Re: Linda/re LEARN-DAY

Linnda R. Caporael (caporl who-is-at rpi.edu)
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 11:57:30 -0400

diane celia hodges wrote:
>
> Linda - quickly, I'm sorry I never responded to yr query about L.E.A.R.N.,
> and whether I logged on to participate "live" ...

Hi, diane--
NO ONE ever need be sorry for not answering email from me quickly. I am
the one usually at fault. But, that's "Linnda" with "two n's."
>
> the short answer is "no"... I didn't have the time, unfortunately.
> But if you are keeping on with the idea, what do you think
> of the possibility of international-instantaneous conversations on the
> internet?

I haven't participated in anything such as you describe. The closest
I've heard is about two friends (LA & London) managing to get phone-chat
to work. (But they were engaged to be married, which changes the
motivational structure for dealing with the technology a lot....).
My first thought is how to arrange time differences? Who gets to be
awake? Who gets up in the middle of the night?

> My own concerns, as I indicated earlier, concern questions of "ownership",
> the idea of "electronically colonizing" other countries, and so on.
>
> Is it freedom, opening discussion, or is it socialization, inclucating
> participatings? Mebbe a little of both?
>

My guess would be a bit of both. But you are probably in a better
position (better read, more thought) than I to speculate on the issues.
I can only start with the notion of "colonizing" associated with force.
Then I get lost. Here are some stories.

I read (and have lost the memory of where) of the process of
electrification in villages in a remote rural area. People in the
villages had a complex system of use-rights to land for agriculture. The
electric company (European owned, operated by professionals from urban
parts of the country) required that their equipment (the meters) be
associated with the owners of the property where it went. This
requirement had ramifications throughout the villages, altering property
ownership, relationships between men and women, social structures within
villages, etc. People agreed to electrification because they wanted the
benefits of education and health care that they were told would be
possible with electricity.

Is this colonization? Or is this more like the involuntary "free choice"
one has in giving up personal information, social security number, past
credit etc. to get a mortgage?

I'm going to end here and copy the next story. There is no aggressive
violence occuring here, but it does seem very much like
colonization...and much more dangerous than electronic colonization.
However, electronic colonization might enable the following sort to
occur far more rapidly. However, electronic colonization might enable
the colonized to recognize their colonization much more rapidly.....
Linnda

PLEASE respond to original poster:
>From: Kellen Gilbert <kgilbert who-is-at selu.edu>
>Dr. Kellen Gilbert
>Department of Sociology, Social Work & Criminal Justice
>Southeastern Louisiana University
>Hammond LA 70402
>504-549-2107 telephone
>504-549-5014 fax
>
>
>The Division of Worldwide Ministries of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
>displays a web site that announces the denomination's intention to support
>efforts to evangelize 152 "unreached peoples" by the year 2000. The Web
>site, which you may view at http://www.pcusa.org/pcusa/wmd/ie/list.htm,
>bears the official logo of the denomination as well as two independent
>mission agencies that have put pressure on the denomination to increase its
>global evangelism efforts. It is alarming that these efforts seem to focus
>on indigenous peoples throughout the world, such as the Pygmies of
>Cameroon, who have a complex belief system strongly reflecting their
>interconnectedness with the ecosytem. You are urged to write the Stated
>Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Dr. Clifton
>Kirkpatrick, who himself was the former director of the denomination's
>mission agency, express your concern and ask that the web site be withdrawn
>and that these mission efforts be curtailed immediately.
>
>Office of the Stated Clerk
>Presbyterian Church (USA)
>100 Witherspoon Street
>Louisville, KY 40202-1396
>tel: 502-569-5360
>e-mail: clifton_kirkpatrick.parti who-is-at ecunet.org
>