I’m intrigued by the discussion about rational ignorance between Lago and Joi. I understand both of their points, but there’s a deeper issue at stake here. What is the purpose of a blog?

For Lago, it is a publication, an expression of well-thought out arguments exposed in a public discourse. For Joi, it’s a journal of musings, ideas, etc. In arguing that Joi is being irresponsible (or ignorant), Lago is demanding that Joi’s production conform to his standards. He is judging Joi as a spectator, rather than trying to judge him from the production perspective. [I can’t help but insert that Nietzsche would tell Lago that he’s being a fool right here.]

Normally, when we critique production of ideas, we do so in context. What i publish in a peer-reviewed journal has a totally different tenor and level of expectation than what i write to my grandparents. What i say depends on who i’m talking to. What blogging means is different to almost every blogger. Thus, to judge them based on one standard of value is totally dangerous. Read blogs in context:

1) What is the writer trying to say?
2) Who is the writer speaking to?
3) What level of expertise is the writer trying to assume?

I am an academic, but i don’t view myself as an expert on all intellectual thought. Does that mean that my blog should only stick to that which i feel as though i have an expert voice on? Personally, i don’t think so. When i feel as though i’m an expert on something, i write an article for peer-review, not a blog entry. My blog consists of half-baked ideas, emotional ramblings, things that make me smile… I love throwing out things that i’m thinking about in class, not because i’m an expert at them, but because people love to throw stuff back. It’s an opportunity to learn, to play, to blow off steam. I encourage my readers to read me in that light, not as an expert in everything i post about. For example, i don’t consider myself an expert at Nietzsche. But i’m enjoying thinking about his perspective on the world and hearing other people’s connections.

We all come from different places. One of the nice things about blogging is that we can throw out things and hear other perspectives on the material. In academia, you get narrower and narrower. Blogging is a relief from that.

Lago, since i can’t comment on your blog, i’d encourage you to stop yelling at the Internet and/or the TV and shift your mind into seeing what value can come from these kinds of information presentation. When the Discovery Channel puts together a fluff piece on lions, think about how many people who knew nothing about lions suddenly are intrigued by lions and trying to learn more; you may be an expert and it may not have satisfied your need for expert analysis, but good came from it. When it comes to Joi’s blog, a lot of people who read Joi’s writings have never thought about some of these things before. Suddenly, they’re exposed to it. And frankly, people who are exposed to new ideas from friends are far more likely to dive into them than when hearing them from experts. And if you want to be helpful, add to the discussion on his blog; i’m sure people would be glad to learn additional information.

At misbehaving, some of our regular readers asked us to get a bit more personal, share some of the trials and tribulations of being a woman in tech. Translation: stop being so darn theoretical. I had true hesitations about this. First, it meant putting my own neuroses on display, highlighting situations that can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. But more importantly, it meant highlighting situations that involved people who could very likely read misbehaving.

Yesterday, i had an experience that reminded me that i’m a girl, not just a person. I decided to post it to misbehaving, complete with neuroses, comments off. I’m fully aware of all the different ways that it could be read; i’m fully aware that the men who responded think i should lighten up or deal with being the fairer sex. That’s NOT the point. The point is that no matter how hard i try to put my chin up in real life, these moments sting. I’ve spent my whole life being told that i shouldn’t be sensitive, shouldn’t take things personally. The reason to post this on to misbehaving is because these moments of sting are something that other people go through and don’t talk about because society is telling them to be more hegemonic. That doesn’t make them go away; we just bury them and pretend everything’s all right.

Don’t get me wrong: i’m not screamingly upset. Frankly, i was far more nervous and concerned about posting the damn thing than going through the situation. But i wanted to lay out the experience, the emotions for others to read and understand. Not because i had worried myself sick or magnified the situation out of proportion. It was a situation, it would pass, but maybe some good would come out of posting it for others to see. It is the raw emotions, the logic in our heads that bring us to a situation. We rarely make this visible. For those who don’t understand, the goal isn’t to give you fodder to attack. Instead, try understanding what life from my perspective might look like.

And then the unexpected happened. Bless his heart, the owner of said comment made a public apology. He didn’t need to own up to that statement, but he did. And he went on to offer his emotional reaction to my tinge of hurt. And he continued on to defend both me, my post and my sense of humor (ah, yes, public support is the quickest way to make me respect someone). So, i’m floored. And surprised. And terribly appreciative.

Taken out of context i must seem so strange

I just got an email from an old friend, hopped over to his blog and gasped. The first article: The Death of Milhous. It was like a timewarp. I immediately flashed back to standing outside the house. The foam… i remember the foam. ::laugh:: I still have the little black foam invite from that night.

There were punks and some freaks
And we bound up the stairway
Jumping and playing in the foam.
We were evicted.
October 31, 1996

And then there was the aftermath. Fighting with Res Life, squatting in the other houses, getting up to inspection, saying goodbye to Milhous and Carberry. Damn do i miss BACH. It was an adventurous time, full of joy and absurdity. For all of the insanity of those four years, i will never regret my time in the co-ops. ::sigh::

Trying to make sense of second section of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, i can’t help but position it next to Mauss’ The Gift. [Note: gift does not just mean physical object, or a gift to God, but the general notion of gifting, or offering something of oneself to another.]

Mauss’ theory of reciprocity is devoid of morals. He focuses entirely on how people give, receive and reciprocate. Morality come into play from two directions: 1) from where does the original gift come from? 2) what if the gift remains unreciprocated?

Mauss seems to imply that the gift is pure. Even it it were pure, it is bound up in expectation and that inherently places guilt on the receiver’s end. Thus, one inherently knows that by gifting, one is engaging in a power struggle. Thus, the gift is no longer pure; it is part of the struggle for power and indebtedness. Another possibility is that the gift comes straight from a feeling of guilt and thus the gift is an attempt to make an offering, to settle a score. In either case, the process of gifting immediately constructs a power differential between two people.

In arguing about indebtedness, Nietzsche notes that the indebted internalizes the guilt imposed by the debt. The ongoing debt instills a guilt within the creditor as well. The brilliance of Christianity is that both are relieved of this internalized guilt by being permanently indebted to God first and foremost.

Returning to the gift, what happens when the gift is not reciprocated? Mauss argues that it simply means an end to the relationship, but he never deals with guilt. Does the receiver feel guilt in not reciprocating? In what conditions?

[On a personal note, i know that i feel guilt when i receive a gift that i cannot reciprocate, even if i didn’t ask for the gift in the first place. Is that internalized guilt logical or, drawing from Nietzsche, a product of Christian culture? How can/should i frame the giver?]

What other theories exist on the process of gifting and reciprocation? How do they all get pieced together?

[Warning dear blog readers… i’m taking a rhetoric class this semester and trying to make sense of various theories, often for the first time.]

Jesse wrote me the other day, inquiring about starting a blog. He told me that he’s been a journaler for many years and wasn’t sure of this blog thing. Since this has been on my mind, i asked him to tell me what he thought the differences were. I think that this is good food for fodder for those curious (since most of what i read on the diff comes from self-described bloggers):

I will use the terms “journal” and “blog” to refer to two different things. I might call a journal a “diary” at some point, but I still mean journal, and journal as something separate from a blog. Also, I hate the term blog, just so you know.

Traditionally (ie, before there were blogs) the only sort of regularly-updated personal website out there was the journal. The journal was a personal account of the writer’s life, generally very personal, generally refering to daily/weekly events (though not always). Each entry tended to be long, a “page” or so, and it tended to have at least some amount of thought put into it.

When the blog first came on the scene, it was a daily pile of links, generally with a bit of commentary. The links were generally to interesting news bits — articles, photos, whatever — and one blog would generally link to something that was seen on another blog, either another news item or the actual blog entry linking to the interesting thing. You could stumble into a pile of interconnected web sites and just keep going around in circles, stumbling on the same links over and over again.

Soon enough, some of these “bloggers” started writing more and more interesting commentary, writing more and linking less. Other “bloggers,” liking what they saw, would link to that interesting piece of commentary, and all of a sudden, what were traditionally (I use that term incredibly liberally) linkers were actually becoming the content providers themselves. The format remained the same, however — generally a long page of content, listed by date, and mostly shorter, bite-sized pieces of content — the web given the MTV treatment.

Soon, the content became the primary focus and the links slipped away, though the feel is still distinct from the journal, in my mind. The journal has been, and always will be, a personal account of the journaler’s life. The blog can be written personally as well, and from a very personal point-of-view, but it will definitely be written about a particular item of public consciousness (even if that population that is actively interested in a particular story is very small).

Which isn’t to say that, these days, there isn’t an incredible amount of overlap. There is, and the two are almost interchangable. But only almost. Even the format makes a huge difference. The journal is still primarily listed as a page-at-a-time construct. Each day, or each entry, is a complete thought, a complete slice of life, constructed by the writer to stand alone. The blog still tends to be a-piece-in-a-whole, with each entry, regardless of length, presented within the context of the other entries posted that day, week, or month (though I do realize that the “permalinks” to most blog entries link to one particular blog entry, rather than a whole group).

For me, the desire to do a blog comes from wanting to write more globally. To write about the world, rather than my world. To be able to dash off thoguhts and let the world comment on my ideas. Comments are also much more of a blogging thing. The journal may have comments, but it is more of a one-way communication, from journaler to reader. Blogs are much more community-centric. “I write for you, and you write back” kind of feeling.

…

I feel like journalers write for themselves, with the audience as a byproduct (even if the journaler is writing with the clear understanding that there is an audience), and the blogger writes for the audience, with the understanding that there is a real person writing an entry.

A dear friend of mine is currently teaching in the Congo and her most recent update has left me in shock. I share it to provide the rawness of life there.

….

For a while, I’ve been meaning to sit down and write an email about the women I work with here during the afternoons. And then one of my students died today. She had just arrived last week, sent down from one of the villages because she had been so severely raped that she needed surgery. She was so slight and frail, obviously HIV positive. She had walked to the hospital in the evening, just as lyn and I were leaving, and we gave her a blanket and a luna bar to last until morning. In class she was very bright, wrote well, but so quiet and hung out in bed the rest of the day. She hadn’t been able to sit in class the last few days and, when I came to say hi today, I found out that she died last night. Its left me shaky and sad but also looking, with new eyes, at the other women and what this little-hospital-that-could is doing for them.

Continue reading →

What does the term ‘beta’ mean in social software? It’s become an ongoing joke since Friendster is *still* in beta. From my, admittedly limited, experience in software dev, alpha releases were almost always internal, hugely buggy releases. Betas were distributed to a small, reliable group of people meant to give constructive feedback. Of course things are buggy in alpha/beta, but rarely is any software project ever truly complete. Bugs are always found and new versions are released.

The weird thing about social software is that systems are distributed publicly as beta. Thousands (if not millions) of users appear on beta systems. Most of them are not trying to give feedback, but they do push the social and technological limits of the technology. Lessons are to be learned. Of course, lessons are to be learned in software ALWAYS, regardless of the labels.

I find it quite disconcerting that people want to label their distributions “beta” for over a year because it hasn’t been perfected, because new versions are coming out. This, to me, seems like an abuse of the term beta. New versions always come out. Is beta simply an excuse?

What does beta mean in the context of social software? Should we forgive technological imperfections? What about social consequences? What about apparent design decisions that seem to persist?

[This message is in part in response to this rant on why we should be lenient on Orkut because of its alpha status.]

I am really uncomfortable with public distributions of software being labeled as beta (or alpha), particularly when the population joining it is not aware of it being truly an alpha/beta. For example, would it be OK to completely scrap the data inputted because it is an alpha/beta? Are structures really going to change that much when it is in the hands of the public?

Genevieve Bell is one of my favorite researchers. Today, she spoke at Stanford and you can listen to her talk.

In June of 2002, Malaysian newsstands carried the latest issue of “Mobile Stuff” — a magazine geared toward Malaysia” growing population of mobile phone subscribers. On the cover, two young Malay men in clothing that suggests more LA hood and less KL suburbs, hold out their mobile phones to the camera beneath the banner headline “Real Men Use SMS.” Six months later, billboards in Shanghai carried the image of a woman’s shapely calves and ankles, bound with black patent leather ankle straps; positioned beneath one strap is her mobile phone. Beyond their utility as a technology of information exchange, mobile phones it appears have inserted themselves into the cultural fabric of societies across the world. Using comparative cases from Asia, this talk explores how mobile phones, and their various accoutrements, have become key symbolic markers of identities. I argue that mobile phones, rather than facilitating an idealized universal communication, actually contribute to the re-inscription of local particularity and cultural difference as dimensions of a larger political economy of value. Making sense of the different ways that cell phones are articulating with daily life provides an important perspective on the ways in which cultural patterns affect technology use.

V-Day is going to do a San Francisco Premier screening of “Until the Violence Stops” on January 28th. This is a benefit screening of the film that premiered at Sundance. If you believe in ending violence against women, this is a good way to help out. Attend the screening, support women and help raise money to end violence worldwide.

TICKETS AVAILABLE BY CALLING THE BRAVA THEATRE – 415-647-2822

When i was 14, i learned what it meant to be deceived by someone i loved. I saw lie after lie unfold in front of me in complete horror. It clicked and, since then, lying is about the biggest sin you can commit in a personal relationship with me. I’ve always told friends and lovers that i can get over cheating/chaos/anything, but i can’t get over lying, so just don’t magnify stupidity with cruelty.

Deception has so many levels. All too often, people lie to themselves, convince themselves of their lies and by the time they lie to you, they genuinely don’t believe it’s a lie. (Anyone see the State of the Union?) It’s all a matter of perspective, right? I’m certainly not innocent of this.

But there’s something so painfully demoralizing about feeling enthusiasm fade to exhaustion as the pieces of an intricate web of deception through avoiding the truth unfold. It’s not as cruel as an intentional lie, but it’s impossible to feel any form of trust or respect at the other end. ::sigh::