Interesting Links for 27-01-2013

[andrewducker]

• How Wikipedia was built (and why it's built in PHP)
  (tags: wikipedia viafanf )
• Universities starting to separate out certification from education.
  (tags: university education usa )
• The problem with polynormativity
  (tags: polyamory society media )
• You can get banned from Facebook for taking the piss out of homophobic hate groups.
  (tags: facebook

Comments

[heron61]

I agree with everything Scalzi says about JJ Abrams except for his comment about the most recent Star Trek movie - that film was dreadful, in large part because it was a bog standard action picture with a rather lame side helping of young man's Campbellian hero's journey and that's not what Star Trek has ever been about. OTOH, Star Wars is considerably more in the standard action picture mode and even more firmly in hero's journey mode (which Star Trek never was), and so Abrams is likely a good choice - if nothing else, he'll be considerably better than Lucas was with the last 3 films - the bar's really low for that.

Universities starting to separate out certification from education

I've been reading about MOOC's since they started, and it's a fascinating idea. With luck it will change education all across the developing world (and may result in many fewer young people coming to developed nations from developing nations to get degrees) - beyond that, it will likely have impacts no one can foresee - I'm guessing that this will be

[xenophanean]

Very much in agreement about the animal sentience thing. I think it's very likely that an animal's experience is at least somewhat similar to our own. Otherwise we'd have had to develop a lot of faculties very quickly. I can't help seeing a trace of religion in the idea that we're vastly different and special.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. We're better at purely abstract thought, logic and suchlike. But the base "take in information about the world, build models about it, and build patterns of behaviour built on that." seems to be something that an awful lot of animals do very well.

[zornhau]

Isn't poly just a thin-client solution to human emotions?

[andrewducker]

I'm going to need slightly more detail on your metaphor there :->

[joexnz]

I am soooo that poly normative article it hurts, as such I feel no reserve in telling him to fuck off about judging my life. He irked me so much I refused to jeep reading, yes he has a point about media portrayal, no I dont think that gives him the right to tell me how I live my life is wrong, because I shouldn't be that type of poly.

-grump-

[joexnz]

Finished reading it, it's mainly the how dare you call someone in your life 'secondary' aspect that drives me nuts!!!!

[andrewducker]

Yeah. The idea that some people might be more important to you than others seems to upset him. Seems pretty obvious to me though.

[channelpenguin]

I rather took it more that it doesn't *have* to be that way that multiple people *can* be equally important - but that that is underplayed in the media....

[marrog]

I agree with one of the comments that while I see where the polynormativity article is going, I don't think the term 'polynormative' is particularly descriptive. There's a comment partway down that I agree with on that topic but I can't seem to link to individual points in the comment thread, so basically my issue is that 'heteronormative' means 'hetero-as-normal', whereas here 'polynormative' is being used to mean 'a set of norms being applied to the concept of polyamory'. The author argues that her usage tracks with the description of homonormativity here but I still don't like it much. Can't we just call it 'stereotyping'? I feel like people should put more effort into making sure their neologisms make sense.

[marrog]

Oh, also BECAUSE THE PATRIARCHY YOU FOOLS. Ahem.

[andrewducker]

Much like Polynormativity expands the "normativity" thing to the point where it doesn't mean anything clear, I think that applying "Patriarchy" here also expands it to the point where it just means "people" :->

[marrog]

*Grin*

I'm trying out blaming the Patriarchy for everything, much as I like to try blaming Margaret Thatcher for everything; it's sort of an interesting mental exercise. As yet I haven't found anything I can't blame on the Patriarchy.