Back to the reading corner
Yoshihiro Tatsumi's manga "The Push Man and Other Stories"
was interesting, since instead of robots and magic girlfriends and
other stock manga characters, all characters depicted in this comic
book were stern-faced working class men who obediently do their duty
and watch the rest of the world move frantically around them. This
comic was actually a bit like a Japanese version of "American
Splendor", but so that each short story is a morality play in style of
EC horror comics so that the characters who violate the mores and norms
of well-organized society end up with a fate filled with poetic
justice. These comics were written and drawn in 1969, and back then a
million yen was apparently a lot of money, almost enough to retire on.
"The Anarchist in the Library" by Siva Vaidhyanathan analyses the effect that Internet and digital technology have on copyright and free flow of ideas. Peer-to-peer anarchy rules the digital streets, man, while the nasty corporations can only watch in their sleek buildings and try to lobby for laws to stop this. Frankly, I have never understood the appeal of anarchy: the people who advocate it the most are usually the ones who would be the first to die if they ever actually got their anarchy. Of course, in this particular context "anarchy" simply means to right to download free music and movies as much as you want.
The only reason Internet can work as an anarchy is because it is not technologically possible to send painful electric shocks to other people in it at the press of a button. The book "The Psychology of the Internet" by Patricia Wallace is interesting not only because it was published in 1999 and thus works as a reminder of how far things have come quickly, since in this book the Internet means basically Usenet, chat rooms and MUDs, all accessed over a slow phone line. Perhaps the most interesting chapter was the one about how flame wars begin and how aggression in general works over anonymous textual media that allows anonymity and lacks the nonverbal information such as gestures. This chapter also mentioned a study that showed that in general, "letting off steam" does not make a person more peaceful but only makes him angrier and more violent in the future, in total opposition to the common assumption of folk psychology. I have to wonder why these assumptions still persist.
I read two collections of the comic "Y: The Last Man". The premise of this series is that something has suddenly killed all male mammals on Earth except for one man, our hapless hero Yorick, and his pet monkey Ampersand. The radical feminist fantasy utopia that the death of all men brought about (after all, 92% of violent felons died in the cataclysm, as the introduction in book 2 informs us, and of course there is no longer any domestic violence or rape) where all women harmoniously work together respecting diversity is not totally without problems, however, as the world reverts to what is essentially a 19th century existence. As Fred once put it, women's separatism can work only as long as nothing mechanical needs fixing. In addition, Israel (one of the few countries that still has an army) seems to be a rather evil and violence-prone country, as is probably appropriate in the left-wing comic books. I can also understand for the storytelling purposes why the main character is so faithful to his unseen missing girlfriend that he won't have sex with any of the countless young beautiful women that he encounters. To illustrate the absurdity of this, consider what typically happens in the real world when an American progressive "rebel" man who could be described with "often reckless and tries to defuse tense situations with his humor. He is an under-achiever, a slacker, but actually quite bright. He has his degree in English" goes for a long visit in East Europe or Far East and gets to access the sexual buffet there. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really place my bet on him exactly remaining celibate, no matter how "progressive" or "profeminist" he has been while in America.
Once you have read one book by Edward de Bono, you have pretty much read all of them, with the possible exception of the excellent book "Simplicity" which falls totally outside the author's main mold and which I heartily recommend. But hey, did you know that a car company once used lateral thinking to develop a new type of shock absorbers by starting from the premise that cars have square wheels? It would be so much easier to believe that Mr. de Bono is an influential thinker if the one and the same example didn't have to be used all the time. And while I was reading "New Thinking for the New Millennium" (quite obviously Mr. de Bono is not one for understatement), well all right Eddie, we get it that you are rich and jetset around the Earth to all kinds of picturesque and exotic locations that you just love to casually mention at the beginning of each chapter.
"The Anarchist in the Library" by Siva Vaidhyanathan analyses the effect that Internet and digital technology have on copyright and free flow of ideas. Peer-to-peer anarchy rules the digital streets, man, while the nasty corporations can only watch in their sleek buildings and try to lobby for laws to stop this. Frankly, I have never understood the appeal of anarchy: the people who advocate it the most are usually the ones who would be the first to die if they ever actually got their anarchy. Of course, in this particular context "anarchy" simply means to right to download free music and movies as much as you want.
The only reason Internet can work as an anarchy is because it is not technologically possible to send painful electric shocks to other people in it at the press of a button. The book "The Psychology of the Internet" by Patricia Wallace is interesting not only because it was published in 1999 and thus works as a reminder of how far things have come quickly, since in this book the Internet means basically Usenet, chat rooms and MUDs, all accessed over a slow phone line. Perhaps the most interesting chapter was the one about how flame wars begin and how aggression in general works over anonymous textual media that allows anonymity and lacks the nonverbal information such as gestures. This chapter also mentioned a study that showed that in general, "letting off steam" does not make a person more peaceful but only makes him angrier and more violent in the future, in total opposition to the common assumption of folk psychology. I have to wonder why these assumptions still persist.
I read two collections of the comic "Y: The Last Man". The premise of this series is that something has suddenly killed all male mammals on Earth except for one man, our hapless hero Yorick, and his pet monkey Ampersand. The radical feminist fantasy utopia that the death of all men brought about (after all, 92% of violent felons died in the cataclysm, as the introduction in book 2 informs us, and of course there is no longer any domestic violence or rape) where all women harmoniously work together respecting diversity is not totally without problems, however, as the world reverts to what is essentially a 19th century existence. As Fred once put it, women's separatism can work only as long as nothing mechanical needs fixing. In addition, Israel (one of the few countries that still has an army) seems to be a rather evil and violence-prone country, as is probably appropriate in the left-wing comic books. I can also understand for the storytelling purposes why the main character is so faithful to his unseen missing girlfriend that he won't have sex with any of the countless young beautiful women that he encounters. To illustrate the absurdity of this, consider what typically happens in the real world when an American progressive "rebel" man who could be described with "often reckless and tries to defuse tense situations with his humor. He is an under-achiever, a slacker, but actually quite bright. He has his degree in English" goes for a long visit in East Europe or Far East and gets to access the sexual buffet there. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really place my bet on him exactly remaining celibate, no matter how "progressive" or "profeminist" he has been while in America.
Once you have read one book by Edward de Bono, you have pretty much read all of them, with the possible exception of the excellent book "Simplicity" which falls totally outside the author's main mold and which I heartily recommend. But hey, did you know that a car company once used lateral thinking to develop a new type of shock absorbers by starting from the premise that cars have square wheels? It would be so much easier to believe that Mr. de Bono is an influential thinker if the one and the same example didn't have to be used all the time. And while I was reading "New Thinking for the New Millennium" (quite obviously Mr. de Bono is not one for understatement), well all right Eddie, we get it that you are rich and jetset around the Earth to all kinds of picturesque and exotic locations that you just love to casually mention at the beginning of each chapter.
Hmmm, I think it was Poul Anderson who (possibly first) explored what might happen when there is only one man available on a planet full of females ... in his case the planet had been cut off from the rest of humanity and was reproducing via parthenogenisis.
The ruling class (lineage) was in control of the technology for parthenogenisis and they were ruthless.
BTW, Wendy McElroy writes Mother's 'work' doesn't warrant paycheck.
Posted by beenaround | 11:32 AM
Thanks for reading my book!
Posted by Siva | 5:48 PM