[iDC] How does social media educate? :: a playlist in response to danah

[john sobol]

Hey Ulises, my point was never that we should stop questioning 
anything, just that we shouldn't be dogmatic about doing so, which is 
how a lot the arguments on that playlist came off, at least to me...

statements like:

>> capitalism is inherently anti-social

>> the 'gift' is always
>> subordinate to the opportunities to derive profit from it;

>> plural monocultures, which should not be confused for diverse
>> or
>> authentic social spaces

and

>> the social scripts of networked individualism
>> leave people
>> more alienated and prone to control by state and corporate interests,
>> monopolizing social and personal desire

don't sound to me like the insights of someone questioning anything
but rather the prescriptive rote recitations of someone who thinks they 
have all the answers

times (and tools) have changed
and old revolutionary doctrines need to be questioned as thoroughly as 
do old hegemonic ones

your quote:

> T.J. Rivers said that "we are potentially most ignorant of the impact 
> of
> technology at the very time when we are most assured that we 
> understand it."

is just more banalysis

I prefer McLuhan's insight that it's only when we've been eaten by our 
technological young, painfully chewed up and spat out, that we can come 
to know who we have been, and can no longer be

finally, i can only read this as some kind of subtle sarcastic jab, as 
i don't recall suggesting anything of the sort, or even pretend to 
understand what it means:

> I do like the fact that you seem to suggest that we are potentially
> most unable to articulate our critiques of technology at the moment we 
> are most
> assured of the effectiveness of our methods. Thanks for that reminder.
>

but if it works for you, go with it.

js