek restaurant.
MOFFAT (n. tailoring term)
That part of your coat which is designed to be sat on by the person next of you on the bus.
HATHERSAGE (n.)
The tiny snippets of beard which coat the inside of a washbasin after shaving in it.
AINDERBY STEEPLE (n.)
One who asks you a question with the apparent motive of wanting to hear your answer, but who cuts short your opening sentence by leaning forward and saying ‘and I’ll tell you why I ask…’ and then talking solidly for the next hour.