> Hi,
>
> >> > My personal view is that I am not interested in simulating traditional
> >> > things with new technologies.
> >Why the Odyssey?
>
> > but our vector points in the opposite direction--from late industrial
> > and conservative patriarchy to information-based, revolutionary
> matriarchies.
> Sorry but where do you see matriarchy coming ?
I think you are teasing me, Jonny, but I will do my best to answer
your question.
No need to apologize. Let's begin with a little homework. Robert
Graves, a well-known English poet of the early 20th century (now
deceased), compiled a very good reference book called *The Greek
Myths*. In Volume One, Chapter 16 on "Poseidon's Nature and Deeds," he
points out that Poseidon and Athene had a long-standing dispute over
who would possess Attica. "Poseidon is greedy of earthly kingoms, and
once claimed possession of Attica by thrusting his trident into the
acropolis at Athens, where a well of sea-wateer gushed out and is
still to be seen....Later, during the reighn of Cecrops, Athene came
and took possession in a gentler manner, by planting the first
olive-tree beside the well.
"Poseidon, in a fury, challenged her to single combat, and Athene
would have accepted had not Zeus interposed and ordered them to
submit the dispute to arbitration....Zeus himself expressed no
opinion, but while all the other gods supported Poseidon, all the
goddesses supported Athene. Thus, by a majority of one, the court
ruled that Athene had the better right to the land, because she had
given the better gift. ... However, to appease Poseidon's wrath, the
women of Athens were deprived of their vote, and the men forbidden to
bear their mother's names as hitherto."
I don't know whether Athenian women have the vote even today, but
women in parts of North American did not get the vote and were not
counted as one whole person for census purposes until nearly halfway
through the twentieth century. Maybe women have always voted in
Austria. You have to tell me. I don't know about that.
For a more immediate example, let me introduce you to the ArchWizard
of Athemoo, Dr. Juli Burk. Drop in; have a look around. Definitely a
matriarchy--not one in which men and women vote as irreconcilable
blocks (blockheads), but a fairly spacious facility ruled and managed
by a woman.
Second, I would suggest that Monika Wunderer is the matriarch of the
Oudeis
Project. She might feel uncomfortable with this, but she admits to
thinking as if she were the decision-maker.
Simple feminism is not what I am talking about. There are many
feminisms. Maybe
this is a cultural difference. Do you have feminists in Austria? I
think so. ;-)
I think I see female leadership coming in a movie like Smilla's Sense
of Snow.
Have you seen it?
Even Hollyweird understands this one. Check out GI Jane. Demi, of the
big
pregnant belly on national magazine cover, Moore as a US Navy Seal
trainee who simply
refuses to accept the idea that her life is more valuable than a
man's.
I don' t mean it's all over. Six or seven years ago, Marc Lepine
walked into an
engineering lab at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. He sent the young
men away and
gunned down 16 young women because they were feminists. Twenty-five
years ago,
you would have had a hard time finding even a psycho who felt *that*
threatened
by a roomful of girls. Nervous patriarchs can be ugly. The war is on,
and I can
tell you know it from what you say below. *You* tell *me* why, Jonny.
Let's stop playing games.
> We are progresisng more and more into a supracapitalistic world of man.
> I think more and more people live in a virtual reality dont realizing the
> basic
> RL transactions which take place in control of some elitary groups.
> > Probably native cultures in the New World will show us the way more
> clearly than
> > our own pathetic flashlights (Mac or Microsoft or Unix).
> So what are native cultures today ? Internet nomads ? Cyberpunks ?
> What is nature ? Is there any nature since we began harvesting food and doing
> agriculture ? Has a farm anything to do with nature ???
>
In the New World we have a history of colonialism. The people who were
here when
the whites came--men and women--we used to call Indians from the silly
idea that
Columbus thought he was going to India. Now we call them First Nations
People or
native people. The Inuit, Cree, Kwakiutl, Salish, Kutenai, Huichol,
Aztec, Maya,
Inca, Yanomami--the list is very long. The process of
decolonialization that
began in Africa and Asia and resulted in the collapse of the Soviet
Empire has
just barely begun in the Americas. But it *has* begun. In North
America, we may
see multi-sided race wars between blacks, white supremacists,
left-wingers,
Hispanics, and Native cultures before the century is out. Very similar
I think to
the Odyssey, to the Muslim republics, to Yugoslavia or Lebanon. It is
easy for us
to think about one side against another side. But we have a hard time
to think
about three or four or five sides against everybody where each one is
against
everybody else.
> A few years of "more of the same" and some entire island
> > groups (and their beaches) could be completely underwater.
> The world is in a radical change since it exists.
> Have you ever heard about pangea. All our continents are more
> a modern invention of nature...
>
Continental drift, yes of course. I live in the mountains. A few years
ago I
lived in a town 3500 feet above sea level that used to be part of a
volcanic
island arc like Hawaii. But these phenomena were not products of human
agency. Human beings are not even candidates for the possible cause of
the Alpine orogeny, for instance. But if the climate is warming, we
are likely to bear some responsibility. And if that is true, then we
might be able to reverse the trends. I know that's a lot of "ifs" for
an engineer. Maybe that is why technicians should stay out of
politics. Too much responsibilty.
What is (parallel task)? Your company?
Regards,
-- Jim Terral South Slocan, BC http://www.netidea.com/~jterral/ http://moo.hawaii.edu/athemoo/WebMOO.html