Adulteen Category

[Yet another old draft.]

Seems to me, there’s an age category that we could call “adulteen.” People who are technically both adults and teens. Ages 18 and 19. Not yet 20 but 18 and older. In many contexts (voting rights in most places I know), they are legally “of age” (what, in French, we call «majeurs»). Yet, the mere fact that the numbers “eighteen” and “nineteen” bear the “-teen” suffix, they are teenagers. If I got this right, this is the “barely legal” category some people seem to be talking about, especially in the adult industry.

Sexuality is certainly important in defining this category as sexual relationships with 18 year-olds is usually not considered paedophilia. In the U.S. especially, paedophilia tends to be rather high on the list of taboos. I have no idea what the numbers are but it seems to me that, within the larger category of rape victims, many people are women younger than 20 years of age.

In the U.S., adulteens are not yet allowed to drink alcohol. They can vote, bear arms, drive (since a much earlier age, actually) but they cannot consume alcohol outside of parental supervision. This, they share with 20 year-olds. But “20″ seems to be more adult-sounding in many cases.

What’s striking, to me, is that 18 is already a bit old as defining adulthood. Not too long ago, people who had children at age 16 were quite common. Maybe I’m completely off but it seems to me that “it really wasn’t a big deal, back then.” Especially for young girls/women. Those women who had children at such a young age don’t seem particularly scarred from the experience, AFAICT. I don’t even think there were much of a social stigma about being a mother at age 16. And it seems to me that becoming a parent is as adult-like as can be.

Of course, people also entered the workforce at an earlier age, on average. These days, beginning a career at age 18 is somewhat uncommon. Much of this difference has to do with formal education. At least in North America and Europe, compulsory schooling tends to last until age 16 and it’s often very hard to find work leaving school before age 19. In Quebec, for instance, there are ways to do a professional degree at the end of high school but majority of people go to Cegep which brings them to age 19 or so.

At age 34 (and turning 35 in just a few days), I find it funny to think that, technically, I could have been a grand-father at this point in my life. That is, I technically could have had a child at age 16 who could have had her own child at age 16 so that I would have become a grand-father at age 32. I’m not even a father yet. And I’m not that far outside the norm, at least for academics.

Funny thing is, age does tend to matter to me. Not in terms of “feeling old,” really. More in terms of significance, symbolism, social roles.

There’s a whole thing I’ll need to blog about generation gaps. For now, I just want to let this entry stay as it is.

Internet Democracy

There’s been several “If X were a country” analogies, especially with MySpace as a target.

But then:

If the Internet was a country, it would be many times larger than the country of MySpace The Something Awful Forums

And then:

Nicholas Negroponte, the noted futurist and author of ‘Being Digital’, once observed that if the Internet were a country, it would be the nicest place on earth. Security and Vulnerability

Not to mention:

If the internet were a country, you’d know a relative of almost everybody. Scribd

It’d be interesting to use notions we have about actual countries to follow the analogy further. Some might think that the Internet could have a president but most of us seem to agree that the current structure of the Internet, without a specific “head of state,” works fairly well. We’ve known for a while that ordered anarchy can work:

In his classic study of the Nuer of the Southern Sudan Evans-Pritchard presents them as naked cattle-herders, seasonally nomadic, living in grass huts and supplementing their diet of animal products by horticulture. They form a congeries of tribes, sometimes gathering into loose federations but without central administration, rulers or grading of warriors or elders, and the age-sets into which they are divided have no corporate function. Evans-Pritchard speaks of ‘leopard-skin chiefs’ among them, but makes it clear that this position is backed by no coercive force. They show some specialisation but nothing amounting to a profession and cannot be said in any strict sense to have law, for there is no authority with power to adjudicate or enforce a verdict. In sum, ‘their state might be described as an ordered anarchy’. From Village to Empire

Associating the ‘Net with that anarchic model isn’t new. What seems to me a bit newer is to call that system “democratic” (especially in the context of User Generated Content, and other “Web 2.0” phenomena).

Even newer, to me at least, is the idea that the open and flexible nature of the Internet as it was originally designed might not be part of redesigns of the Internet.

Should we apply a more democratic model for the new Internet? How far should the “country” analogy affect the way we remodel the ‘Net?

The literature on nationalism and communities could help.

Literary Studies and Relativism

What’s fun about the Open Source episode on reading Shakespeare for political insight is that it briefly gives attention to the notion that representative democracy may not be an absolute value.

Open Source » Blog Archive » Shakespeare and Power

This is a rare event, on that show.

Let Us All Celebrate Together!

Time to honour rhe majority of the world population. Of course, if things were equitable, there’d be 186 days like March 8. As things stand, it’s the day when machismo disguises itself into respect.

Are there trees left to shake?

Closer to Fair Use Codification?

Digital Fair Use bill introduced to US House (sans teeth)

If passed, the FAIR USE Act will amend the DMCA to codify recent exceptions granted to the anti-circumvention rules by the Register of Copyrights, which include some allowances for obsolete technologies and cell phone unlocking.

Doesn’t sound like a whole lot, especially since the bill specifically does not address some of the most controversial parts of the DMCA. But if codifying fair use is the goal (as fair use is not yet guaranteed, in the United States), maybe this bill can shake things up at least a bit.

It’s quite interesting to see how a large majority of citizens agree that things need to change yet a handful of corporate entities enforce the status quo without much apparent effort.

It’s also quite funny how many bills in the U.S. have acronyms designed to work as expressions. This one is:  Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007. Catchy!

Individualism, Freedom, and Food

A surprisingly superficial podcast episode on what could have been a very deep subject.

Open Source » Blog Archive » The End of Free Will?

start a conversation about manipulation, persuasion and freedom from choice

To summarize the main issue of that episode: is marketing and "upselling" by restaurant chains undermining the individual freedom to choose quality food? Apparently simple a question, but billed as much more than that.

Maybe they refrained from delving deeper into any of those issues because philosophical discussions, perhaps aesthetic ones especially, are off limits in "polite company" in U.S. media. Too bad.

Actually, I’m genuinely disappointed. Not necessarily because restaurant chains are very important an issue for me (in Montreal, they don’t seem to have the exact same type of impact and I love to cook). But because the show’s participants all came very close to saying very important things about individualism, food, and freedom. The first two are too rarely discussed, IMHO, and the third could have been the "hook" to discuss the other two.

Ah, well…

If you want to know more about my thoughts on this podcast episode, check out some of the tags below.

Early October Quickies

Actually, they’re more like late September links, but still…

• History of the Internet
  • ZERO SECONDE: Les 6 cultures d’Internet (par Martin Lessard)
    1. Military personnel (DARPA)
    2. Academics (universities, colleges)
    3. Programmers/Coders (Alpha Geeks)
    4. Virtual communities (BBS)
    5. Entrepreneurs (Web 1.0)
    6. “Web 2.0″ (bloggers, social networking, user-generated content…).
  • Of course, there’s a lot of overlap, some categories could be reshaped, and the term “culture” is applied somewhat loosely, but it’s an interesting perspective.
  • It’s hard for me not to think of the specific cultural turn there as it seems that the West Coast of the United States has had a tremendous impact through this history. Still have to read the article but some people are making connections between “geek culture” (linked to the third step above), specialty coffee (Peet’s, Starbucks), and the “craft beer revolution.” The thlot pickens.
• Celebrity Chefs, Culinary Philosophy, Personality
  • Rick Tramonto
  • Hungry Magazine #24: TRU Character
• NewAcademic Journals Online
  • Sociolinguistic Studies
  • Oral Tradition becomes eOT
• Now online, CMoS: The Chicago Manual of Style Online
  • As the printed manual is a bit bulky and costly, having an online version can be very useful.
• Academic Podcasting
  • Should start podcasting my lectures, next semester.
  • Academic Feeds
  • Using Moodle: New Podcasting module (login as guest)
  • Oncourse CL Podcasts
  • ProfCast - Features
  • Other approaches to online content
    • Yale to post courses on Web for free
• Editing structured texts
  • My Wandering Wiki: MultiMarkdown
  • From a simple email-like syntax to XHTML, LaTeX, PDF, RTF…
  • We really need a new approach to editing and “word processing.” XML is likely to be a key in this respect.
• Canadian Politics: Stéphane Dion
  • Stéphane Dion, candidat à la direction du PLC
  • My own personal opinion: he does seem to be on a “charm” campaign but his ideas sound like a rather rigid application of Leviathan instead of a principled take on direct democratic representation.
• Jane Elliott’s discrimination experiment (1968 through 2006)
  • Open Source » Blog Archive » Race, Class and Racism
  • La leçon de discrimination
    
  • Pascale Turbide et la discrimination
• Religious tolerance, atheism/secularism/agnosticism, multiculturalism, and peace
  • Thoughtful, level-headed, public discussion on these subjects could help.
  • Les institutions québécoises et les communautés culturelles
  • HEATHER MALLICK: Atheists don’t get it
  • Friendly Atheist » Canadians
  • the eBay atheist » Blog Archive » Video: Sam Harris Interview
  • The Blog | RJ Eskow: The Sad State of Atheism Today | The Huffington Post
  • The Blog | Sam Harris: Science Must Destroy Religion | The Huffington Post

Is that Disparate enough for you?

Music, Food, Industries, Piracy

000ady6y (PNG Image, 200×125 pixels)

Noticed it in Steal This Film. A very appropriate message. Process over product. Music is not a commodity. Food does not grow on profits.

Blogged with Flock

Video Merits

Video Bomb

Refers to Digg and Delicious. Mentions iTunes and Participatory Culture’s own DTV as software clients.

Interesting that they should mention democracy. The About page unapologetically calls it meritocracy, which is honest and accurate.

Like other systems available online (for instance, Podcastalley and, obviously, Digg), the way users rate content is by adding their “vote” to as many items as they want. That in itself is an interesting concept. The only thing the user needs to say is “I like these ones,” without any need to compare specifically. It’s not competitive in a strict sense, yet it’s a rating system. So it’s more of a popularity contest than a true meritocracy. It’s a bit like the “two thumbs up” statement on so many movies in that it doesn’t require much from the reviewer yet it’s a way to assign positive value. Because some reviewers acquire social capital, their choices will become popular which adds a positive feedback loop to the system.
Of course, people can post comments, which is the very basis of the type of contact and communication proposed by the venerable (!) Slashdot as well as the whole blogging community.
The other part which is quite important is that tags are applied to content which makes for community-created bottom-up classification (unlike strict taxonomies). Many online systems have this (say, Technorati). Of course, classification may be unreliable at first and tags may seem idiosyncratic. But the tagging system itself seems to work well on average. Good way to observe cultural schemes being created.

Vote!

Elections Canada On-line - Élection Canada en-ligne
Vive la démocratie!
Hurray for democracy!

Technorati tags: elections, politics, democracy, politique, democratie