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Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

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Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#131

Post by kordless »

pfraze wrote: post #128
sp4ke wrote: post #78

I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a monster. I stopped using Facebook a few mon…

Join us in #scuttlebutt on freenode. We're a pro-privacy group that came together through the oakland communities. We're developing a device-hosted replicated database capable of end-to-end encryption and distributed authority. Privacy is solveable, join us there.

> Privacy is solvable

You speak truth.

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#132

Post by LiweiZ »

crucialfelix wrote: post #126
LiweiZ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting part is, in my experience, his famous works in Chinese media are all political ones and I see little art in them, if those can be called true art. Most of what I see are just iconic man doing visual protest in art's name. This is actually such a privilege in China, if you know the consequence average people face by doing this. This is maybe where my bias comes from. And he seems quite enjoy people in…

I think its because that's what the media and non-art people focus on both in and out of China. Its easier to understand than zodiac heads which has lots of historical backstory and questions what is traditional. But of course he is milking it. (after all the exhibit is called "Evidence") aesthetically I'm much more impressed by this guy: http://www.caiguoqiang.com/projects/inopportune-stage-two-20... but you could a…

Perhaps I'm just not into Chinese culture of the past 500 years:)

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#133

Post by kordless »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #84
sp4ke wrote: post #78

I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a monster. I stopped using Facebook a few mon…

You feel awful now, but what you've written is very encouraging. You're doing the right thing. Coding can be put to good use too. Perhaps there's an open-source project you can contribute to that has a positive benefit to offer society? What social injustices are you most passionate about? I also intend to leave Facebook (again) very soon. The only reason I haven't in the past is that I didn't want to lose contact wi…

I famously left Facebook over 4 years ago. Yes, a bunch of friends from high school thought I 'unfriended' them, but they all eventually figured it out. I got involved with Digital Detox and try to unplug regularly. Like meditation, almost.

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#134

Post by bosie »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #84
sp4ke wrote: post #78

I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a monster. I stopped using Facebook a few mon…

You feel awful now, but what you've written is very encouraging. You're doing the right thing. Coding can be put to good use too. Perhaps there's an open-source project you can contribute to that has a positive benefit to offer society? What social injustices are you most passionate about? I also intend to leave Facebook (again) very soon. The only reason I haven't in the past is that I didn't want to lose contact wi…

I thought about moving away from gmail too but to be honest, gmail has all my emails. 99% of my friends use gmail.

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#136

Post by hansdezwart »

drumdance wrote: post #135

That picture of him in a cell with two guards looks like something out of a wax museum.

I actually is a piece of art he made about his experience in the cell.[1] It is titled S.A.C.R.E.D.

[1] http://www.wired.com/2013/06/ai-weiweis-self-referential-wor...

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#137

Post by squozzer »

Pardon me for "going meta" but it seems that power in the internet age may be less about how much information you have than on how much information you can keep out of the hands of others.

For example, just how transparent is Schmidt's or Zuckerberg's lives compared to ours?

Or why the US govt seems to be classifying greater and greater quantities of information?

And whether such asymmetries of power help or hurt our welfare.

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#138

Post by chc »

sp4ke wrote: post #78

I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a monster. I stopped using Facebook a few mon…

Why does it make you sick that some people are OK with certain parts of their life (that they select, no less) being known?

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#139

Post by knowtheory »

frabcus wrote: post #73
sfeng wrote: post #8

> The young boys that had to guard Ai Weiwei in his cell had to stand completely still, weren’t allowed to talk and couldn’t even blink their eyes. This is complete nonsense. You can't order someone to not blink.

Yes you can - at least my experience of seeing some Chinese guards (e.g. outside an embassy) is that they don't blink. This article claims 1 hour shifts of not blinking for a guard: https://www.recruiter.com/i/blinking-on-the-job-not-allowed-...

You can order people to do all manner of things, but i think you'd be much harder pressed to enforce such a stricture.

You're not going to shut down someone's corneal reflex obviously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneal_reflex but that requires poking a guard in the eye or shining a bright light at them.

Re: Ai Weiwei Is Living in Our Future

#140

Post by legohead »

sp4ke wrote: post #78

I have always been fascinated by computers and passionate about programming. I never taught I would ever feel ashamed of my passion ... that maybe I have been part of the decline of freedom and privacy, the same things I've always believed in and fought for . I've finished reading again 1984 a short time ago, and I felt sick reading this article and realizing we're making a monster. I stopped using Facebook a few mon…

We just don't have all the answers yet. We are at a strange era in human history. We have had privacy for eons, and now we may not. We can't even answer the question "do we need privacy?"

If you were raised with no privacy, you wouldn't know the difference. Imagine living your whole life with cameras on you. You know if something bad happens, you have video evidence. Now imagine all those cameras are taken away. You would probably feel very scared to the point of mania.

We don't have the answers yet. We are lucky the internet is still open, so we can try out all these new things and share ideas.

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