The Last Post... At This Address


 
It's time to say bye-bye,
to this blog and web address only.
The Street is now down some other road,
the new address:  Down My Street and Up Yours

This blog will stay up for a while, but no new posts here.

So, see you there.

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PDL


© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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A Few Words on Copyrights, Integrity, and Life...


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Following my last post, a tirade on “Rip! A Remix Manifesto” and the subject of copyright laws, I’d like to expand on a few points:

Firstly, note that, in this context, I’m only referring to copyrights on artistic creations and published material, not addressing patent laws on ideas and natural resources nor trademark laws, very serious issues which, appropriately, are treated under different regulations, ones which are equally badly in need of revision.
   
For me, copyright laws—the laws that protect a precise expression of an idea, not the idea itself—have less to do with direct monetary considerations than with respect for ownership. I do want to retain control over how anything I produce or say will be re-used, and always be cognisant of the times I’m actually directly contributing material to some site, artistic movement or collective effort.

Down this street, I've decided to use "copyright", as “Creative Commons” (CC) is simply a freer-sounding way to denote a form of copyright consent, this new label seemingly confusing many into thinking that this implies “free-for-all”, rather than ”free to all”. Depending on the CC flavour specified by the creator/owner—the only person(s) who should have a say about how much s/he is sharing—CC is merely an automatically granted fair use license for a digital artwork, and it still carries clear rules and a default no-commercial-intent condition (simply re-posting material to attract ad traffic is therefore in violation of CC). Unless a creator clearly offers an “All Rights Released” copyright clause, any original work is automatically protected by copyright laws. Further, releasing all rights doesn’t strip one of responsibility.  
So, for the moment, this blog gets the regular ol’ “copyright”, which still seems to illicit a bit of respect, while Web 2.0 makes sharing original digitized works a cinch.  
Reading, thinking, commenting, posting original responses elsewhere, opening up a dialogue, that’s what communication and free speech should be all about, and not about “copy & paste” rights, interaction reduced to a series of clicks.
Plagiarism is still plagiarism.   

I strive to provide only original, thought-provoking material. Viewing it is free, as well as one’s ability to share the links, draw influence from, argue my views, and, hence, share in the ideas I’m attempting to communicate; isn’t that enough? If you’re not willing to share your car with any stranger, then why should I share ownership of my work, bits of me, with anyone?
If done with proper referencing rules and etiquette in mind, anything here is fair game, and those courteous enough to ask, explaining their intentions, all happily received the right to freely use some of my material. But, if ever pigs learn to fly and Walt Disney decides it wants to use my stuff, you can bet that I’ll want to negotiate a deal.

So, briefly going back to mash ups: Do I think some musical-collage genre and related trends are worth blindly rushing headlong into anti-copyright modes of thinking? No, definitely not. And the underlying "ripping" rule, “if a corporation owns it, it’s ok,” is far from correct or sufficient.

Nonetheless, and despite my general dislike of re-mixes, I do think the current laws should offer more leeway and help put a leash on corporate hounds. Indeed, welcome to the digital age; things haven’t really changed though, but the volume of people that all now have the freedom to reach sure has, and, whether for a corporate news network or a crazy cat lady, this new opportunity for sharing and disseminating information, regardless of any assumed anonymity, will be defined by the moral and artistic integrity and accountability we choose to adopt and tolerate.

Individuals from across the globe are finding  new ways to be truly creative whilst only questionably infringing on copyright laws, usually doing so in a positive way, creating a new language with which to express and convey a message that forces a reflection on society.
Cramming recorded works—not even attempting to reproduce the desired bits with one's own instruments—from twenty-seven different artists into one song?
If “intent” matters, then merely desiring to gain fame in raves and on dance floors around the globe, hoping to get rich off of this empty, mostly-lazy, click-and-steal form of expression doesn’t sit too high on my list of meaningful intentions.

People were dancing long before re-mixes...  To say that an evil entity is preventing me from having a good time, limiting my creativity simply because I can’t do what I want with some Lady Gaga song is an awfully silly statement. I'm not dependent on such entities in any way, and how can creating entirely original content be less creative than anything that stitches together other people’s work?

It’s true that mash ups act as promoting agents, but in truth, it’s a very stagnant form as it only helps to revitalize or sustain interest in well-established artists or recordings, doing very little to promote new art, artists, and material, since the success of such pieces is highly dependent on the recognisability of its main parts, i.e. objectified, already lucrative portions which have permeated popular culture.
As a way of combating the empty, dumbing-down marketability of media-empire culture, this form revels in it? Speaks more of obsession than rebellion, methinks.

Like never before, indie labels and open-source software have provided many wonderful examples of healthy, creation-driven community building that succeed in providing an honest way for like-minded individuals to function and communicate outside of certain entities. So how is mash up art’s insistence on continuing to promote corporate-produced material a good argument for anything? This works in favour of those mega-corps, the very reason why, until they cross some profitability line, people like Girl Talk aren’t sued, they’re invited to alcohol-or-Red Bull-sponsored festivals...  Indeed, it’s not rebellion, it’s delusion.

There’s no reason why musicians, digital artists, writers, programmers et al. that want to share their own material for free and for re-use should not do so, eventually creating a collective, community-built and truly free pool of material, one that belongs to their art form and that is entirely free of all the corporate trappings. Isn’t this why Creative Commons, Copyleft, and open-source were coined? As a way to encourage active-participation in an effort to build a new culture, one that is entirely ours to construct and shape? Do we want the defining characteristic of this new culture to be morally-flawed mass-produced modes, or honest communication?

Audiences have the right to invest their interest and money into more meaningful, non-commercial, non-formulaic, and non-franchised works of music, thus helping to set things right and add balance to a world where the notes should matter far more than sex-appeal and fireworks. So, that these media empires and Hollywood have become the entities they are now, raking in massive profits, isn’t entirely their fault—people, it seems, NEED pop culture like a heroin junky needs his smack. How else to explain that a ditzy, curvy, skin-aplenty blonde who can barely sing but can really shake is worth millions more than most any serious musician, and that this, somehow, then becomes the justification for freely downloading/re-using specific brand-ified aspects of pop culture, as well as the willing-to-fight-for staple of new genres?

The Internet is only a tool, we decide its uses. It has allowed us to shift distribution away from oppressive, money-hungry entities who, for far too long, have been shaping culture, forcing their brand of packaged-for-maximum-profit ideals down our throats; it's allowing many to come into contact with material and ideas heretofore practically unattainable. This tool now offers us new, fantastically fresh ways of communicating and a potential for ground-up collaborations, in addition to a free visibility only dreamed of by artists of yesteryear. It’s allowed countless to be educated, heard or “discovered”, not to mention the fame it has brought to innumerable kittens. 

So let’s be clear, my concerns are not in any way linked to technology and new modes of expression, I’m simply not willing to help build a new culture and approach that’s entirely dependent on the one the Internet is offering us the chance to escape.


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PDL

© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Image: by Pascal-Denis Lussier
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Rip! A Remix Manifesto, or A Celebration of Immoral Originality


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The Internet and copyright laws. "Rip! A Remix Manifesto," by Brett Gaylor. What I thought would be a good documentary on the subject that would bring good, solid arguments for reviewing the current laws proved to be a major, upsetting disappointment. My opinion: cheap, myopic, and juvenile; effective at convincing brainless high-schoolers that some forms of theft are OK.  

This film (available below) claims itself to be about a war over ideas, but it’s anything but that. It’s merely a self-serving justification for a cut & paste musical genre that a few want us to consider as a bona fide art form, i.e. mash ups/re-mixes. 

I personally have very little respect for this genre of music, not because I don’t understand it, but because all that it symbolizes doesn't sit well with my personal convictions and philosophy. I see it as a shallow form of self-expression which is more about “processing” than real “creation”; this is a sad statement on future generations, in my opinion, though it’s clear that very few of them will see it as such.  

Art forms like mash ups and re-mixes move us closer towards the synthetic, into a world where nothing new is truly being created, where individuality and identity are devalued, and interplay and communication is reduced to pushing buttons. Such forms are elegies to consumerism and actually don’t accomplish anything towards the goals they purport to represent. Where’s the real discovery? The real creation? Why can't such artists compose their own music or create their own mixing material and samples? Can they actually be considered musicians? Such art forms are about rehashing the past and not really about moving forward; it's not about progressing and building upon, but entirely about reformulation.     

The very idea and logic appears ludicrous to me. Big corporations bombard and control us through media, so we’ll immerse ourselves in this media and depend on it to express ourselves? Wouldn't a refusal to participate in this culture, moving away from these modes towards more meaningful and natural art forms be the smart thing to do? But, no, the appreciation of true originality seems to demand too much from its audience, so let’s blend and re-spit all that was famous years ago and let’s call that the new generation’s art form?  
The riff from “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” had its time and place. I don’t need to re-hear it time and again with different push-button beats or mixed into “Karma-Chameleon” instead of some Beyonce song.   

No wonder serious artists are all struggling and starving. But if no one is funding them, what are future generations going to be mixing?  

The film clearly advocates, as if it’s a positive, the idea that “the information age is all about copying ideas.” This idea is not about proudly creating and sharing one's self, but about how much one can get away with by doing as little as possible, which explains why there’s a mind-blowing number of sites that offer absolutely nothing more than articles and posts stolen from all sorts of "old-school" creative people. I'm supposed to believe that this is about community building? Bullshit! It's about lazy, personal fame and ad dollars. And seeing what’s mostly being shared on social networks, it should be clearer that the new culture is all about safe cultural identifiers and stupidity, i.e. the spectacle...
For original content providers, it's awfully upsetting to see others profit from something they’ve worked hard on creating. Should such people simply accept that “that’s the way things are,” as the film suggests, and give up to rip off others instead? 
         
For that’s a big part of the problem that extends beyond the issue of banal mash ups. I understand that using parts of something to create something new is entirely different from flat-out plagiarism, but the line is more often than not thin, and opens up a complex can of worms that this documentary never even touches upon. 

The film even boasts Napster as “the greatest library of human creativity, ever. And [it was] done for free,”  claims Cory Doctorow, a digital culture critic. This view seems so retarded to me I don’t even know where to begin. If Napster founder Shawn Fanning had shared it, he would have bought and provided the albums rather than pocketing those billions of dollars. The reality: one person became a multi-billionaire while artists—not just labels—were seeing their record sales drop. And this includes the new artists who invested all they had into creating and publishing their first album only to see it being distributed for free, and forced to spend their days in a cubicle or waiting on tables because they can’t possibly charge $200 for a concert ticket and attract 20,000 people. This view marginalizes art greatly and assumes that it only belongs to domineering corporationsis this the limits of their culture? And do Gaylor and Doctorow really believe that everyone is downloading entire albums and films just to do mash ups? That's incredibly naive. How many users are actually using these networks to share/make known their own creations?  
Sites like Napster—who aren't designed for viewing/listening, but only for downloading—are about personal greed, not about creating a rich cultural library; that’s simply glorified justification for not wanting to pay for a product. Wake up, Doctorow.

Here’s one of the main problems with the film and Gaylor’s viewpoint and why I think it does more harm to “art” than it does good: it only focuses on a few major and oppressive corporations and demonises or attempts to ridicule them using cheap spin techniques. Nowhere are the real artists, those that create the material that make mash ups possible, interviewed. The opinions expressed in the film seem to consider that this only touches mega-stars; the film even treats them as unreachable entities, somehow assuming that a certain, undefined level of popularity automatically propels these people's creations into the public domain. Unfortunately, that's blind La-La land fantasy. Sadly, the feelings and opinions of artists of all stripes are entirely inexistent in the film, and so it ends up being nothing more than see-through propaganda to justify re-mixes and illegal downloads, loosely using more serious issues pertaining to patent laws as smokescreen.

But then what’s preventing Fox News from taking footage of this video and rearranging it into a Hitler-loving fluff piece that celebrates Walt Disney before asking the public to stone Gaylor? What’s stopping anyone from reformulating facts, presenting anything one says or does out of context or in a specially constructed one?  The issues are much more important than the right to create some great dance-floor mixes.

I really wonder how Girl Talk, the mash up artist featured in the documentary, would feel should several of his signature remixes end up as the soundtrack to a Wal-Mart commercial or some campaign glorifying some crazy despot, while he has no say and he’s not collecting a dime. By the end of the documentary, it was reported that he’d left his day job to focus on “his” music. And what if he, as he hopes, gets to record a legal, worry-free album, which he'd no doubt hypocritically do with a company like EMI in a heartbeat? Will he really be hoping that only one album sells so it can be uploaded on some P2P file-sharing program? And as far as gigs... there is irony in that he thinks he should get paid to play what he believes should be free.   

It’s easy for someone like Girl Talk to say that all those slaved-over songs should be his to do with as he pleases, primarily because he’s not offering anything that entirely comes from himself, i.e. something that’s a pure expression of his being. As far as artists go, he’s a fake of the worst kind.
And re-mixing re-mixes has to be the lowest art form possible, period, so by his own view, I hope he realizes that what he offers is fleeting and has no lasting value. It’s entirely empty. A statement on that next generation?

The four-point manifesto is a joke, the first point, “culture always builds on the past,” a lame attempt at saying “stealing” is OK, and the examples they provide are incredibly weak, such as Led Zeppelin—who, it is well known, have been highly criticized for having ripped off blues artists. Grunge depended on Punk which came to be because of rock n’ roll which was built on the blues... BUT there’s a big difference between “influence and building on” versus “copying/stealing”.

In trying to sell us the idea that mash up-style art has been around for a while, an important fact that’s omitted from the film is that William S. Burroughs used his own texts when creating his cut-ups, using the technique to give new interpretive modes to his own creations. Ditto for many other 'important' sampling artists. That, to me, is one hell of an important difference, and the inability to see or mention the distinction an example of the ignorant view this film chooses to adopt. Burroughs certainly didn’t take a line from Coleridge, one from Plath, one from...

And, again from the mind of Doctorow, we’re given the “everybody does it so it’s ok” argument? Really? Comparing this to Victorian mores on masturbation, assuming we all do it but are ashamed to admit it? Where's the real respect for artists? They don't count if we all do it? Really?       

A good portion of the film focuses on Walt Disney—who actually borrowed from the public domain, so, although a distasteful character, how exactly did he “steal” material?—as well as some ex-hippie, Dan O’Neill,  who, for reasons which seem lost in a sixty’s drug haze of era-crazed anti-establishment, was hell bent on pissing off the Walt Disney Company in the name of freedom of speech. The rational? Mickey Mouse is so popular he should belong to all of us (but isn’t this the same type of dangerous and insipid attitude with which Britney Spears is treated?). So, rather than creating his own characters, he insisted on drawing comics that featured Mickey Mouse look-alikes, launched the “Mouse Liberation Front” (M.L.F.), and called himself a revolutionary, losing countless and pointless court battles.  
And why is this supposed to convince me that “stealing” is right?

And I question whether using the proliferation of mash ups in Brazilian favelas is really a good idea? The extreme poverty faced in such communities raises many questions, the limited/lack of access to worthwhile, diversified educational and cultural programs being but one of them.  

Later in the film, the same dork that provided the vapid masturbation metaphor manages to one-up himself. After admitting, “... we’re discussing the means by which music may be stolen,” the argument he provides is essentially, ‘well, technology allows us to steal, so too bad. That’s how it goes.’

I agree, the fines are too severe. And the process costly, so it’s easy to think that it’s only the big corporations that are evil, but that’s only because the “little guy” doesn’t have the funds our resources or know-how to file suit against those that steal his/her album or text or short-clip, etc., but believe me, the anger and frustration they feel is very real, even if you never see their faces in court.
New opportunities are indeed being offered, and all have to rethink their game plan, but morals and integrity should still be a part of the process. 

Oh! Now that I think about it, to demonstrate just how shallow this film is, perhaps I should have simply mentioned the part where we see Paris Hilton dancing during a Girl Talk concert, to which the narrator says, “Look. There’s Paris [Hilton]. It’s official, copyright infringement is hot!”

Film, on the source site: http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/





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PDL


© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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Erickson: Just Doing Her Job. The Real Problem is...


Yep. Another Krista Erickson post. Now that the dust has settled, it may be worthwhile to take a step back and look at some of the reactions, as well as say a few words about Quebecor Inc.

First, Erickson:
Sure, I have very little respect for Erickson and her kind and the role they’re willing to assume, and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to publicly call her a bitch, but I’d prefer doing so a million times before filing even one complaint to the CRTC as some efforts encouraged people to do. I may not agree with Erickson’s view, but I’ll fight for her right to say it. Ironically, the willingness to file an official complaint advocates a stance which contradicts all that I associate with the arts: censorship.
We all have an opinion about how the government should spend our taxes, and some are bound to upset some groups; that part is unavoidable.
Are all those that want to see more funding for the arts willing to accept that right-wingers file a complaint aiming to take someone off the air each time the liberal or independent press makes a pro-arts-funding statement? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to do the same? 
No CRTC regulations were infringed; we’re not talking about some sick taboo or a hate campaign here, but an opinion on taxes. Some people pray to the almighty dollar, some people search for something more profound... Should one extreme force the other to shut up? Unfortunately, the first group has access to more cash, allowing it to be louder, bolder, and consequently, exert a far greater influence on all our lives, but now we’re getting on another topic...

Erickson and her approach is just the successful Ann Coulter formula applied here (notice how Erickson even looks like Coulter). And if there’s one thing Quebecor knows how to do, it’s studying and learning from the big-money makers down south.

Which brings me to Quebecor Inc., the managing company which owns Quebecor Media Inc. and Sun Media Inc.

This fact had escaped me when I wrote my reaction to that erickson-Gillis video on Saturday, June 4th: The Journal de Montreal, the city’s most-read rag, tried to sell the exact same viewpoint almost a month before Erickson’s June 1 spaz-out. In her May 5th column entitled “Non au mécénat public” (No to Public Funding), Nathalie Elgrably-Levy boldly and clearly claimed that tax-payers shouldn’t have to pay for artists. This had created a stir within the francophone community, but proportionally, nowhere near as much as Sun News’ version. I myself had posted Le Devoir’s May 16th retort to Elgrably-Levy on Facebook the same day it appeared, but otherwise, I wasn’t aware of any real reaction buzzing through the Web albeit the substantial increase of visits and comments on the Journal de Montreal site.

It should be noted that both Le Journal de Montreal and Sun News belong to Quebecor Inc.; despite hiring some male hardliners, both used attractive women (personal tastes aside, Erickson and Elgrably-Levy aren’t exactly homely) to sell this point of view; both got publicity that generated tremendous traffic and viewers, and so, both clearly profited from this. In the long run, regular readers/viewers aren’t going to drop any loyalty because of this, and those that reacted strongly do not usually read or view these news outlets anyhow.

I have no doubt that Pierre Karl Péladeau. CEO and Owner of Quebecor, wholeheartedly embraces the viewpoint forwarded by these two women, but after careful consideration, I also think that these instances were carefully conceived more as reader/viewer-generating scandals and attention-shifting agenda-setting than as any real propaganda, whilst also providing the elitist, money-hungry conservative asses with a great and meaningful opportunity to gauge just what would be tolerable to Canadians.

With all the right-wing, pro-conservative government media outlets controlled by the Quebecor empire, if the real aim was efficient propaganda, this wouldn’t be the way they’d go about it. Despicable and morally-flawed they may be, but they’re also intelligent, communications-savvy folks who learned more than anyone should from Edward Bernays. An all-out, government-sanctioned propaganda campaign would be handled much differently. Nonetheless, the fact that any network employs these types of scandal tactics, throwing aside any sense of decency for a buck, should disgust most anyone. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

It’s important to remember—or become aware if not already—that Quebecor’s religion is vertical-integration, their gods the 30-second spot (everything is calculated according to this format, from the 15 secs to the 2 mins spots) and quarter-page ad space; peace and love is for losers unless they have advertising dollars.
Based on my experience with one of their divisions, I can honestly say that all of Quebecor is driven by the belief that culture is simply something around which advertising space, subscriptions, and ancillary products can be sold. And Quebecor found the right formula to maximize profits—we’re talking mega-big empire.
According to this worldview, quality doesn’t matter, ratings do. Ratings, projected and real, and absolutely nothing else determines the price of advert space. The only reason for having shows is to attract viewers; the only reason why they have more shows than ad space is because the CRTC establishes clear restrictions pertaining to the number of 30-second spots available within an hour (hence why infomercials and other formats were created).
And so, if a steaming pile of excrement draws the largest audience, then you can trust that that’s what Quebecor will be passing off as culture or news on their networks in order to extricate as much as they possibly can out of those limited number of 30-secs spots.

Reading the many comments and reactions that the Erickson-Gillis video generated, I came across one particular idea that called for a boycott of Honda products. Why? Because Honda ads appeared at the start of the video.
Simply discussing such an idea with the intent to make this a worthwhile goal seems to me like silly, entirely wasted energy whilst also demonstrating no knowledge of how ad spaces are sold. Unless a show is specifically “sponsored by  ________” , for large companies like Honda who buy millions of seconds around the globe, chances are real high that the advertiser doesn’t care or know in which show his ads will appear, and more than probably knows nothing about what some host is going to say. He’s just buying a series of 30-secs, scheduled or scattered, set within demographic-targeted time-slots that guarantee a minimum amount of audience for the coverage of a campaign specified. Once the actual ratings are in, if the minimum paid-for audience wasn’t met, advertisers are credited in dollars or, the preferred method, in additional 30-secs spots. Wanting to boycott Honda because their ads appeared during that particular episode or are being shown before the Web clip is akin to believing that one should be executed because they were standing next to some deranged person who suddenly pulled out a gun and killed someone.

Plus, how many cars per year does a Canadian buy, if at all a Honda? Where not talking about small, everyday consumer goods here. To be effective, such an action takes a massive and continued collective effort, and assumes that most Canadians feel the exact same way as artists. Reality is, outside of the artistic and intellectual communities, most people weren’t affected by that column or that clip, and a large percentage feel the same way as Erickson, though they’re only indirectly vocal about the subject when it comes time to paying their taxes.
Don’t believe me? Propose a new, mandatory, annual federal and provincial sliding tax that averages to $10 per contributor to fund all the arts and cultural programs and see what happens. Such an action would actually place us above the current funding levels, and yet...
And two years from now, should Honda finally notice a slight slump in Canadian sales, do you honestly think that anyone at headquarters will make the connection that this was due to some 8 minute segment that was broadcast all those months ago unless people are still waiving “Erickson = Don’t buy Honda” banners rather than having put all that energy into more productive actions?
Needless to say, this idea and all that was written about it seems to have lead nowhere fast...

Had there been much more hubbub, Honda may have specified that their adverts shouldn’t run when Erickson is hosting a show, but don’t be fooled, what real impact is that going to have? If the ratings are there, that time slot will quickly be sold to a company who’ll find a way to reach out to the type of people who actually watch Erickson on a regular basis? And it’s not just Honda who’s paying for that flashy Fox News-like decor or Erickson’s salary. Ad revenues—based on ratings—determine the profitability of a show and consequently, a show’s allocated budget, but those ad dollars are spread across a network’s entire operations. Therefore, the really honest and effective thing to do would be to ban all the companies for which ads appear on Sun News? But then this would imply having to make many sacrifices most wouldn’t be willing to make... And what about the companies whose ads also appear on arts-loving networks?  Honda funds several scholarships and arts shows.

So, in the end, I honestly believe that targeting Erickson is wasted energy, though hating her views is definitely what I endorse... If her ratings are low, trust me, a company like Quebecor will not waste any time getting rid of her, however, the real problem will still be there running the “show”.  


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© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Image: American Post-Neo-Gothic. Oil and acrylic on wood, by Pascal-Denis Lussier 
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Artists: No Dollars, Just Sense, Please


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That Erickson versus Gillis fiasco certainly has generated a lot of talk, none more heated than from artists, and understandably so. I’ve read much of what was said, including many impassioned pleas that point towards what is a false logic: economical impacts or footprints.
Don’t get me wrong, I was livid upon seeing that video, but I do think that artists have to modify their point of view and attack this from a different angle. Getting right down to pure math, any attempts to rationalize artistic and cultural grants with economics is suicide; it’s a no win situation no matter how one phrases his arguments, the numbers speak. And that's why right-wing conservative asses want to see cuts in the arts and cultural programs. 

The view that an $8 billion investment in the arts and cultural programs was able to generate $85 billion is looking at this all wrong, and using this as an argument for the arts is, in a way, a form of self-delusion, as this calculation converts expenditures to revenues, adding what is in reality costs as returns on returns, while also not taking into account any opportunity-costs and missed ROI’s. The Conference Board numbers and calculations are highly debated by impartial economists precisely for the abated reality they present if improperly viewed. Economic Impact is merely the sum of all the revenues that were generated by a given activity; this calculation DOES NOT consider the source of any of the funds, and for such aspects as indirect and induced spending, these revenue flows would still exist without many subsidized activities—for example, people still have to eat and drink—the main difference being that these initial funds wouldn’t originate out of tax dollars for which taxes are being re-charged on tax dollars; this is highly circular spending, not wholly generative. Higher revenues would actually be generated (rather than re-distributed) out of private funds (one of the arguments for privatising the arts, so careful, those same numbers are actually playing against the very argument that's being used), especially since the initial seed isn’t an expenditure (yet the impassioned pleas I've read are falsely choosing to see these as actual revenues). Further, an artist without funding would otherwise be employed within the private sector and thus contributing much more to the pure dollar economic wealth of a nation than by trickling down public funds.
Sure, a subsidized troupe that pays rent to occupy a subsidized theatre with subsidized utility bills is generating revenue, but those are all in fact costs, made more evident when contrasted with what the same space generates if that theatre is torn down and high-priced, heavily taxed condos are built in its stead...

Furthermore, that $85 billion also includes whatever x-dollar amount is spent on, let's say, things like beers at events. Besides the fact that there is no real way of dealing with precise or actual numbers, just speculations and projections, well, reality is, people spend more money on beers and food and paraphernalia at major sporting events than at most cultural events, so by that logic alone, if we were to break down the many areas that comprise that economic impact figure, we're actually looking at a reduced return and loss by holding these types of artistic or cultural events rather than sporting ones... or most privately funded popular event for that matter.   

My point: if artists start dragging in numbers and want to use intangible economic arguments to justify funding, then they also have to accept that that’s precisely what the government is doing—but by using very tangible indices, ratios and calculations—and none more so than the Tories. This is in fact the attitude that justifies all the cuts in the arts and cultural funds, and in a dead-on fight, the really real reality is that it’s a losing battle for all artists... and society, too.  

Both sides have to be honest, however. Wealthy conservatives may call the arts a “waste” because they do not in fact generate as much as private sector areas, but truth is, the arts as a whole are not a deficit-creating activity. However small, there is a positive dollar return on those federal, provincial, and local investments.

Nonetheless, despite the impression you may have gotten up to this point, I firmly believe that we should protect funding for the arts and culture—even increase the pool—but I also believe that we need to be honest about the reasons why. We need to focus on the “wealth”, not the revenues. The proper outlook has nothing to do with price and dollars, but with genuine value, that intangible quality which cannot be measured directly, though it has clear, highly visible positive impacts. A society that fosters a rich and vibrant, creative and innovative culture benefits at all levels, and this, equally in the scientific and technological sectors. If anything, it is these long-term impacts that are primordial, not the immediate economic ones, as this actually warrants seeing this type of funding as a “waste”, a viewpoint that turns everything into dollar amounts and motivates a life I wouldn’t want to live, one where modes of production and material goods hold more value than any real celebration of humankind.
Balance is not only possible, it's also necessary.  


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© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Photo credit: Centre Georges Pompidou, France - Pascal-Denis Lussier. All rights reserved.

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Sun News: Far From a Shining Beacon of Culture



Sun News is in full swing, fully confirming what many Canadians feared, proving itself to be a right-wing propaganda machine to push forward the interests of big business and the military.  

Dubbed “Fox News North” by critics, the highly debated news network—despite strong opposition—was officially launched on April 18, 2011. Sun Media Inc., now a division of the goliath, Quebecor Inc., is the right-wing anglophone media giant that also runs several mostly yellow journalism/tabloid-style newspapers and magazines across Canada. Unfortunately, due to their aim-to-please-to-the-lowest-common-denominator slant, they’ve established themselves as a high-volume, wide and far-reaching entity. Matters have gotten worse now that they’re fully backed by the insidious Quebecor mentality and machine.  

Even  more upsetting are the ties that exist between this news medium and the Harper government.  A primary force behind this network’s agenda is Kory Teneycke, the former communications director for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. And let’s not forget the Harper government’s involvement with the recent attempt to alter CRTC truth standards for reporters; it’s no coincidence that this came about a few months before the launch of Sun News. Like Fox News, Harper and his business-minded cronies seem to believe that the media has only one real role, and that that role has nothing to do with reporting verified facts—it’s all about selling a point of view and product placement while truth is for annoying bleeding-hearts.

Click on the link and have a look at the video and you’ll see what I mean:


I find Krista Erickson’s views sickening. The attitude that’s being promoted towards the arts fits entirely with Harper’s own attitudes (I have a hard time calling him Prime Minister as I do not consider that he represents me or my real interests as a Canadian in any way whatsoever), paralleling his government’s deep cuts in arts funding and public programs, moving us further away from all that made me a proud Canadian, taking us closer towards the elitist mindset that’s been immorally plundering the American public since Reagan.
What’s next? Our healthcare?    

Margie Gillis, the only high-profile professional artist who was willing to appear on the program, deserves our applause for allowing herself to be subjected to such abuse in order to (gracefully) defend what I honestly believe should be the attitude of all Canadians as I have a real hard time believing that we would actually support Erickson’s belief: “Why should tax-payers be in the business of subsidizing something that’s not profitable?”
Is our culture and the arts really dependent on profit-value? The long-term ramifications of such an opinion are nauseating. Are we really, as Canadians, willing to let Lolz Cats and Canadian Idol be the only vehicles of our culture?
Are we to believe that Canadians are only interested in subsidizing corporations and certain entities that generate massive profits for a few? Instead of paying insanely large bonuses to the heads of crown corporations like Hydro-Quebec, I’m certain nearly all Canadians would prefer seeing that money being invested in the arts.
And—though actual numbers are hard to get—from what I was able to determine, only 1.6% of the Federal budget is allocated to the Canada Council for the Arts. That’s a small sum compared to what the government spends on useless studies and measures and tax-cuts for corporations and the rich, and...
Can we really put a price on culture? And the reality is far from what's being promoted; the arts actually generate profit, though not the dizzying sums that are being pocketed by the controlling few. 
      
Going back to that video: it terrifies me that someone who is able to reach and sway so many considers concepts like plasticity and hunter-gatherer mindset as "high falutin"; I learned about those things in high school! Though I’m certain that, in the context of fake boobs and noses, Krista Erickson has much to teach us about plasticity. I’m equally convinced that she can teach us all new ways of looking at terms like “profit margin”.   
And didn’t anyone teach her that Quebec is in Canada, not France? Couldn’t anyone teach her how to properly pronounce “province”? Provence is on the other side of the Atlantic, lady. It's slight, but it's a question of professionalism and respect, although I shouldn't be surprised given the people and attitudes she represents, not to mention that the results of the last election certainly place us outside of Harper’s good graces, but she should nonetheless remember that her ultimate boss is Pierre Karl Péladeau, whose entire empire was built on Quebecois kitsch.      

Even more shocking is the closing comment made by Erickson who, no doubt, is promoting Harper’s point of view when she states that world peace would also be great, but tax payers shouldn’t have to pay for that too.  
Then why on earth should tax payers pay for those shiny new F-35 fighter jets? Can you please explain that, Erickson?

I didn’t think so. 


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© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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To Be Perceived - Technology, Part 3



Finally, part 3 in the series on technology. As with the last entry on the subject, this post will also focus on Transhumanism and evolution, doing so by taking what seems to me like the only logical next-step: by briefly talking about Autism. Yep. Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. Autism.
Essentially, the main focus of this post is the question: can posthuman goals truly enable us to surpass our natural limitations, or will they simply prevent us from achieving greater wonders than any posthuman we, as humans, can possibly cook up? The best way to see that there are no clear answers is by looking at Autism. 

And, some of you may be wondering why all this talk of transhumans instead of simply getting down to that definition of “technology” that I promised in the first instalment of this series. Two real reasons: I don’t like doing things the normal way, and no other subject helps put things—especially technology—in perspective like Transhumanism and Artificial Intelligence. 
Here it’s important to note that my goal throughout this series is merely to outline the key Futurist concepts and arguments; the slew of irresolvable questions (as seen in the previous posts), as well as the complexity of the sciences involved and their possible, yet-to-be-discerned applications and implications offer multitude views and interpretations and, consequently, not only is there strong opposition to Transhumanistic ideals, but not all transhumanists agree on what steps we should take to become posthumans. The views multiply further when those of other Futurist branches like Neo-Futurists are thrown into the mix.  How human.      

However, it can be said that all posthumanists believe themselves to be optimistic, progressive, forward-thinking visionaries, and although that’s true if the sole criterion is one’s attachment to the current state of the human race minus its shortcomings—all this being highly subjective—then I have to question just how accurate that label is, and not obtuse, limited, linear-thinking from self-important, socially maladjusted pessimists and whiners?  No offense to Transhumanists intended; I’m just calling ‘em as I see them, and that is one side of the possibility coin.
There’s an aspect of the Transhumanist (TH) mindset that presents a condescending and bleak judgement on humankind which may in fact prove to be highly limiting and recursive rather than progressive.  This is especially true in regards to any giddy impatience for the Singularity, that moment when the first machine self-actualizes—what qualifies / characterizes that moment is the subject of passionate debate, more on this in a later post.  Nonetheless, people who genuinely anticipate the Singularity have yet to provide a human-flattering reason as to why they should want to put their own species at risk of extinction.  And any argument to the contrary is, ironically, faith-based. No-one can realistically predict with any precision how, if at all possible, a higher-thinking “race” will act towards us. If we’re the model, this can’t bode well.

So, back to Autism.

Now, I ask you, which is a more progressive way of thinking?

Autism:
1. It’s a disorder! Modern techniques will allow us to eradicate it.
2. God did it.
3. Wow! Could we be watching evolution and a speciation event at work?
4. Autism. Is that some kind of sick pervert who enjoys making love to cars?
 
In the interest of individual freedom, all answers are valid, but in case you’re wondering, the right answer is 3.
1 arises out of that restrictive, all-too-human kill-and-dominate attitude we know full well.
2 doesn’t preclude 3 nor, in a way, 1, although it may very well explain why someone would say 4. But then, if one believes 2 to be true, why even read this or ask any questions when all you need is the answer?  

Although it would be unreasonable to claim with any degree of certainty whatsoever that we are looking at 3, evolution, the undeniable plausibility of such a proposal may not push people away from 2, but it should at least force a re-assessment of 1, however brief. This is key. 

Autism presents a particularly interesting case due to its neurodevelopmental symptoms, genetic underlying causes, and frequency of cases.  Many aspects of Autism are still unknown, but nearly all specialists agree that Autistics do not perceive and understand the world the same way as non-Autistics; this is the important point I want to drive. True, this can also be said in regards to other disorders, but again, Autism presents a special case. I'm hoping this will suffice in the context of what should be a short blog post and not a scientific paper. For further details, there's tons of information already available on the Web. If readers want me to defend this view, leave a comment and I'll be happy to delve further into this subject in a later post. 

So, taking into account that Autistics perceive and interpret the world differently, rather than shift our focus away from us, we try to bend their reality to ours through various forms of treatments that will hopefully enable them to adapt to our standards of normalcy, but what if the real problems lies in our inability to understand them, not through investigation, but at a purely linguistic level and our stubborn belief that ours is a better world to which they should adapt? Could Autism be nature’s way of reshaping and rewiring our brains so our species is eventually better equipped to adapt and efficiently deal with the information explosion we’ve snowballed towards for the past 200,000 years?
Aren't we all, in a way, willfully imposing on ourselves, and thus gaining, Autistic-like qualities through our obsession with technological interfaces that shift and change human interaction as well as our ways of perceiving the world?
Is ADHD another example, the result of our fast-paced lifestyles, gadgets, video games, and media outlets of all sorts that bombard our kids before they are fully conscious, all of which do not reward or help in the development of concentration and attentiveness and which, rather than adapt our teaching practices and the likes to the growing number of cases, we'd rather kill off with Ritalin and other drugs?

Palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould has clearly indicated that, throughout all of our known history, there have always been long periods of stability before speciation events.  Are we at the beginning of such an event?
Or is Autism an undesirable result of TV waves and Monsanto products? And even then, isn’t this form of mutation (using the term loosely) equally important to evolution?  If Monsanto ever rules the world—what is a frightening possibility given the current regulatory trends—would Autistics be better suited to survive than transhumanists?

Autism may be unwelcomed, representing failings rather than nature’s glories, but this view is both limited and driven by raciocentric thinking and survival instincts.  
If our current mental prowess imposes limits on our current modes of conceptualisation, can we possibly conceive a future version of humans that is entirely free of all our trappings and current confines? Is this form of re-modeling actually a way of forever restricting us to our understanding of what is human nature and is therefore far less progressive than it purports, as this may push us further away from new, miraculous wonders? Will a new, guided-yet-uncontrollable tranhumanist stage lead to a compounded result of typical human blunders and short-sightedness, taking us down an irreversibly detrimental route and our eventual doom?  No-one, not even any computer model, can answer this at the moment.       

So what is it that Transhumanists are hoping to circumvent with technology? How do we differentiate between ‘undesirable’, ‘adaptive’, and ‘speciation events’ without basing any of our assumptions on concept-limited, ideal-human biases which are in themselves wholly restricted by our own current mental and physical capabilities?
Given our inability to fully envision the long term consequences of our actions (we’ve got a hard time getting near-term projections right), how can some Transhumanists be so arrogant as to claim that transcending human limitations through transhumanist means is the only meaningful and logical direction for the human race?

This smells a lot like religion to me.



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PDL

© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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Down and Up, Still on the Street.


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Personal issues and events sometimes get in the way...
Nonetheless, things are continuing, though not necessarily as planned, but with a new, improved, and focused plan.
The site will undergo a major overhaul over the summer and it will offer new services and functionality. By the way, we've already moved and changed address--you may not have noticed, but if you're reading this, you've been redirected to it.  Unfortunately, this means that all sharing and other stats have been wiped clear... oh well. Not a new beginning, but almost.  

Rest assured, the series on "Technology" will resume--I already have several entries worth of material that I simply haven't been able to edit and post since March... They're coming very soon.

Thanks for your continued support.

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PDL

© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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Humans, Trans and Post. Some Questions - Technology, Part 2


Continuing from the previous post, the next best step is, I believe, discussing the subjects and some of the many questions that, over the years, have lead to my re-examination of "technology". That's what this post is about:     

If we survive another 200,000 years, will future descendants resemble anything like us? If humans have evolved into the genus Homo through a series of characteristically different forms, isn’t natural to assume that these same forces are still at work and will eventually lead to further taxonomically distinct species evolving out of humans? Or have we peaked? 
   
We’ve barely crossed an important barrier, we’re still in the early stages of a consciousness that promises incredible new depths of knowledge with entirely different sets of boundaries and potentials for human expansion. Or, could we really be close to knowing all that we can know? Once we find that Higgs-Boson particle and validate M-theory, is that it? Will it be the end, business as usual, the beginnings of a mutation, or will god appear?

Given all that we’ve been able to accomplish in the last 100 years alone, if anything, the epistemological implications of recent scientific breakthroughs clearly hint at the possibility that there are infinitely more things we don’t even know that we don’t know about than there are things we do know we know nothing about. Therefore, although it is very unlikely that we will reach the dead-end of knowledge any time soon, surely, this explosive, exponential growth in awareness we’re experiencing will reach a plateau, our cerebral limitations preventing further progress. Is this a good thing? Are we meant to see it as a sign of futility and misdirection or are we meant to press on by any means at our disposal? Facing such limitations, is the human spirit without its inquisitive nature still human? Does our race reach a “Peter Principle” level of evolutionary incompetence or are we equipped to adapt, i.e. will evolution take care of us, our brains and mental capacities naturally increasing as they’ve done 195,000 years ago, or should we assume that evolution was kind enough to give us the knowledge necessary to adapt, the rest is up to us?

Posthumanism, considered to be an optimistic world stance, is a futurist philosophy espousing the belief that, eventually, humans will develop into beings whose capabilities will so greatly exceed ours, and exhibiting behaviours so dissimilar as to be incomprehensible to us, that they will deserve a new label.  In this context, posthuman doesn’t refer to a period where humans are extinct, but rather, to a future where humans will have attained a new form.
Will changes occur gradually, imperceptibly or in leaps and bounds?  What if we played an active role in guiding these changes? Certainly, our faith and growing reliance on medicine and science is bringing about a shift from laisser-faire Mendelian genetics and evolution towards increasingly Extropianistic outlooks that encourage certain improvements made to the human condition, so how far off are we from wanting to play a direct role in shaping the future incarnation of our race?  

Transhumanisn, a subset of posthumanism, advocates the deliberate use of technology to allow us—through individual applications and collective, conscious efforts—to overcome our biological limitations and rid us of pain and suffering, believing that it is our responsible duty to re-engineer humans using techniques provided by modern eugenics, including genomics and genetic engineering, as well as chemical or nanotech neuro-restructuring, bionics, etc., plus any means heretofore undiscovered.  It is their belief that our efforts and sacrifices will lead to a happier, disease-free, longer-living, and more efficient, self-sustaining posthumankind.  Transhumanism concerns itself with promoting such technological endeavours and the ethics that should guide “transitional” humans towards this new state.
Under these circumstances, would posthumans be artificial or the natural, expected result of thousands of years of mental progress?  Will we have surpassed nature or simply prevented it from achieving greater wonders than any posthuman we could have cooked up?    

Philosopher Francis Fukuyama claimed, in an article that appeared in the Set./Oct. 2004 issue of Foreign Policy, that philosophies promoting posthumanism as its goal, particularly transhumanism, are “the world's most dangerous ideas.”  But, other than tranhumanists’ destabilizing insistence on wanting to re-engineer the human race faster than what may prove to be humanly possible, do such philosophies genuinely offer new ideas per se, or unabashed opinions on the course we should adopt to reach what appears to be our unconscious goal?  If so, are we heading towards bliss or techno-Nazism?

Extropianism or Transhumanism, the line is thin.
We’ve reached a point in our evolution where, whether or not we want it, and whether or not we realize it, transhumanistic aspirations and topics are anything but pipe dreams and empty rhetoric. We're seeing their reality slowly take shape in diluted forms, increasingly so as further generations grasp the infitinite depths of our potential universe and certain perceptions become common knowledge, and consequently, so do some concepts of theories like Spontaneous Order, Boundless Expansion, Intelligent Technology, and Self-Transformation. 

We may still not have accumulated enough trees to see the proverbial forest, but considering all that has led us to the now and our growing obsessions with: Ritalin, anti-depressants, Viagra, and pharmaceuticals; illicit drugs, alcohol and any other anaesthetic; our continual search for new, more complex forms of entertainment; cryonics and anti-aging creams; Lasek, steroids, diet pills, Botox, and cosmetic surgery; vaccines, antibiotics, and eradicating disease; the self-help market; our growing acceptance of bionics and organ farms—from artificial limbs to dentrites, anything that needs replacing; communications and connectivity, etc., as unappealing as it may seem, is it really far-fetched to believe that one day many will be willing to construct their kids à la carte and undergo neuro-augmentation surgery that will slow down aging and double our mental processing capacities, and while we're at it, get a chip-inplant that will intensify orgasms and make them last hours? What's next? 

And it’s easy to say that arms should be arms and not grow back ‘til it’s your own or your kid’s stump you’re looking at. Likewise, it’s easy to believe that kids with Down Syndrome should be left to be born with the disease until the decision rests in your hands. Etc., etc.
Unless humans stop being humane, medicine will continue to serve as a gateway, continually forcing a piece-meal acceptance of transhumanistic ideals through increasingly permissive medical applications. As such, it doesn’t matter if Betty or Bob Now doesn’t want anything to do with genetic manipulation or any other fancy techno-biowizardry; because of it, eventually, they will die, and certain concepts and technologies that were offensive to our period will have permeated the popular culture and gained tolerance, and when the time is right, future generations may one day think of us as primitive beings for having had to live without an iHead brain insert. 
And once the technology is "out there", if it created or fills a profitable need, bans and laws are only truly efficient in terms of defining the crime, not halting its development.

Our attitudes towards flesh, sex, and pornography demonstrate this idea well—a hundred years ago, anyone would have been lynched (or worse, excommunicated (hehe)) simply for suggesting that one day we’d be able to sit at home and, with a few clicks on a screen, watch a stranger have sex with a horse and 3 guys. These days, as long as kids aren’t involved, it’s anything goes! Sites, groups, resorts and a whole lot more now cater to any perversion, meanwhile, blowjob parties and sex on the Internet are the new, trendy-teen-things to do.
Does the parallel limit itself to a gradual breakdown and restructuring of cultural taboos, or is transhumanism an extreme form of the same depravity and a natural extension of the isolation and loss of identity fostered within cultures submersed in increasingly stultifying forms of pornography?
  
And, whether or not we accept it, despite last-ditch creationist efforts and still-bedazzling turnouts on the Pope’s world tours and, regardless of all the “please, lord, just this one time” prayers still simultaneously muttered across the globe each and every second, or the head-spinning number of guns and bombs and molestations that continue under the name of religion, we are quite clearly shifting away from systems of beliefs based on deities and faith, new generations increasingly embracing eupraxophical systems in their stead—systems that reject ideological authoritarianism while relying on rational and scientific methods as the basis for providing meaningful philosophical frameworks of belief. 
Things have certainly changed, so much so that, for all we know, Jesus may have come back three years ago but, since his first encounter with the law, he’s drooling on himself in some institution, doped up on drugs doctors believe will cure him of what can only be some form of schizophrenia.
So, are eupraxophies truly free of all the trappings that plagued our pagan and religious modes of conceptualisation? In a way, aren’t we just shifting “god” towards "science"? Is this an indications of our limitations, a necessary component of a natural transitional phase we are witnessing, or an unwarranted anchor on humankind’s ability to attain ameliorated states of being and awareness?

Science has provided tremendously innovative methods of perceiving the world that have continually challenged religious and mythical/transcendental world views. From a flat world and heliocentric system to molecules, space-time and 7 new dimensions of reality, who knows what we’ll believe just 50,000 years from now.

But, for the moment, transhumanism or bioconservativism?   
The more informed Transhumanists claim that this is beneficial to the human condition provided we embrace these new possibilities, thus guaranteeing a more ethical course of developments achieved through a greater understanding of all key factors necessary towards the development of regulatory policies.
It may seem absurd that a philosophy that espouses such sci-fi visions is down-to-earth enough to profess a need for establishing ruling principles, but, like I said, we’ve reached that point. Why wait till it’s too late this time? As such, groups like Humanity+ (previously, World Transhumanist Association) and related publications like H+ Magazine, now represent important viewpoints and voice on the matter, albeit one that is far from neutral. Unfortunately, opposing voices usually offer weak, reactionary arguments that translate into an unwillingness to accept change or that make a reference to some god and faith while offering very little sensible options as cultures nonetheless rush towards this reality. Stubborn, emotionally-based rebellion can be just as dangerous as blind acceptance.

And indeed, Tranhumanist zeal and its gut-triggered opposition are both the reasons why I believe, as mentioned in the previous post, that we need to rethink our perception of technology. By doing so, key concerns with the transhumanist philosophy are brought to surface, unbiased by religious or bioconservative arguments. 
Along with a definition for technology, I’ll be examining these aspects in greater detail in the next few posts, and looking at answers to all those questions above.  


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PDL


© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Photo credit: © 2009, filosofie 

Progressing Towards an Evolution of "Technology" - Intro


Technology.  From the first wheel and wedge to decoding the human genome to today’s super-powerful nanochips, it’s an unavoidable part of our sentience and, unless our species is entirely wiped out, it will always continue to be as such.

In spite of this, for many, the word evokes dystopia, conjuring scenes from “Metropolis” or “Terminator”, it speaks of dehumanization and a clear separation from Nature; it’s the death of innocence and spirituality and the cause of all our social woes. For some, it's a clear offense to god. While people willingly immerse their lives with technological goods, ironically, popular notions point towards the belief that technological societies are inherently flawed and cost us our freedom as well as our psychological and physical health. And yet, we allow it.  Are nerds and Trekkies bullying us into this?  I think not.
So what’s humanity without technology? 

With all our knowledge, it’s now impossible to go back to living in caves and gnawing our meat off of a fresh carcass. Even those that purport a hate of all things technological are always willing to embrace what amounts to thousands of years of shared knowledge all linked through countless technological creations. So, unless we’re willing to live as we did in the days pre-dating that first wooden club, where does one draw the line? Are Amish and Mennonite community members anymore “human” for having decided to draw that line at what they deemed to be sinful, artificial modes of technology, namely, electricity, telephones, and combustible engines (those that haven’t abandoned this practise)? What about an isolated tribe who’s never heard of Nintendo? 

And popular notions, it turns out, are wrong. All statistics covering hundreds of trends and problems have shown that technology has given us major improvements in the quality of living; things have never been better! Global warming is always the elephant in the room, but, anyway... 

Technology is so ingrained in our lives that the word has become an umbrella for anything electronic and scientific, the term now commonly used to refer to an entire class of retail products. Newspapers and magazines reinforce this sense of the word with their “Science and Technology” sections that place a great deal of emphasis on the latest electronic gadgets, particularly, communications devices.    

The sense of the word and our usage of it has changed greatly over the centuries, however. A portmanteau word from the Greek, téchnē, meaning an "art" or “craft” and its related set of "skills", concatenated with the suffix –logía, which means the study of something, technología was originally used to refer to all aspects of any of the commercial arts, i.e. the study of or a collection of techniques.
These days, as mentioned above, we certainly do not refer to carpenters as technological people, however, with the proper perspective, it becomes clear that the sense of technology hasn’t actually changed all that much since the word’s inception into language; the word has followed the times, reflecting those areas which have had the greatest impact on social living. This sense is intuitive, its scope limited to and defined by a generation’s current times.  Case in point: is anyone still amazed that we can now light fires at will?

We all know what technology is, yet it is one of those things we all have a hard time explaining. As more advancements are made in increasingly specialized fields, the more detached we seem to become from the core concepts with which it is important to identify it, ever more limiting its reference to mere surface forms that appear to be increasingly in opposition to all that we consider to be Natural.
But, if we are given the ability to progress, how can progress be unnatural?
And technology, it seems, isn’t just limited to humans and can’t be viewed as a defining characteristic of Homo Sapiens. What are we to make of beavers and dams? More to the point: dolphins, crows and chimpanzees, amongst others, have all demonstrated the ability to build tools—given the time, could any of those evolve an intelligence level comparable to ours? Are we just the lucky winners in a "natural" race or an abhorrent anomaly?                

Human kind is at an evolutionary crux. Technology affects what it is the outcome of, evolution, and though it has done so indirectly since its first manifestation, it now gives us the option to apply direct, conscious control over evolutionary processes. In its simplest form, technology is a natural force, and it has reached a point where it is now able to surpass the very force that created it. Is this ethically right? But in the Big Bang-scheme of things, what are ethics, really?    

Technology, properly viewed, is the embodiment of that force that both drives and is driven by all that is naturally sentient, the lines between all the components that form and shape the natural world unclear, the relationship between each so interrelated and necessary.  

Modern physics has demonstrated that observation affects reality, but what are we to make of the fact that that observation itself is mediated by technology? Technology shapes our perceptions of the world and feeds the human experience while also being fed by it; it is a necessary component for what, rationally, it cannot be a part of, any concept of human nature, however defined and whether fixed or variable. Paradoxically, any notion of human nature could not have developed without technology just as the birth of human nature couldn’t possibly have been sparked without technological innovations if we are to believe that humans are the result of natural processes, our intelligence the outcome of evolutionary forces. On the other hand, we seem to have created a collectively-understood but indefinable division between nature and technology, but given that all things technological arise out of natural processes, what justifies such a division?

In the next series of posts, I’ll be providing my own views on the many points I raise here as I propose a new definition for technology, one which, I hope, will break common conceptions and, as such, help shed a light on "humanity" while awakening a greater sense of responsibility in all of us.  
Is a new term necessary? Time, with technology, will tell...


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© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Photo: Pascal-Denis Lussier

Oscars. Worth More Than East Timor


The Academy Awards. Last night, a hundred-some-odd million viewers in over 106 countries watched the glitz-and-glam show. Personally, I don’t see the interest in watching rich, beautiful folks pat each other on the back. I’ve tried, but not once have I been able to sit through an entire Oscar show. These people already get way too much undeserved attention and money thrown at them for a what amounts to an easy job, too much freedom, and a "living the dream"-fueled superficial existence. There’s something very perverse about wanting to watch them gather in a room and getting singled out for this? True, there are more starving actors than there are wealthy ones, but, let’s be honest, the Oscars really isn't about hard facts and reality; Oscar Night is all about celebrating Hollywood excess and keeping those artificial wheels well greased.    

Selection biases; complaints of cronyism; popular and pathetic pandering; all the usual criticisms aside, what baffles me is the dollar amount associated with this one evening. What other industry spends an estimated $35 to 40 million just to hand out statuettes?  
The current ”world’s most expensive party” title is attributed to the luxury resort, Atlantis, The Palm, with a lavish grand opening beach party (Nov. 20, 2008) for over 2000 guests that cost $35 million. This included a $6.8M fireworks display and a $ 4M Kylie Minogue concert, as well as several other events. And yes, this was Dubai, where over-the-top extravagance rhymes with incredibly stupid spending.  
So, how the hell does Hollywood manage to spend $40M for a 3-hour-21-minute awards ceremony? Proof that watching people receiving awards then thanking countless others, especially god, isn’t an exciting activity per se if it warrants spending that much to make it magical? And what are we to make of the fact that, according to ABC spokesperson Andrea Canning, more than a year’s worth of preparation goes into each Oscar Night? Before 2011’s show aired, ABC was already in the planning for 2012’s.  
Only one thing can justify such expenditures: substantially larger revenues.

So one thing should be clear: it’s not really about the awards and recognition. Yet, the Academy Awards isn’t  "big business" as much as it is the whole of Hollywood giving themselves a Holy Day in the grand sense of holiday. Oscar Night has become an inescapable tradition that, like Christmas or Easter, relies on and propagates a myth that is able to create a major and lucrative pre, during and post event buzz for such an otherwise mundane, subjective affair. I’ll leave it up to readers to draw parallels between The Academy and Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Christ, et al., but it should be noted that The Academy, like them, is able to generate massive and unjustified spending and revenue streams. This is why The Academy isn’t big business by itself, it sits above it, belongs to all those that can profit from this yearly celebration; it’s a make-or-break event for certain companies and the reason-to-be-for others. For celebrants, it’s an unreasoned reason to spend unjustified amounts and to spread the ol’ joy. How much joy? 
According to CNN, had the 2008 Oscars been cancelled due to the writer’s strike, this “no-show” would have cost $400M to Los Angeles and the industry. That’s more than the GDP of at least 15 countries and Republics that’s generated out of one TV extravaganza.      
The salary of show producers, organizers, engineers, and technicians notwithstanding, vast sums are pumped into pure frivolity. From hotels to caterers, airlines and limo drivers, hairdressers and jewellers to fashion consultants and designers, personal trainers and all ancillary trades taking advantage of people with too much money and the warped sense of values that one inherits in a la la land where image is as all, convinced that this evening is their fairy tale moment; this validates a need for thousand-dollar hair styles, and tens of thousands on a one-time-only wardrobe as well as for car and jewellery rentals, all this for just a few hours.
But does that include all the drugs and escorts and other big-bash necessities?  

And there are the Paparazzi and tabloid magazines and gossip shows; Oscar-specialized publications and even “serious” news; betting pools and predictions of all sorts, all these and more generating billions of printed or broadcast words in the month that precedes and follows the event (which I’m partaking in, I know).

And then there’s all the advertising opportunities. Tremendous amounts of them. ABC was able to sell its 30-sec slots for an average of $1.4M, and that’s only one outlet—broadcast rights aren't cheap and offer plenty more 30-sec slots.    
Next, there’s all the indirect product-placement type opportunities. It’s estimated that one good red-carpet picture can translate into $1M worth of sales for jewellers or fashions houses.       
And why else would all sorts of companies—even those not selected or affiliated with the official Oscar Bag—be willing to give merchandise to be included in “swag bags” (gift bag) to be given to all nominees, people who already have all? Anything from spa certificates to diamonds worth more than $100,000? In fact, this year’s losers in the Top Actor categories were, on top of the official goody bags, all offered swag bags worth $75,000 by Distinctive Assets, an independent swag bag broker (speaking of event-specific job creation...).   

Let’s not forget the boost in DVD and ticket sales; nominated and winning movies automatically see their sales increase by 25% to 75%, and winning actors and directors invariably see a renewed interest in their filmography.

And I’m certain I’m forgetting to mention other areas... Feel free to point them out, below. 

Oscars. A-world-of-illusions celebration that's more important than an all-too-real third-world economy.       


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© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier
Photo credit: © 2011, The Academy Awards

Ethos. Indeed, This Documentary is Full of It!


*UPDATE: Please note that the crediting issue mentioned here has been fixed after this post was written, and a new version of the film, with credits, was released.

Since "Ethos" is Greek for, "guiding beliefs or ideas that characterize a community," the filmmakers chose their title well. Their film does more than talk about the manipulation and lies and lack of ethics it tries to expose, it embodies them.
"Ethos" is a newly available, feature-length documentary directed by Pete McGrain and released by the Santa Monica-based, Media for Action. This is their first official release, which boasts itself as powerful, controversial, and new.
I call it shameful; a lazy yet arrogant collage. Like students copying material from several sites and pasting it into one document, adding a bit of glue between paragraphs then calling it their own essay, that’s precisely what this film is. Totally unoriginal. A form of fraud.

Clearly, despite the fact that Media for Action loudly embraces the non-profit label, these people are full of crap, doing this for personal gain, hoping that the star-power of their host, Woody Harrelson, will attract a sufficiently large audience to eventually guarantee a worthwhile career and paycheck for Media for Action folks through Ethos.  If Micheal Moore can make millions with this growing genre, why not us?  
In short: people with absolutely nothing new to say who are trying to take an easy advantage of a market by ripping-off those who, before them, have worked very hard to deliver a worthwhile and profound message.

At the beginning, Harrelson specifies, “the material for this film is taken from facts available to the public, and from interviews with some of today’s leading thinkers.” 
In truth, the material is entirely lifted from several documentaries, including all interviews, and presented here as if fresh, complete with a new voice reading a highly or directly plagiarized narrative text.
Amongst some of the documentaries "Ethos" directly steals from:
The Corporation; Zetgeist; Zeitgeist Addendum; Manufacturing Consent; War Made Easy; Beyond Treason; Invisible Empire; The Century of the Self; The Future of Food. 

Ethos merely skims through one documentary before moving on to the next and as such offers only a basal overview and absolutely nothing new. From what I can tell, the film contains no more than 10% new material, all of it ‘glue’ to tie-in their “cut & paste” job.    
No credits are given anywhere; the only people mentioned are the director and producers, all three names mentioned are clearly those of Media for Action founders. Slightly more info is offered on the official movie page, ethosthemovie.com, but again, the only credits for all the lifted source material is, "...and source material from the finest documentary film makers of our times." That's it. Press releases, websites, film et al. zero signs of respect and even less adherence to copyright laws.  

In fact, the Media for Action website, despite being official looking, contains no real information whatsoever on the company and, surprise, their mission statement is just a series of clichés taken from several sources and strung together. No address and no members board; no organization breakdown and an anonymous contact form.  
Further, the “recent articles” they present, and which, at first glance, we are led to believe are either by Media for Action people or about the company, are random articles on any subject of “independent media” taken from a wide variety of sources and reposted on their site (but with sources mentioned this time). There is however, a very contradictory and ambiguous though very carefully worded disclaimer which has absolutely no validity given that the film was made by an organization member and that they themselves do not abide to any copyright laws.    
   
Yet, in a press release, Isabella Michelle Marles, Co Producer and Founder of Media for Action, is bold enough to claim, “Proper journalism is about asking tough questions. Having a constant eye to the bottom line or corporate agendas compromises good journalism. Operating as a non profit lets us negotiate that dilemma.” In fact, the entire press release is one egotistical piece of propaganda considering the film’s content and their own manipulation of information and facts.

Keep in mind that their slogan is, “Sponsoring Truth in Media Across the Globe.”

True, the film may be passing on a diluted but worthwhile message, but still, that's no reason to encourage the Media for Action folks. No other industry would tolerate such blatant plagiarism, neither should documentary makers and enthusiasts, no matter how granola or good-hearted.  I reluctantly include the film here; for you to judge:  




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PDL

© 2011, Pascal-Denis Lussier

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