It’s pretty good show. Most of the discussion involves social media researcher and Fordham professor Alice Marwick and Helen Lewis of the New Statesman. Those of us in the Google+ Hangout pop in briefly with comments and questions.
FWIW, I appear only briefly in the show proper, but I have a somewhat longer (and a bit more coherent) comment in the ten minute “online only” portion that immediately follows the show (and which is also on this video).
It was a somewhat strange, if educational, experience, my first appearance on TV. (The next time I get webcammed into a show, I won’t reflexively look down at the laptop while talking.) It all went by really, really quickly. Weirdly frantic behind the scenes as the producer tried to slot us all in.
The comments on the video on YouTube nicely illustrate the problem we were discussing; that is, they are a rancid pile of misogynistic shitlordery.
My favorite comment is this one from Urhoboman5 about Rebecca Watson:
At 5;30 that chick has a youtube channel. Just type in rebecca feminist and you’ll find it. Interesting how most of her videos are voted down. Sometimes as much as 80% negative because the stuff she says is pure nonsense.
That’s right. He actually thinks that the fact that her videos are targeted by downvote squads proves that she’s wrong to talk about harassment. She’s harassed by dudes who don’t like her talking about harassment so therefore it’s “nonsense” for her to talk about harassment. Brilliant.
Well, Joe, if you’re still reading, word of advice:
If you don’t like being part of a movement full of homophobes and rape apologists, save the anger you have for me and go call out MRAs when they get homophobic or start making excuses for rapists. If you’re getting this upset at it being pointed you, you might want to consider getting a little upset at the people actually doing it.
Katz, you forgot her hatred of the poor.
Putting every other idiotic aspect of the above quote for just a moment, The Toyota parked in my driveway says that Western civilization is not exactly unique in the ability to make automobiles.
*aside for
Dracula: No. Don’t you see that the Japanese, and Koreans and whomever else will follow learning how to make cars just shows they are adopting all the good part s of “Western” civilisation.
They want to be like us, and buy things; which will, inevitably lead to “The Free Market” and the world will live in peace and splendor, with women marrying up, Evil People being raped in prison for their amusement and poor people getting the lack of healthcare they deserve.
@Falconer
In case it was unclear, I was just playing and took no offence to your analogy.
whoops, wrong thread
And yeah, I’ll start being impressed when the particular Western government I live under starts taking a more interest in investing in things like healthcare, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, and efficient, affordable public transportation. Fuck cars. I’d very much like to see far fewer people actually needing them.
Shit. *more of an* Proofreading, I fail at it.
Computers and Smart Phones? That’s Taiwan and China. Cars are Eastern Europe (Which is usually not considered part of ‘western civilization’) and Japan. All we got is a single Atom Smasher, and the Large Hadron Collider was literally funded by Europe as a whole as well as the USA. South and East Asia probably could afford it, if their relations were good, but they’re not. Rovers and the Space STation aren’t really that important. I’m pretty sure China is putting too much into, you know, a modernized, non-fossil fuel-based power grid to worry about trifles like that.
Oh, didn’t you know that, Racist Rube? That China is putting more into a modern energy grid than literally any other country, one that isn’t based on oil? For that matter, a lot of middle-eastern oil exporters are making non-oil based energy grids for their countries. Why don’t those count, when discussing the developments of non-White (Let’s be honest here) peoples?
My new icon is the Kirisame Marisa plushy my girlfriend gave me. A simple, ordinary witch who’s only real gift with magic is shooting giant lasers and charming the pants off every girl she meets XD
Those men who made those great things couldn’t have done so if women hadn’t given them birth, cared for them when they were young, and educated them.
I’m not saying non-Westerners haven’t made some great contributions to humanity, they have. It’s just saying that so much of what makes up our modern world are western inventions: automobiles, airplanes, computers, x-ray machines, medicine, phones, printing press, TVs, etc.
BTW, I’m not in favor of wars in the Middle East, or supporting oppressive regimes.
Oh, not non-oil, but China’s putting out quite a bit on green energy. Some of it’s hydro- power, so not perfect there, but then again, compared to the USA still working on fossil fuels and nuclear happily…
And that has nothing to do with the centuries of oppression and resource theft that has left the Western world with enough resources to funnel into sientific inquiry, ohhh no.
And yet it’s all USA A-ok, and WESTERN VALUES!!!!eleventy, despite the millions of oppressed citizens living in the Western world?
Invented during the period the west had ground everyone into the dust with colonial power.
You h ave no idea how much medical research is conducted either illegally or grossly inethically on non-white people, by white people, do you?
…India invented printing presses well before Gutenberg, you twit. The West had movable type, but Movable Type isn’t equally useful in character-based scripts (Which not all asian scripts use). Also, China is responsible for a lot of interesting printing techniques due to how their lack of copyright interacted with making sales.
I’m curious, what exactly do all these innovations have to do with “The West” being awesome because freedom?
China built a fucking hovertrain, your argument is invalid.
I mean, you seemed to be starting off with some kind of moral or cultural argument (such as it was), and then just immediately shifted to “We make cars.”
Also, I want a fucking hovertrain.
(Ruby’s argument, that is, natch.)
The computer, smartphone, and automobile were Western inventions. Same with trains. And the Gutenberg press was revolutionary.
Yeah, Ruby, double down on your ignorance. That’s the spirit.
I was going to say “we wouldn’t have computers or modern engineering without algebra,” but the better question is: How do you get from “we invented computers” to “WIPE OUT ALL DISSENTING OPINIONS!”?
Movable type isn’t nearly as useful to people with a character-based language, like you know, the Chinese (who invented a shit ton of things the Europeans needed for their colonial bullshit). Compared to non-movable type, movable type is useful, but not revolutionary, if you don’t use an alphabet. Westerners invented the press they needed, not the press everyone needed.
So their production is now irrelevant, despite you pretending their production was king until it was pointed out to you that it wasn’t done by white people.
FFS, the Japanese are fucking famous for refining our electronics in ways we never would have fucking thought of, and you’re still pulling this shit.
Ruby, a lot of the great contributions the West has made to technology and science have been possible only because of even more important discoveries and inventions in the non-Western world.
Mathematics is important to a lot of modern technology. There is an area of mathematics called algebra, you may have heard of it. The word “algebra” comes from Arabic. Do you know why we use an Arabic word to refer to this area of mathematics? It’s because the Arabs were the ones to invent algebra in the first place!
Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a reason so many of the stars have Arabic names? Do you think that the Arab world’s vast contributions to science might have something to do with it? Do you realize that these were key to future scientific discoveries and technological innovations?
Do you realize that there were only two cultures that came up with the concept of the number zero? I think that this might be kind of an important concept. Do you know what those two cultures were? The Mayans and the Indians. Neither of which are Western cultures.
Asians invented gunpowder and paper and (as everyone else has already pointed out) the printing press.
A lot of this stuff is much more fundamental to the modern world than freaking smartphones. Good grief.
China invented paper money. They didn’t understand economic cycles, so when they hit a collapse because the economy stopped growing and the presses kept running they gave it up.
But the same problem hit the Spanish, only they had all sorts of silver coming from Potosi (Which they got by working S. American natives they dragged across the continent to the mines, where they died), and their economy stopped growing, the value of silver collapsed and Europe was screwed because people thought silver = money.
So it’s not as if “western” civilisation is all that unique.
I despair of our educational system when this sort of thing happens.