Before I get to agreeing with the author I would like to say exactly how poorly his first point was made. How in what world in order to survive do we need to minimize our work energy output? or even to reach the optimal level of sustainability... That was just stupid... and you know what.. I think that every time I read this.
Anyways...
Yeah...
Uhm... So...
This tragedy of the commons is also known as the free rider clause in political science. I have been in an environmental ethics course or two.. fun stuff..
So back to the assignment. I don't know how the internet can be a polluted public good. As a matter of fact I see people putting into the internet to improve it and there are no public regulations set on content. At the same time a flourishing porn industry is made all the better because of the internet but is that even like pollution? Who does it hurt? The people who wanted Big @#$@ and White @#%@% for a domain name? What would their intentions be if it wasn't for porn?
I don’t like letterers. I don't like that corporations don't have stricter regulations on them forcing them to take into the account the cost of cleanup of the environment. But then again I hate environmentalists... not in an I hate you people type of way... but for the most part their arguments can be easily deconstructed... I don’t believe in global warming. It isn't that I support this free rider behavior. I don't litter though the cost to me is greater slightly to through it away economically speaking... I myself regardless of whatever anyone else does act on principals that if I did not follow them I would let myself down. If everyone acted as such I do not think this would be such a problem. Politicians do not seem to follow this code. But imagine if they did. How much more responsible do you think they would be?
Cyberspace isn't limited by the limitations that are placed on other digital medium like wireless communication or television. With the internet, communication can happen in a mass communication form, both ways, and instantaneously. In cyberspace you can communicate during games while fragging your oponents just as you could talk with team mates in real life on the sidelines of a soccer field. Unlike cell phones communication isn't limited by the amount of minutes you have or the amount of people you can "3-way". This communication is something that allows for great potential as far as groundwork for communities. I am not surprised that people have been capitalizing on the ability to communicate with others freely. So far people have organized riots through the internet (WTO)1, embarrassed other countries for banning gameboys (Greece Olympic Games)2, and killed millions of pixels. the versatility that the internet allows for interaction also allows for a great divergence in types of communities. Already in class we have talked about the knitters circle as Barrie mentions in her post here.
We have touched on topics such as Second Life and this reading covered thouroghly MUD's. MUD's have been around for an extremely long time and are an interactive environment of text. With new developments in pixels and graphical interface however there are many more options than a simple text based environment. Second Life is an environment that emulates MUD's or Real Life or... Well something. Let's just say that second life is an environment that allows you to create something you can be a part of. As far as communities in cyberspace it is one of the biggest yet with about 1.2 million subscribers and 200k on at any given time.3 This new world, Second Life, is a place where you not only code your own environment like a mud but it actually is visable. If you have ever played around in a MUD before what happens is the code knows where you are as an individual explorer and your progress is logged on whatever server it uses. This works because it drops you in a set room and set environment and keeps track of your everymove. While there are no actual steps it is possible in MUD's to move near objects, to different rooms, and even accross virtual neighboorhoods. But because, in a MUD, you are constantly moving yourself relative to positions of other objects or places described to you via generated text: you can never get lost. In Second Life the technology behind many current MMORPG's (massively multiplayer online role playing games) and applies a graphical interface yet still allows you to create your own environment. In order to create your own environment one would have to know a good deal of code. In a MUD one needs to know relatively little code. This graphical interface of Second Life allows you to actually see instead of imagine your environment and you actually move through it instead of positioning yourself relative to other objects.
Second Life as I mentioned before has an incredibly substantial community. Businesses have even moved into second life to advertise and improve internet presence.4 The question is how long will these trends last? Udell draws many parallels between Second Life and snazzy web pages. He claims that Second Life may be a hot idea now but in the future it looks like history may repeat itself and Second Life will become a second hand web page.
What Second Life does is effectively remediate multiple aspects of the world simultaneously. Many would claim that Second Life is simply Remediating the web in 3d. I would argue that what is going on is closer to the name of the environment than the effect. Second Life remediates life. A Medium is that which remediates. Remediation can occur at several stages of the medium. The WWW remediates books, directories, phone books, and information hotlines. It took some time and development, but now the web remediates video as well.
Speaking of remediation, there used to be something called a Map which remediated the world. What the map did was allow a user to position themselves relative to the rest of the objects in the world on paper to see things that were beyond their range of vision. Well now courtesy of Microsoft I bring you the map remediated. I'm not sure whether this is rebringing you the world which the map remediated or if this is really doing something new. It looks like Second Life may have some virtual competition. Thanks TechCrunch for posting that update. Blogs are remediating conversation as Larry Bodine explains, you shouldn't defame people in real life and you certainly put it in an easily quoted web form.
Remediation can occur to any work at any time through any medium. Think about the differences of going to a museum and viewing still life artwork and examine in your mind the differences. Even the theme song is different. We are not always aware of the effects of the remediation, for example you may be cognizant of the music and you understand that the still life pictures move and change, but are you conscious of the differences between how you would perceive these photographs with and without the music/montage? These are not the most peaceful images, but the song's nice.
1 Warnick, Barbra.COM 406 PUB DISCOURSE ON NE Lecture week 5.
2 Lagos, Taso. COM 304 AM PRESS & POLITICS Lecture week 6
3&4 Udell, Jon (2006, October). The Social Metaverse. InfoWorld, 28(42), 48. Retrieved November 7, 2006, from ABI/INFORM Global database. (Document ID: 1152406241).
