NETICULUM: an investigation into the political ramifications of web 2.0

topic posted Mon, July 7, 2008 - 1:44 PM by  renee
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greetings friendly beings!

for those of you who are unawares, i am currently in the middle of researching and writing my senior thesis, which is about the rise of web 2.0 technology and its implications for the role of the media in a democracy.

i've started a blog to document the process behind my research, both for my own organizational benefit as well as to create a forum for discussion about the subjects i am studying. i would be honored if you took the time to look over some of my work and give me your thoughts, feedback, criticism, and ideas.

you can access the blog at: freereverie.org/neticulum

feel free to leave comments on the blog itself, or email me at la.loquita.curiosa@gmail.com
and if you know anybody else who might be interested in my research, please forward this information to them!
one of the main arguments of my thesis is that web 2.0 modules, including blogs, create new avenues for discussion and collaboration, democratizing intellectual debate and thus enhancing the mechanism of public reasoning. your feedback, and the new ideas illuminated by our ensuing dialectic, are the manifestations of this process. help me take my hypotheses for reality!
posted by:
renee
New York City
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  • renee:

    I think that your thesis is a real no-brainer. Of course web 2.0 creates new mechanisms for discussion.

    What might be a far more interesting thesis is on big business and government's attempts to squash this democratizing technology, and return the immense power of the media back into the hands of the few.

    Read about the attempts to kill net-neutrality, and put the power of the internet in the hands of the few rather than the many:

    egret-annex.com/net_neutrality.htm

    I watched a fascinating video a while ago, I'll try to find it for you. Apparently, time and time again, whenever a new democratizing technology came out government and business worked together to kill it.

    The last example was apparently with individual radio stations. Suddenly, an individual had the power to reach the masses. Big business, and government worked together to silence these people. Now, it's illegal for people to have radios capable of reaching anyone more than their immediate neighbors, and anyone who goes beyond this is labeled as a "pirate".

    I'll look for the video, but apparently the same thing happened with printing presses too.

    Do you think that this democratization is a good idea? Whose interests does it serve? Whose interests does it _not_ serve? Is it in danger?
    • interesting. But i don't think we have web 2.0.
      This isn't an infomration society its a propaganda society.
      Blogs are not democratic, they are all about message control.

      Wikis are better.

      I think the real story is in how we are at the verge of the potential for web 2.0 and how we aren't there yet, but telling people how to get there
      so that it does happen.

      Plus, making it happen.
      ----------------
      Here are the problems I see and here is how i see fixing them.

      Problems;
      1. Theres not enough information out there thats good.
      2. Obama (or etc Nader, Kucinich, personality X) is just as susceptible to bad information as anybody else is until he gets his own education.
      3. Trillions of Dollars are spent and Trillions more are wasted (every year) keeping the population spoonfed propaganda and thus dumbed down.
      4. Our problems are too large and too complicated for any one person to solve- Even me, and I have been working on it more sincerely and with more
      God given skills for it than any presidential candidate.
      5. Washington is full of lobbyists and voices who are all clamoring to be heard. They are selling all of them trash ideas, non solutions, and crap, which gets
      them money in the short run by screwing the masses.
      6. Each and every single one of our problem areas can be traced back as a whole problem to the intervention and corruption of Corporations.
      Our civil rights, The energy problem, the Environment, government ethics, economics, homeland security, etc... each of these issues right now has a core contributing root which is that big money likes these problems because these problems make big money. Immigration, social security meltdown, privatized healthcare, the push to privatize education... The repugnicon method is to divide and conquer and then treat the wounds as eco niches, and move in.
      7. The repugnicon method is to divide and conquer, utilizing propaganda and corporate power leveraged against the citizenry. Republicanism is by definition
      a parasitic agreement between luxocrats and ignorant and uneducated dupes.
      8. Politicians with law degrees are trained to make good arguments. Not solve problems. A law degree is not a degree in Sociology, Civil Engineering, Education Reform, Medicine, Energy Science, Physics, Agriculture, or etc. Lawyers with presidential campaigns don't have the knowledge base required to
      solve these complicated problems. Thus; ONLY a SOCIAL MOVEMENT can bring about REAL CHANGE.



      Solutions;
      1. Build an open source think tank in order to actually work on overcoming the problems.
      2. Utilize formal logic, reason, and science fact, to work on a scientific problem solving process.
      3. Utilize group intelligence in order to actually create problem solving process and then real solutions.
      4. Realize that it actually only takes a very small number people that are truly focused to come up with the real solutions.
      5. Understanding this, realize that theoretically, 100 people working 40 hours each could probably solve the problems
      better than both or either parties plus ralph Nader Combined.
      6. Understand that these solutions, unlike presidential platforms, would be constantly evolving and growing in sophistication
      as more people and more information and more ideas were added.
      7. realize that bad ideas would thus actually be filtered out.
      8. Given that 1-7 are so, what will be required in order to have an informational revolution is 100 persons or so, to do the original work load.
      9. Once that is done, an additional 5 hours per participant in order to advertise, plus a 100 dollar investment to advertise in the local newspapers, etc,
      will create a viral and geometrically increasing social movement, which will become, rapidly, and unstopable wave form.
      10. Understand that when the energy peaks, Thousands or millions of particpants will become involved, and that instead of mob intelligence which
      grounds mob thinking in stupid, the new rules of this form of communication will create a situation where mass intelligence brings intelligence into phase
      and into harmony, thus creating a group IQ which is dozens of times smarter than any one single participant.
      11. This will be the smartest and most powerful think tank ever created; A neurological net combined with the internet to create a new virtual organism;
      A collective mind of WE THE PEOPLE.

      12. The way to do this rests in the fundamentals of formal conversational logic itself. The rules by which such a group mind must operate are inconvenient
      to control freaks, propaganda artists, and so forth, but they are simple rules which formal conversational logic has in fact understood now for centuries.

      The Criteria for a Functional Group SuperIntelligence are these;
      1. Dynamic and sufficient organization. Threaded conversations, multiple forums, a virtual filing cabinet formed to house any considerable problem solving process.
      2. Genuine open democracy and true transparency even in self governance.
      3. Conversational Logic is used to determine neutrality and truth value as well as relevance
      4. Collaborative and Cooperative mood and atmosphere
      5. Open and free space seperated from problem solving process for minority dissent; Internal hosting of splinter or counter movements.
      6. Meritocratic Intellectualism
      7. Non Violent communication and organization for use as primary tools of "moderation."
      8. Participant agreement that all past paradigms are to be mined for their good and shredded for their bad.
      This includes republicanism, democratism, socialism, Corporatism, And all other political isms.
      9. Participants understand that they are mutually creating new paradigms, but that even a new paradigm is potentially just the next larger mental box;
      inoculation against groupthink via familiarization with epistomology, epistomological problems, and symbology psychology.
      10. Each participant is tasked to research, compile, read, report, self educate, work a group thought experiment, rinse, repeat.


      mytalktoday.com/forum/forum.php
      mytalktoday.com/forum/index.php

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