Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

media.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 170 posts

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#13

Post by alexmlamb2 »

The winner is almost guaranteed to be a conformist, given that the organization selecting the winner is part of the dominant, mainstream power structure.

So expect the winner to be, paradoxically, someone who is completely obedient.

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#15

Post by bobsam »

sokoloff wrote: post #5
aristus wrote: post #2

Seems like a great way to catch a nasty case of conspiracy to commit a felony. The reason the Nobel committee can give an award to a political prisoner in another country is that they are in another country.

To take another comment, suppose the Media Lab awards Snowden the $250K. What possible conspiracy charge could the Media Lab (or the person(s) who nominated Snowden) catch?

Has Snowden been charged with anything?

If not, can it still be considered helping a fugitive?

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#17

Post by saycheese »

As someone that actively engages in disobedience it is disheartening that they'd award $250k to a single winner instead of $50k to five, $10k to twenty-five, etc.

So many people struggle to make a difference, no matter how small, and being honored for their efforts, when it's most likely that it rarely if ever happens in real life, would be inspiring to them to keep up what they're doing.

For those interested in reading about the original post covering in detail the thoughts behind the award, see this blog post:

https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/03/21/on-disobedience.html

Re: MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award

#19

Post by cpkpad »

alexmlamb2 wrote: post #13

The winner is almost guaranteed to be a conformist, given that the organization selecting the winner is part of the dominant, mainstream power structure. So expect the winner to be, paradoxically, someone who is completely obedient.

I cannot sufficiently emphasize how true this is.

Source: Intimately familiar with the Media Lab. As with most places, there is a type of conformable non-conformance. Kind of like casual Fridays at work, or office humor. The Media Lab, and Joi in particular, would never reward non-conformance. Now, if a liberal in Saudi Arabia breaks conservative laws, that they would reward. But that's conforming to their standards.

Post reply on HN