eGovernment

This may be the most important topic in this class so far. I think individual involvement in and education about our government is vital to the success of our nation. People are able to learn so much about other points of view and details of issues and candidates during elections and all kinds of important things using the internet. It is such a gift to be able to do that.

I would love to see schools teach kids how to sort through the information and listen thoughtfully to the details of issues. To teach them how to understand how issues are interconnected and understand that no answer is simple and straightforward. The 'sound bytes' should be teasers to get you to look deeper. Then when they really dig into the issues with an open mind I don't believe they could come to any other conclusion.

For us to consciously move in the direction we truly want to go, we must foster a sense of curiosity and compassion when it comes to political issues. The more that can be available on line the better and the more access and guidance we can provide to people the better. Information is power. Nothing is more valuable than the power to make informed decisions and participate in your government.

Aside from decision making (issues, political platforms, etc.) There are resources that can help people understand their surroundings and their situations so that they can be empowered to make changes in their personal lives. It is most unfortunate that the people who need it the most are the same people whose access is most limited. If there is ever an opportunity to change this truth I hope we take it.

To me, not providing all possible access to all people in our nation is a waste of national resources. People are our number one commodity - their hearts and minds, our most precious assets. Social or financial status doesn't determine human potential, but it sure does limit resources to realize that potential. This is like flushing opportunity down the toilet for our country and our world. If we can really inform people of their options and clear the path for our hidden geniuses to shine and provide a sense of efficacy via access to information I believe we can really make a difference in the world.

Yahoo Answers: Government Go there and see what your fellow citizens want to know about our government. Or ask questions that you have! Provide resources to people and get resources from people. :)

Don't forget that we aren't alone in the world and go learn about other countries at the CIA world factbook. Link to the websites of other countries to see world issues from their perspective.

Learn about conflict resolution efforts at ACR.

Ask yourself questions about why things are the way they are and seek out answers. No question is a stupid one and every opinion has validity and importance in some way for your understanding.

Everyone do your part in educating yourselves and setting an example ... eventually we'll reach critical mass. Then we will be the country that our founding fathers intended us to be. Don't'cha just wanna break into the national anthem now?? :)
Just in case you do - here is a link to the lyrics of all four stanzas!

Online Health Care

This was a hard one to get through. Very boring. I'm also not sure what in the world the last article was doing in the mix. i guess religion is a kind of 'mental health' issue?? Maybe a mistake.

I read this line in the Shneiderman chapter, "The goal would be that if you are brought to an emergency room anywhere in the world, within 15 seconds, your patient history is on the screen in the local language." Has this dude ever been to the emergency room?
If you don't know what I mean, just recall the news this week of the woman who died on the emergency room floor. see article Perhaps we should fix whatever problem allowed that to happen before we start adding whistles and bells.

I think I'm being grumpy... I mean, maybe the high tech medical record access would have helped the hospital move faster and be less bureaucratic in general and then people would be seen faster. I guess then everyone would be less overworked and stressed and they could feel empathy for someone who is coughing up blood right in front of them. They would stop working for a minute and care that a person is scared and suffering. I guess I'd like that to be the root of the problem and the solution to be as simple as standardizing on line medical records. I'm not sure if that's the case though.

(What a strange coincidence. As I was writing my blog, a friend called to tell me that she has a brain tumor. I am actually having a terrible time not giving up on writing the blog so that I can go research the procedure she's scheduled for and the doctors who will be performing it. I'm actually wondering what people did before - I suppose I would go to the library and look it up there. But, why would I do that when I can just research from home?)

Anyway. The concept of getting actual medical attention on line from home relates closely to the communication topic in my mind. When we read about communication, we saw a general pattern that communication on line was sort of a hybrid between the old ways of oration and the newer ways of print. I see the medical topic as having a similar pattern. Online health care is a hybrid between the old ways of house calls and private practice care versus the new ways of Insurance managed health [who] care[s]"

I wonder what the insurance companies think about online 'house calls'
Do you have to pay for 'chat' or email with your doctor and if you do is it covered by the insurance company? can you use paypal to pay your co-pay?! Man, I would love it if I could just send my symptoms to my doctor and get some darn antibiotics when I need them. I never ever ever go to the doctor unless I really think I will do permanent damage for not going. Or if I'm having a baby! I think it would be wonderful if we could get referrals from our primary care physician by sending an email or submitting a request on line.

I wonder what other countries are doing as far as on line house calls. If it wasn't 4:30 and I wasn't super busy and really cramming to get this blog done, then I would probably research that more. I did find an interesting resource that might give me some answers to both of these questions here

I feel like I just wrote a really lame blog.

Research References

Smith, H, & Novak, P (2003). Buddhism: A Concise Introduction.San Francisco: Harper.

Hongladarom, S (1998). On the Internet and Cultural Differences. APA Newsletters, 97, Retrieved June 21, 2007, from http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/archive/newsletters/v97n2/computers/differences.asp

(2007). Create the perfect virtual you. New scientist, 194(2603), 12-.

Copes, H, Williams, J, & Copes, H. (2007). Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior, Moral Commitment, and Subcultural Identity. Deviant Behavior, 28(3), 247-.

Randall Collins. (2003). A Network-Location Theory of Culture. Sociological theory, 21(1), 69-73.

Stephen Davies. (1995). Relativism in Interpretation. The Journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 53(1), 8-13.

Session 7 Readings

I don't think I ever understood the concept of holding on to the past when your only true option is to be in the present. The choice you have is to accept and adapt to what's around you or suffer trying to make it something it isn't. I guess people don't realize that's what they're doing. When something becomes 'important' to someone, they fail to realize that it's important in a given context and the context can absolutely not remain constant. You also cannot predict with 100% accuracy what the future context will be. Maybe people just get tired when they start to get older and they can't keep up so, they just revert to doom and gloom predictions of the downfall of society. Did you ever notice that people think that the one thing that works for them is what should work for everyone else? If that were true everyone would be exactly the same... diversity is how we adapt and survive as a group! Anyway. Tangent.

Obviously, if education is going to continue to be preparation for life, then it needs to actually prepare people for life in the actual world they live in. Which means that adapting techniques to include technology is a given. i tend to think that even if the faculty members who resist the change will not really matter much in the long run. It's always the pioneers who have the hardest time, but if they didn't have a hard time then they wouldn't be motivated to make the necessary changes that prevent future generations from suffering in the same ways. I always wished that my education was more self-guided and collaborative actually, so I envy the next generation who will get to have that experience.

I guess the questions posed by these readings is more along the lines of how to use the new technology most effectively, which is not as obvious as the inevitability of its use. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out and what additional research comes of it - for instance, the idea that brain structure is somehow actually different for the youngest generation is compelling.

Session 5 Readings

How electronic communication has changed communicating
Oral discourse relies on sound, which is evanescent, having meaning only when it is going out of existence.
While reading this article, i started thinking about how people get bent out of shape about the "degradation of the english language" and using proper grammar and spelling everything correctly all that time. I have been guilty since about first grade of obsesively and compulsively correcting people's grammar and spelling; Also of wanting to make sure my grammar and spelling are always either correct or improving. Now, I'm suddenly struck by the idea that it's really an indicator of class and intelligence in my mind. It occurs to me that this is a result of the historical truth that the 'upper class' were the ones who had the luxury of learning to read and write. I've always sort of taken it for granted that myself and all but a few people I know are able to read and write (and type!). Proper usage should be about communicating precisely and effectively, not about image or status. What an interesting insight. My perspective of the process has been shifted by this article as well - instead of the 'degradation' of the written word, I can view it as a 'revival' of the more fluid oral tradition.
cyberspace is still a medium defining itself
Electronic communication is in the third phase in the evolution of communciation. It began with oral and evolved to written/print before becoming electronic. Electronic possesses some qualities from the other two phases and introduces its own unique dimensions. It also continues to evolve making the possibility of accurately identifying it's ultimate impact on society very low at this stage. Something the writer didn't consider is that having the awareness of the potential impact gives us a unique opportunity to more consciously determine the direction it takes us as a world culture.

The Scope of Internet Linguistics
I wrote a nice big response to this and lost it because i accidentally turned off the autosave. i'm not re-doing it.

My favorite quote from "The Language of Cyberspace" - - - A social practice model of literacy recognizes
that language does not simply represent some kind of objective truth, but actually constitutes
meaning in a given context. Writing and reading, it is argued, are key ways in which people
negotiate meaning in particular contexts (Street, 1984).

Session 4 Readings

The reading from Rheingold
"Threat of punishment can constrain, but it can't inspire (pg. 37)."

How does the Tragedy of the Commons explain when people choose not to put their own need before others even when there is no proscribed consequence by the group? In other words, when it comes from a true understanding of the greater good, what causes the presence or absence of that understanding? The theories dismiss every case of altruism as a means of reputation building. But, I don’t believe that. I don't mean people who are indoctrinated into religions that instill certain principles that people are afraid to break away from. We know historically that this was the means for controlling the masses and solving the problem of the “Tragedy” but I don’t think we can dismiss the question on that level either. I mean when someone consistently makes choices based on a sense of the greater good and remains content with what they have. And what about when people sacrifice themselves for others with only an instant to make the choice? I just saw a story on CNN last night about a kid in Chicago who pulled his friend out of the line of fire and died saving her. How is that accounted for in the Tragedy of the Commons? I think when people understand that hurting others IS hurting themselves, they make different choices, but what allows one person to realize it and another person not to. I guess I am one of those people who believe in the inherent good in people. I think people don't make choices to hurt other people if they really understand the harm they are doing. I think sometimes people lie to themselves and justify poor choices by putting differing values on people so that the lower the value, the less they relate to the person or group of people as part of them and understand the harm they are doing to them. If a person can rationalize a harmful choice in their own mind then they can do it. But, if there was a magic wand that stripped away that rationalization and the person really understood what they were doing then they would not and could not make the choice to do harm. I believe this is the key to understanding behavior. What creates these justifications in people's minds that keeps them from feeling the true weight of their choices and the true inherent value in each and every other being (and consequently, the collective or ‘greater good’) on the planet?

_______________________________________________________________________________
The Internet can act as a catalyst for a dormant personality trait, it can reverse an active trait, or it can perpetuate an active trait. It's a valid study to try to determine what set of conditions causes a social or anti-social person to become more or less social when using the Internet. The title of one of our readings used the term ‘paradox’, which, subtly implies that it is correct to assume one way or another whether or not the Internet is inherently a social tool because it is 'connection' to others. If you believe that sitting in front of a computer instead of another person is anti-social you'll cite examples of ways it reduces sociability, if you believe that connecting to everyone whether electronically or in person is inherently social, then you'll cite examples of ways it improves sociability. I think the next logical study would be to investigate what frames our perception of the Internet as inherently social or anti-social. What causes an individual to put more value on a direct sensory experience of the other person versus reading a less inhibited product of the other person’s mind on a screen? Is it experience or do we begin with a bias. Is it based on our social circles, income, school experiences, family culture, biology, or something else entirely?
I also wonder how an individual’s ability to adapt to change affects his/her feelings about Internet use? The Internet is relatively new and changing every day - does a person who resists change feel more negatively about the Internet than a person who is highly adaptable and welcomes change?

Session 3 Readings

The overall theme of this session is identity and ethics. The lingering sense I am left with after the reading is a question about the boundaries between virtuality and reality... where does one end and the other begin? To some degree, virtual existence is a mirror of reality. It does, however, manifest unique conditions because of the nature of 'no body'. As a Buddhist, I have trouble separating my studies from my interpretation of the readings and the question of boundaries between realities. In Buddhism, there is a 'relative' reality and an 'ultimate' reality with a similar relationship. The relative reality is like a hollogram of the ultimate reality and it is up to us to realize the ultimate reality. The ultimate reality, ironically, includes a realization of 'no self' - all phenomena is ultimately empty. I am left wondering if cyberspace is another layer of illusion or an opportunity to conceptualize the illusion of the relative reality. Where will it lead to in the collective consciousness? It does force us to consider what constitutes 'real' so, it may free us from the illusion of the relative reality or it may cause us to cling more tightly to it in order to clearly draw lines between it and the 'virtual' reality created in cyberspace. It is really very exciting to be a part of this time in history. OK. That's the end of my tangential reaction/response. Below are my individual responses to each reading. Enjoy! :)

virtual rape
So, I began readin the article with an immediate aversion to the concept of expanding the definition of rape to include "an assault upon the consciousness or mind rather than the body." To me, It's like saying I can get my RDA of vegetables if the FDA would just redefine 'vegetable' to include chocolate. MacKinnon says that rape is a culturally defined term and in our culture it's defined as physical assault. I think a sexual assault can occur without bodily contact, but not rape. I would venture to say that your average American would hold a similar concept. Meaning it's already culturally defined. I think the line between physical assault and non-physical assault is relevant and should be maintained. For two reasons 1. the severity of the mental affliction of the perpetrator and the liklihood of rehabilitation is likely to parallel the severity of the act and, in turn, the consequence of the act should reflect this distinction. 2. the victim of a physical assault will be more likely to achieve justice if rape is not conflated with sexual assault. in other words if you define 'rape' so broadly as to include any upset feeling caused by non-physical actions, the seriousness of a physicall assault gets deluded along with the definition. this seems unfair to a person who was clearly, physically, brutally raped.

I do agree with keeping the punishment in the virtual setting, the case presented was a virtual world, where one virtual character, virtually assaulted another virtual character. "Users treat the worlds depicted by MUD programs as if they were real." so, they should probably figure out how to define the act and punish or not punish the perpetrator of the act within the virtual reality they created. and since that world is so real that one can feel raped within it, it should be so real that justice within it is sufficient (not necessary to bring to a real court of law).

What's weird is that the real person behind the virtual victim was so upset by the virtual assault but, the real person behind the virtual perpetrator wasn't mentally distressed by the punishment. He just came back as another character. The detachment from his character made him a virtual psychopath. In real life a psychopath can be put in jail and he may not be mentally distressed by it, but he can't come back as 'another character'. I have a hard time reconciling this because I don't truly understand the level of attachment that the person behind the virtual victim had/has. Shouldn't she have some responsibility for maintaining a grasp on reality and seperating the virtual from the physical?! Acting as though she has no choice or ability to make that distinction seems more disempowering than a virtual rape/sexual assault. If the person behind the virtual perpetrator crosses the line into assaulting the actual person behind the virtual victim, then I think the whole argument changes. If he, for example, emails her personal account or finds her in a chat room or social networking group and harasses her outside the realm of the virtual reality to which they both chose to belong, then the assault becomes criminal. She can always tell everyone she is leaving and invite her favorite people to a new private virtual reality and leave 'Mr. Bungle' out of it. Or just shut off the computer and go outside in the real world. There is no constitutionally protected right to be in any virtual world you want and get everyone to behave exactly the way you want, so no one should feel bad if she decides to leave.

How fascinating was the idea of the first rape? It made me laugh and then I felt a little bad for laughing. But, I just saw cave people acting it out and chasing eachother with clubs and I laughed.

The social construction section was interesting and made the article less useless in my opinion. I think we can observe the evolution of social construction in virtual reality as a means to understand the evolution of social construction in this reality. The ability to observe and analyze social construction historically, as well as in the present, has obvious benefits to social scientists today.

Keeping it (Virtually) Real
I did not enjoy this article. He did a terrible job defining what the 'problem' is exactly. I don't really see what it is that he thinks is a problem in cyberspace and what he thinks should be studied that isn't. I did get that he does want it studied and he wants it studied by whites because the first section was all about how no one is studying race in cyberspace enough, then in the next one it was how unfair it was that they expect "scholars of color" to teach racial issues (it's "bearing a burden") and it leaves them too tired to study race in cyberspace. He expresses a crisis related to the digital divide, but doesn't make it clear what the problem is. He mentions 'black surprise' briefly but, doesn't explain what the problem is exactly. He just says that sometimes when a black person talks to a white person on line and then they meet, they are sometimes surprised that he/she is black. ??? not sure why that's a crisis. I think maybe I wasn't the audience for which the article was intended.

Gender Switching in Cyberspace
I felt really bad for Brad.
What was interesting to me here was that men pretended to be women for power and women pretended to be men for power. so each sees the other as having more power. Doesn't that support the notion that we give other people power in our own minds?

Avatar
software companies being greedy. They should give up their 'rights' and give the rights to the users to do whatever they want with the result of their personal investment of time and money. I'm sure the software companies will only enjoy more popularity when the user has more flexibility with their purchase. As a web design/development company owner, i have to say that the development of internet law and software law is both scary and fascinating. I wish there were more experts in the field. I think people's online characters should fall under their intellectual property rights in the same way that a painter owns his/her painting - we would never say that the canvass, paint, or paintbrush manufacturers maintain any rights to his/her creation simply because they provided the tools utilized by the artist. It's the creative process, the time, and the labor that gets put into the character that is unfairly maintained by the software company.

Who's in Charge of Who I Am?
It was interesting to read about identity as emergent. It is so true that we are products of our environment - we are all interdependent - connected in invisible ways. The Avatamsaka Sutra & Indra's Jewel Net describe this phenomenon very well. In regard to who owns who you are, this may seem to deny ownership of a self, but while this is the ultimate reality, it is within the relative reality that the rule of law operates and in this relative reality we own our actions exclusively. (how weird... i'm writing this while watching the CNN interviews on Faith with the Democratic Presidential Candidates and they're talking about interdependence! LOL) That being said, in addition to having the rights to your online 'self' - I do believe users are responsible for their actions and their online identity's actions. They are responsible to the community of which they are a part. Though it may feel private because you are sitting at home on your computer, you are connected to the group and are responsible for your contribution to the 'greater good' and there should be some authority that holds you accountable. So, ownership of your online self means rights AND responsibilities - it does not eliminate a need for a 'terms of service' agreement. It is also the space, owned by the company that has rights to set the tone and rules of the space, but also a responsibility to the users and their virtual inhabitents of the space to respect the time and creative effort they put into the community. It goes both ways. Unfortunately, the culture of patent hoarding by big business is detrimental to the creative process and prevents us from reaching our highest potential as a group. This is another symptom of that culture. I think there is a tremendous market opportunity for a developer who develops with a sense of responsiblity to the users and respect for their part in the success of the program. the author maintains that if users are willing to walk away from bad/unfair/bullying terms of agreement that they will essentially "vote with their feet" - but, in order for them to do it, they need to have somewhere to walk to!

How Computers Change the Way We Think
I was struck by the following statement: "information technology has made it possible to have the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship." one might expect that connecting everyone would connect everyone, but it does seem to have the opposite affect in many cases. In my opinion, it's never good to have a privilage without an associated responsibility. That coupled with the 'binary thinking' mentioned seems to distance us more from one another. The author was right on by stating, "The new culture would make it easier, not more difficult, to consider life in shades of gray, to see moral dilemmas in terms other than a battle between Good and Evil. For never has our world been more complex, hybridized, and global. Never have we so needed to have many contradictory thoughts and feelings at the same time. Our tools must help us accomplish that, not fight against us." I believe in the inevitability of this evolution. But, I also believe in finding ways to promote the evolution. I choose to take it on as a personal responsibility.