[ExI] Transhumanism: Knowledge Source & Media Center Online

[Tomasz Rola]

On Fri, 7 Dec 2012, Natasha Vita-More wrote:

[...]
> I think that what is needed is multi-media expose - a visual narrative that
> is quite different from the text-based wikis. Maybe gaming or the next phase
> of user-narrative experiences has an advantage because it is entertaining.
> So this gets me thinking on new levels.  But the key is knowledge.

I wouldn't like to spoil this initiative with my doubts and criticism but 
from pure technical point of view, you may want to be as close to classic 
print as possible. For example of what I mean, consider Wikipedia - they 
include multimedia content but their pages are perfectly usable (AFAIK, at 
least) without animations and sound. They can also be printed on paper and 
still be usable, even in places where there is no power and no decent 
enough computers. Moreover, they are perfectly usable on devices with 
e-paper/e-ink displays, which are - I hope - on the rise but they will be 
unable to display movies for some time, being limited by their 
construction.

While the days when I connected to the net via dialup are long gone and I 
will not miss them (other than usual missing "10-years younger me", but on 
the plus side, try to imagine this, the line was so junky I only managed 
to do 8kbps on it on bad day and 26kbps on a sunny day - and to make the 
experience bearable I turned images off, which isn't bad idea today, 
either), so I cannot say I myself will have a problem with such multimedia 
(well, if you plan to play it on Windows only, I will have a problem) - 
but I guess there is about +70% people on this planet who cannot afford 
top notch tech and/or fatty connection to youtubes of today. And even if 
they can, playing HD-quality video is not always an option. Actually, it 
is not an option most of the time in majority of places, I guess.

Perhaps it is good idea to keep those people in mind, because they are the 
real majority, their minds are open (I don't mean they accept 
unconditionally what you tell them) and they have not so much to loose - 
contrary to established "rich" minority, who would rather maintain their 
comfy and easy to grasp status quo. So this minority has no reason to care 
about Transhumanism as long as nobody else from their group cares and as 
long as it is unfashionable to care about (compare to ecology - it became 
fashionable and the fashion had been put into heads from the top, it was 
nothing about reason or logic, IMNSHO, and before that, "eco" rhymed with 
"whacko").

Of course, by choosing the technology you are actually choosing your 
target audience and indirectly, the reasons for doing this job.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **