“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde, Novelist

Right through the mid-nineties, non-conformists dominated the technology industry. The first uniform for the valley was: no uniform. It was a place where misfits fit together. The emergence of the internet was the start of conformity. …. As the technology industry became the cultural zeitgeist, it became necessary to advertise to the world that you were part of the tech set. And the easiest way to do so was through a uniform.

“Carr and others cleverly exploit the Anglo-American obsession with anything related to the mind, brain and consciousness – mainstream science reporting cannot get enough of it. A thorough economic (let alone Marxist) analysis of Google and the free and open complex is seriously uncool. It seems that the cultural critics will have to sing along with the Daniel Dennetts of this world (loosely gathered on edge.org) in order to communicate their concerns.”

“…learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”3

"]]> benjamindoxtdator 2017 dichotomies dichotomy spectrums projectbasedlearning bellhooks criticalpedagogy education lcproject openstudioproject sfsh hybridity purity teaching leaning unschooling deschooling progressive schools freedom homogeneity heterogeneity mayrpringle history modernity emilianavega richarddawkins danieldennett faith geertlovink criticism criticalthinking technology pammueller danieloppenheimer tedtalks democracy democratic gertbiesta systemstheory diversity complexity simplicity agesegregation efficiency politics power authority networks possibility nicholascarr https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:dafa5c1b97cd/ 2017-07-14T21:30:48+00:00 http://www.techrepublic.com/article/9-tools-to-navigate-an-uncertain-future-from-new-book-whiplash/ robertogreco joiito future emergence authority safecast systems systemsthinking small agility agile donellameadows jayforrester influence risk safety disobedience compliance autonomy reslilience decentralization openstudioproject lcproject sfsh self-organization practice theory arabspring ruleoflaw jeffhowe networks mitmedialab collectivism collectiveintelligence compasses institutions invention innovation failure scale diversity ability heterogeneity homogeneity management interdisciplinary transdisciplinary omnidisciplinary complexity internet web attention edboyden climatechange medialab compass https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:3bd3969a86f7/ 2017-02-25T05:50:51+00:00 http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Why-is-Marin-County-So-White-10954440.php robertogreco marin marincounty homogeneity nimbyism housing race diversity 2017 poverty affordability nimbys nimby https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:60ce5835ad73/ 2017-02-21T21:37:31+00:00 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/flynngate-watergate-stiglitz-on-world-economy-stuart-mclean-s-documentaries-slow-professor-movement-1.3985655/the-slow-professor-movement-reclaiming-the-intellectual-life-of-the-university-1.3985671 robertogreco"Really, we're being encouraged to stay away from the really big questions because they're going to take too long to think through. You want to pump out as much stuff as quickly as you can. That's going to have a consequence for how thoughtful things are." — Barbara K. Seeber

Maggie Berg, a professor of English at Queen's University, and Barbara K. Seeber, a professor of English at Brock University, are co-authors of The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy. Berg and Seeger argue universities squeeze as much intellectual capital out of professors as possible, and closely monitor the output of their mental exertions. They spoke to Michael about their book and their mission to "reclaim the intellectual life of the university."" [Update: See also: "We need a “slow food” movement for higher education" https://qz.com/947480/we-need-a-slow-food-movement-for-higher-education/ ]]]> slow highereducation highered education academia reflection 2017 barbaraseeber maggieberg deliberation slowprofessor productivity standardization speed homogeneity slowfood knowledgeproduction universities corporatism corporatization competition economics fastknowledge research adminstrativebloat teaching howweteach wisdom faculty howwelearn friendship benjaminginsberg management power labor work casualization adjuncts busyness time anxiety stress davidposen credentials credentialization joy beauty transferableskills https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:327b25843d30/ 2016-04-20T04:10:46+00:00 http://kottke.org/16/04/on-technology-culture-and-growing-up-in-a-small-town robertogrecoOut on the prairie, pop culture existed only in the vaguest sense. Not only did I never hear the Talking Heads or Public Enemy or The Cure, I could never have heard of them. With a radio receiver only able to catch a couple FM stations, cranking out classic rock, AC/DC to Aerosmith, the music counterculture of the '80s would have been a different universe to me. (The edgiest band I heard in high school was The Cars. "My Best Friend's Girl" was my avant-garde.) Is this portrait sufficiently remote? Perhaps one more stat: I didn't meet a black person until I was 16, at a summer basketball camp. I didn't meet a Jewish person until I was 18, in college. This was the Deep Midwest in the 1980s. I was a pretty clueless kid.

"Basically, this story is a controlled experiment," I continue. "Napoleon is a place that has remained static for decades. The economics, demographics, politics, and geography are the same as when I lived here. In the past twenty-five years, only one thing has changed: technology."