andrewducker

I agree with everything Scalzi says about JJ Abrams except for his comment about the most recent Star Trek movie - that film was dreadful, in large part because it was a bog standard action picture with a rather lame side helping of young man's Campbellian hero's journey and that's not what Star Trek has ever been about. OTOH, Star Wars is considerably more in the standard action picture mode and even more firmly in hero's journey mode (which Star Trek never was), and so Abrams is likely a good choice - if nothing else, he'll be considerably better than Lucas was with the last 3 films - the bar's really low for that.

Universities starting to separate out certification from education

I've been reading about MOOC's since they started, and it's a fascinating idea. With luck it will change education all across the developing world (and may result in many fewer young people coming to developed nations from developing nations to get degrees) - beyond that, it will likely have impacts no one can foresee - I'm guessing that this will be really big. In any case, this seems like a useful adjunct. OTOH, we now have people with and w/o degrees and job and status sorting based on that - this looks to introduce a three tier sorting with on campus degrees on top and off-campus certification in the middle. Perhaps eventually, off campus certification will be equivalent to a state college degree in the US, but I'm guessing that will take well more than a decade of MOOCs being commonly used.

Very much in agreement about the animal sentience thing. I think it's very likely that an animal's experience is at least somewhat similar to our own. Otherwise we'd have had to develop a lot of faculties very quickly. I can't help seeing a trace of religion in the idea that we're vastly different and special.

Yeah. We're better at purely abstract thought, logic and suchlike. But the base "take in information about the world, build models about it, and build patterns of behaviour built on that." seems to be something that an awful lot of animals do very well.

Isn't poly just a thin-client solution to human emotions?

I'm going to need slightly more detail on your metaphor there :->

I am soooo that poly normative article it hurts, as such I feel no reserve in telling him to fuck off about judging my life. He irked me so much I refused to jeep reading, yes he has a point about media portrayal, no I dont think that gives him the right to tell me how I live my life is wrong, because I shouldn't be that type of poly.


-grump-

Finished reading it, it's mainly the how dare you call someone in your life 'secondary' aspect that drives me nuts!!!!

Yeah. The idea that some people might be more important to you than others seems to upset him. Seems pretty obvious to me though.

Did we read the same article?
Do you disagree that mass media poly is sanitized and unthreatening?
Do you disagree that there are a lot more ways to do it than the way you do it?
Exactly where does it say the way you live your life is wrong? Exactly where is it judgmental (of polys, not of media!)?

The bit where he says having an explicitly primary relationship and an explicitly secondary relationship is badly mistreating people, that is exactly what I do. I've always been clear on that, from the outset. But apparently this makes me one step removed from forcing someone into an abusive relationship.

I actually agree with a lot of it, but just cause one model has been discussed in the media doesn't mean it's the one we should now all run screaming from. It's poly 101, something to be built on, a stepping stone for the general population to be able to deal with more complex models

I agree with one of the comments that while I see where the polynormativity article is going, I don't think the term 'polynormative' is particularly descriptive. There's a comment partway down that I agree with on that topic but I can't seem to link to individual points in the comment thread, so basically my issue is that 'heteronormative' means 'hetero-as-normal', whereas here 'polynormative' is being used to mean 'a set of norms being applied to the concept of polyamory'. The author argues that her usage tracks with the description of homonormativity here but I still don't like it much. Can't we just call it 'stereotyping'? I feel like people should put more effort into making sure their neologisms make sense.

Oh, also BECAUSE THE PATRIARCHY YOU FOOLS. Ahem.

Much like Polynormativity expands the "normativity" thing to the point where it doesn't mean anything clear, I think that applying "Patriarchy" here also expands it to the point where it just means "people" :->

*Grin*

I'm trying out blaming the Patriarchy for everything, much as I like to try blaming Margaret Thatcher for everything; it's sort of an interesting mental exercise. As yet I haven't found anything I can't blame on the Patriarchy.

Of course not, if you make it "The set of societal norms that I don't like" then I bet you can blame it for all the ills of society :->

Can you blame Margaret Thatcher on the Patriarchy too?

Man, that one writes itself.

We can probably blame at least some of the continuation of the patriarchy on Margaret Thatcher too!

BECAUSE THE PATRIARCHY AND/OR MARGARET THATCHER YOU FOOLS!

My issue with the poly article is that they are talking like those are new issues. Most of the things they are railing against come straight from the recommendations of The Ethical Slut and other early polyamorist writings. The media portrays polyamory that way, because that's the way it's most commonly practiced. It's fine to rail against those things and advocate for a better way of doing poly, but I don't think the media is to blame.