One entry found for autochthonous diaspora.
Main Entry: au·toch·tho·nous di·as·po·ra
Pronunciation: o-’täk-th&-n&s dI-’as-p(&-)r&
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek, dispersion, from diaspeirein to scatter, from dia- + speirein to sow
1: a group of people settled far from their ancestral homelands, formed or originating in the place where found.
2: the oxymoronical state of forming a community far from home and living in it, without ever meeting your bretheren, and without ever leaving where you were.
“We are after all, in the global business of world politics whether we like it or not”
The AutochthonousDiaspora is about creating, understanding and directing groups of people who come together in synthetic spaces but act in physical ones - it is about being on the butter knife’s edge of the future of political movements and the nations of the future.
Sutton-Smith and the video game (not) as automaton
Reading “A Brief Biography of Computer Games” by Lowood and he quotes Sutton-Smith 1986 as saying:
Of all the toys that are machines and that work by themselves and can be enjoyed in solitude for endless periods of time, the apotheosis is undoubtedly today’s video game. The “video game” is an automaton that might have made Descartes shout with delight. (pp. 61-62)
Now, I must admit an ignorance of Descartes’ “automaton” but the idea of video games being the apotheosis of “machines that can be enjoyed in solitude” is a bit odd.
One thing that games, these days especially, are not is something solitary. Every gaming experience, whether online or offline is a shared experience simply by the fact that players have a common experience. Common reference points, cultural outgrowths, “insights” into the topic at hand, etc are all things which “solitary” players share.
yeah, ran out of thought there…I know there was a great example I thought of a couple days ago that summed it all up, but can’t remember it now….
Long Time Offline, Always Connected
It has been a while since I posted, but I have been in the “real world” for the past few months.
Traveling through S.E. Asia and East Asia really brings home how connected the world is and how pervasive some technologies are. From net shacks in Burma to all night internet palaces in Tokyo, firewalls in China to mass gaming in South Korea, the world is going in search of itself.
Now as much as, or more than, ever, I firmly believe that we are going to see online communities emerging to challenge mainstream understandings of what nations, states, communities and societies are. People seek out not only the fun of the internet, but the unknown, the new, the exciting and that has potential to out-do and overcome any obstacles governments or organizations may put in their way.
It’s an exciting time to live in two worlds.
This blog will now become a daily (hopefully) dump of research notes, ideas and random stuff relating to my thesis. Lets see if I can’t get this top notch.
The World and Warcraft
It has been a little while since my last update, but I have been traveling for a while. (This post comes to you courtesy of the town of Savanaket, Laos)
One thing that has struck me in every country I have been to in the last few months (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar) is that you can be in any city, even in the middle of one of the most arbitrary and repressive countries or one of the poorest countries in the world and there will be a shack, complete with refrigerated energy drinks, networked computers and perhaps only a single dial-up modem and a bevy of kids playing Warcraft.
In Myanmar (Burma) you can’t check your email and I know most people can’t read or speak English (they have a different alphabet/script and the English education is rather lacking), but there are kids playing hacked (probably) versions of some of the most popular online and network games around.
This is why games are so important, in my humble opinion, to future politics: They are fun and people will actively seek out ways to get to them and play them. People don’t usually go out of their way to watch the news, or read papers and magazines because they aren’t often as fun as some might think. At the same time, movies in many countries aren’t as common as they are in the US, only a small handful will end up in the cinemas in poorer countries and most will never be translated…they are a fleeting engagement with “the west”.
So we have a situation where what is fun and enduring which at the same time has the power to transfer political, cultural and social ideas across boundaries, be they physical, political, economic or otherwise, are games…and they truly are everywhere.
Granted they tend to reach only a small portion of the population, but those who can afford the time and or the money are often the ones with a certain position, degree of influence or sway in their countries which makes the equation even more interesting. At the same time though, I have seen kids who are very definitely not well off “pwning” with the best of them at the same net game cafes.
Just an interesting thing that caught my eye.
To Masters or Not to Masters…
So, interesting chat with the Graduate adviser here at NUS. Seems I would have “little trouble” being accepted to the Communications and New Media graduate programme here if I applied. I’d get to write on virtual world politics and community management, get paid (not much) and get credit for it and more importantly, I’d get to focus on it rather than my other love (Indian socio-political development) which I have spent the last 5 years or so on.
The Singapore gov’t is throwing money at research into New Media here too, so lots of funding for weird and wonderful projects, equipment and labs to be had.
But then, if I do this it means a hold on the motorcycle-across-the-world plans and the paying-of-the-student-debt necessity which are getting rather urgent.
Ah choices choices, I do hate making them for myself.
Ah Midterms
This little Brain Fart was a midterm I wrote for a class. Great class, but limiting us to 600 words for a paper is killer.
Most of what I say in it is nothing new, in fact, I don’t think there is anything really new in there at all. But here it is, in all it’s “I need this to transfer credit” glory.
Soviet Invaders: Space Invaders, it’s not just a game
Making the Moderator a Module
Imagine removing the most monotonous parts of a moderator’s job, freeing them to focus on what’s actually important - your community - while at the same time making information more easily accessible, organized and friendly. That is the aim of this brain fart. By combining, and improving upon, several existing technologies and techniques an AI Forum Mod (Lets call it ‘Bob’) could be created that would drastically improve access to information and forum organization as well as back end reporting to Devs, Community Managers, PR folk and all those other people who live on information.
I think it’s a good idea, but then, I think most of my ideas are good…at least until someone comes along and points out the problems 
Paper upload to come.