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Arquivo para a ‘Digital Midia’ Categoria

Asceticism as human and spiritual elevation

16 May

It is not specific to a religion and is also defined in philosophy, from the Greek áskesis, “spiritual exercise”, derived from ἀσκέω, “to exercise”, consisting of a practice or more practices that promote spiritual development, the simple idea of ​​renouncing pleasure or the primary needs, must be seen within certain contexts or periods, therefore it is not normal in general and also its opposite does not mean just sinning, but deteriorating, weakening when failing to do certain exercises.

Peter Sloterdijk, an agnostic, speaks of this despiritualized asceticism, in the sense that we are a society of exercises, but that they do not provide either a human or spiritual elevation, a clear example of this is the number of academies that grow in the country and in many places of the world. world, another example is the demonstrations of virility as a human elevation, of course it is important to take care of health, but sometimes excessive exercise and medication do the opposite.

From the human point of view, what we experience is a decadence that goes from the moral to the religious, subjects so clear until recently, today they are seen as having almost absurd controversies to the point of the immoral being considered “normal” and “human” and the religious being identified with atrocities.

The series of humanitarian crises could not fail to affect the economy, these are not simple market crises, they are at the epicenter of wars and economic fallacies, it is not necessary to be an economist to see that simplistic formulas do not work at either extreme: the wild capitalism and socialism without freedom and without human quality.

It seems difficult to recognize what a true spirituality would be then, even with the principle of asceticism, which means human elevation in social relations and in the inherent dignity of every human being, in respect for nature and in the preservation of its benefits, in short, in the love of life .

Even for the concept of peace we go back in history, the pax Roman seems to be the principle for many wars, whatever the one that subdued “enemy” territories to declare peace, not even the eternal peace of contemporary idealism is claimed, although it also have limitations.

It is a harbinger of great tragedies, including war, what is hoped is that somehow forces that still have a human and spiritual background can interpose this contemporary reality and revert the dangerous situation that we all face and few work for its reversal (photo about Pulitzer Prize in 2023).

 

Visit to Rome, Counteroffensive and Pulitzer Prize

15 May

The week was all about Ukraine: a visit to Rome and the pope, advances in Backhmut and photos from the war that drew attention when they won the Pulitzer Prize, the photos are shocking and perhaps say more than words, since today there is even incomprehensible rhetoric favor of war.

In the strategic plan, there is no Portuguese analyst Germano Almeida pointed out: “here in the West we are not yet aware of the plans, so there is a Ukrainian idea that this is just the beginning and nobody knows where in fact this counter-offensive can be launched because the Bakhmut’s question could be a first diversion maneuver [discussion] and the essential thing and the mass offensive could be elsewhere”, says Almeida.

The visit to Italy, in addition to the country’s already declared support, the visits to Italian President Sérgio Mattarela and with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, he also participated in a talk show on Italian TV, about the pope, all that is known is an agreement humanitarian assistance to refugees.

The images that won the prize also have a Brazilian on the list: Felipe Dana, from Rio de Janeiro, who filmed and photographed scenes from Bucha, the most cruel and violent massacre carried out by Russia in Ukraine (first photo below), it is worth remembering that the war was also from Vietnam had awards on the horrors there.

Some images from the 2023 Pulitzer Prize given to several Associated Press photographers, including the Brazilian, if words don´t move, maybe the images will.

 

Artificial intelligence and planning

26 Jan

We all want ideal and perfect situations, as Margaret Boden says, obviously this is not restricted to AI, our daily lives, our travels and the future depend on this planning, simple voluntarism, or simple desire (it is fashionable to mentalize desires) do not solve any problem and most of the time cause anxiety and frustration.

In the case of computing, “planning enables the program – and/or the human user – to find out what actions have already been taken and why. The ‘why’ refers to the goal hierarchy: this action was performed to satisfy that prerequisite, to achieve such and such secondary goals” (Boden, 2020, p. 44), this in some computer program designs is called “requirements engineering”.

In the case of AI, there is both a “forward thread” and a “backward thread”, which explain and help the program to find solutions, for this there is also a hierarchy, there is also a hierarchy of tasks and the author adds that both planning as hierarchy was rejected by “roboticists” in the 1980s, and today it has been incorporated into the field.

There are several AI constraints that are not clearly exposed and that better explain what AI is, for example, “there are a lot of simplifying non-mathematical assumptions in AI that are generally not mentioned. One of them is the (tacit) hypothesis that problems can be defined without taking emotions into account” (Boden, 2020, p. 46) which is addressed in the next topic and whose subject is just initialized.

The artificial neural networks that greatly helped the development of AI are very different from semantic networks, since the latter are already developed from experience and human interaction and only after these topics is that Chapter 6 does the author ask the question about what is real Artificial Intelligence, like the key questions “Do they have egos, moral stance and free will? Would they be aware?” (Boden, 2020, p. 165), and this question we cannot escape without presenting some philosophical, theological or anthropological insight, perhaps an in-depth synthesis of the three would be more interesting.

The question in times of serious civilizing crisis is necessary a previous question: the human conscience what would it be? How do we treat it? The dictatorship of the same, the insensitive and the standardization of even thought leads us to a false impression that the machine can overtake us (the point of singularity).

BODEN, Margaret A. (2020) Inteligência Artificial: uma brevíssima introdução (Artificial Intelligence: a very brief introduction). Brazil, SP: Ed. UNESP.

 

 

Slap in the Oscar

31 Mar

I had decided not to comment on the best Oscars this year, first because I don’t consider “Attack of the Dogs” as good a movie, as, for example, Dune and Don’t Look Up, not only for the plots, but mainly for the whole work, Dune ended up taking several well-deserved awards, but none of the major ones.

Will Smith’s slap on Chris Rock stole the show, but director Jane Campion’s best-director comment, in another event about Serene and Venus Williams: “you are wonderful, however, you don’t have to compete with men like me” , also went down badly and his prize lost some of its shine.

Shortly after the slap from Will Smith he would receive the award for best actor, he is a great actor, but it would be more grandiose if he waited for this moment to say about the role he played as the father of the Williams in defense of the family and would give a much greater blow. hard on Rock for making an unfortunate comment about Will’s wife Jada Pinkett’s hair loss.

A lot of people came out in defense of Rock, the newspapers say that his show now breaks box office records, and Will exposed Jada because they now seek to know about her life and her relationships, and just like her alopecia disease, in my opinion, the moment response to Chris Rock could be the statuette moment, and in this case I won’t comment on the merits, but the role of Denzel Washington in MacBeth’s Tragedy deserves to be highlighted.

Another comment is the best actress award, I went to see excerpts after the nomination (I didn’t see the whole movie) Tammy Faye’s eyes (picture), neither the movie nor the winning actress (Jessica Chastain) impress me, I know the Academy follows some cliches: irony, a certain humor and other tics.

I went to see the popularity, just over 60% of people liked the movie, I’m not out then.

I saw Meryl Streep’s performance in Don’t Look Up, and she at least deserved the nomination, of course she’s already won others, she’s a consecrated actress (Margaret Thatcher’s spectacular role in Iron Lady, for example), but merit is indisputable and not the height of the winner matters.

Will Smith’s slap and the fail an action from the Best Director winner (with Williams sisters) drew attention to a lackluster Oscar to the academy’s taste and the slap its a error only. 

 

Don’t look up: between fiction and documentary

29 Dec

The Netflix film is a fiction, but the style has become similar to a documentary, and different from other apocalyptic films (“Armageddon” (1998), “Deep Impact” (1998) and “A Friend Wanted for the End of the World ” (2012)) the film “Don’t look up” has a different impact due to the apocalyptic waves that find the public.

The film tells of a professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his astronomy student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) make the discovery of a comet with a short time to collide with the earth, six months, and want to make it. drawing attention from the media that prefers to direct the public to social media media and is little concerned about their own lives, any resemblance to the pandemic is not a mere coincidence, there is a correlation, in particular, of feelings and attitudes.

Things start to change when Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) organizes a media tour to the office of President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her son Jason (JOnah Hill) and also with the help of the Daily Rip airwaves, a program morning hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry) and a race against time begins.

In addition to the extraordinary actors, the film catches attention, and is already quoted for awards, the theme, but it is treated almost like a documentary and this is worrying.

The end-of-the-year messages are usually encouraging and almost always speak of hope for a better year, after two chaotic years due to the pandemic situation, the fiction film should have a fictional character as there are many films of the so-called “catastrophe cinema”, and people always watch it understanding it’s a fiction, but the time and conspiracy theories can collaborate to a film that has a negative impact on the emotions of the viewer.

I remember the last one to watch in this style, which was the Norwegian film Earthquake (2018), in which geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) decides to investigate the Oslo tunnels, where a great earthquake occurred many years ago, and meets Marit (Katherine Thorborg Johansen) who is the daughter of a geologist who died while investigating the Oslo mines.

Both decide, with the imminence of a new earthquake, to save as many people as possible.

The problem is always how to avoid tragedy, of course if possible, so don’t get the vaccine is akin to “don’t look up”.

Both decide, with the imminence of a new earthquake, to save as many people as possible.

The hope should not start from the fact that a tragedy cannot happen, such as an extension or a new pandemic, but the preventive measures that can save, but “Don’t look up” seems more like despair than actually an attempt to avoid further catastrophes, will give you something to talk about.

 

The night of culture and humanism

19 Oct

Edgar Morin considers contemporary culture something broader than what is considered and was theorized as mass culture, for him it goes beyond media culture, which is in full decline, despite reactions from the art world in some segments, in general it deals with death, the dark and contempt for symbols, values, myths and images related to everyday life and the collective imagination, but regional, religious and humanist cultures persist in an act of resistance.

The industrial process and the success of performance and productivist values ​​hide what is processed in the spirit, something Morin calls “industrialization of the spirit”, this second colonization is not processed horizontally conquering territories, but vertically penetrating the human soul and obscuring it.

The cultural industry has set in motion a third culture (in addition to classical and natural, I would call original), but there is a human resistance that comes from the original culture of each people and each specific culture, but the idea of ​​colonizing is alive.

The multicultural realities present in mass culture are not autonomous, so the idea is to demolish (or erase) the institutions that can resist this new “colonization”, and resistance can only arise from the cultures of peoples, from their original development of culture and its religions and beliefs.

Although one can criticize the current media culture, social networks are a ties between actors that can be made through them, it does not find a society devoid of culture to be omnipresent, it contains social values ​​and symbols, beliefs and ideologies , and in them the transcendental factors are still impregnated, it is not a separate culture.

In Morin’s view, mass culture integrates and disintegrates at the same time in a polycultural reality, it makes contain, control, censor (also in many cases by the state and by the churches) tending to corrode and disintegrate other cultures.

It is now a cosmopolitan and planetary culture, and it will constitute the first truly universal culture in the history of mankind, while conservative thought considers it plebeian barbarism, left-wing critics consider it an opiate of the people and deliberate mystification , and so the only perspective seems to be the authoritarian one.

In the authoritarian case, the state must control the production and distribution of “cultural goods”, while in the democratic case the large cultural groups must dictate the media controlling the production and distribution of content, here digital media is present.

Both currents agree in the criticism of mass culture, classifying it as a poor cultural product, of low aesthetic quality and without originality (kitsch).

The great solution pointed out by Morin is in the structure of the imaginary: the use of archetypes that order dreams, without the standardization of mythical and romance themes, art is a great reaction in this field, the cultural industry was reduced to archetypes and stereotypes, who outside of these there is no cultural “insertion”, and her prisons are individualized products.

It’s not about accepting diversity, but increasing consumption, just as it did with the pop culture of the 60s, movies, radio or TV shows (now lives and stories) are solely aimed at maximizing profit and audience (likes and fanpages).

In religious terms, syncretism is the most suitable word to translate the tendency to homogenize culture and dictate values ​​and the comicity used to these themes plays the role of destroying its essence and originality, everything is similar or equal.

Children’s cultural content is invaded by themes of adult consumption: they are presented in a simplification that takes them (to adult viewers too) as children.

Even leisure is not just a way of allowing a balance of life, but it is invaded by mass culture, the so-called “resorts”, the beaches and leisure places are invaded by the “cultural industry”, everything within reach, just by an app.

This crisis is neither temporary nor fleeting, a great civilizing crisis may emerge from it, but it is necessary to have hope despite the public blindness.

MORIN, Edgar. (1997) Cultura de massas do século XX. (20th century mass culture). trad. Maura Ribeiro Sardinha. 9ª. edição. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Ed. Forense. 

 

 

 

Digital transformation beyond Buzzword

21 Oct

We alerted and problematized in the 10 years of this blog the transformation that was being led by digital changes, social, educational, industrial and even behavioral aspects, most of the skeptics reacted, mocked or despised a real change that was happening.

The pandemic has shown that more than necessary tools can build bridges, establish new relationships, energize companies and avoid wasting time, money and especially in these times, endangering health.

Now everyone lives in the digital reality, companies have survived through online services, families, social groups, public services and meetings of various types depend on digital tools, shows depend on lives, meetings or posts on social media tools.

A buzzword emerged very strongly called the “digital transformation”, but the danger of opportunism is great for companies and sites that exploit and mystify these services and charge dearly for it, so some concepts are necessary, first what happens differently in generation Z of previous call of millennials, those who were born at the beginning of the millennium, therefore before the year 2000, which is now 22 to 37 years old.

The millenials followed the evolution of the Web (the pages, websites and blogs), they were born in a reality in which computers were an appliance, so they were only used at home and optionally at school, while generation Z through cell phones took the digital world to everywhere, create chat groups and behave differently with the credibility of websites, blogs and media networks, create their own relationships and idols, in general different from everything that is known.

Although more closed and with a tendency to have little social relationship, they are more critical than millennials, who are more anxious, more efficient and more demanding.

Thus, relations with the market are very different, they return to prefer shopping in physical stores and select well what they buy, less impulsive and already have the technology with excellent support, although very connected they already know the limits of technology.

Major economics magazines like Forbes and Fortune have done generation Z analyzes to understand the necessary market transformation, Forbes says it represents 25% of the current world population, digital is a natural part of their lives, like TV and the radio of past generations, while Fortune claims that 32 of generation Z are striving for a job of their dreams and rule out taking on any job, although temporarily accepted to lift the future.

Thus the old CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) do not work and many criticisms and analyzes made for the millennial generation are outdated.

According to Kasey Panetta, a researcher at Gartner, 5 new concepts are emerging: Composite architectures, agile and responsive architectures, Algorithmic trust, products, links, websites and reliable transactions, Beyond silicon, the limits of Moore’s law of the evolution of computers, now technologies smaller and more agile are sought, Formative Artificial Intelligence (AI) adaptation to the client, customization of services, times and location, and the Digital Me concept, a kind of passport to the digital world, tools and websites that already know the client and their needs, forms of behavior and preferences.

So the entire digital universe that seemed stable is also going to collapse and much of what is called “digital transformation” is just a digital mystification.

Panetta, Kasey. 5 Trends Drive the Gartner Hyper Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2020. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-trends-drive-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-emerging-technologies-2020, Access: September 15, 2020

 

The cultural crisis and the pandemic

15 Apr

The second great blindness of the Western crisis is culture, the book Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple, pseudonym of english´s psychiatrist Anthony Daniel who treated dangerous prisoners, is an anthology of short stories written from 2006 to 2009, and called his studies declinology (see the video below) but in the book cited there are beautiful passages on how to read a culture. in many countries. 
Since the dawn of human culture, the discovery of the Chauvet Cave (dated 32,000 BC) proves this, man builds and records his culture, and here a parallel with #StayAtHome this is done in a cave, probably a meeting place and protection of families.
It may seem too much the term used by Peter Sloterdijk, but human domestication is nothing other than the structuring of “domestic” life, and also the Greek origin of the word oikos-nomicus (we have already made a post) means oikos – home.

We add here Xenophon’s Socratic dialogue, which refers to the term how to be a good gentleman, Kalokagathos (good in beautiful, in Greek), which is thus a reference to culture.
Byung Chul Han, who wrote Salvação do Belo, where he criticizes the culture of the plain and in particular that of Jeff Koon and his sculptures of “baloons” (figure) that say a lot or nothing, the desire for total immunity, without seeking the co-immunity, concept of its master Sloterdijk, that can be applied to the current pandemic.
A hard article, even for me as an appreciator of Chul Han, about the current pandemic crisis, published in El País, states that: “it seems that Asia controls the epidemic better than Europe”, quotes the data of March 20 when the epidemic had not yet reached its peak in Europe and is based on the disciplined and ancestral structure of the east. 
Earlier than us, they bet on Big Data, says the author, and “they suspect that big data may have enormous potential to defend themselves against the pandemic” says in the article by El País, but warns that this could lead to a digital dictatorship, as in China and this is not a change.
About the current culture, the author affirms “today not only the polished is turned to the beautiful, but also the ugly” in the work A Salvação do Belo (page 19), we hope that the scourge of the virus will move our hearts and make us go from discovery from interdependence, as Morin says, to solidarity.
https://veja.abril.com.br/videos/clube-do-livro/uma-aula-de-decliniologia-com-theodore-dalrymple/  

 

Women and new media

09 Mar

The women’s day was yesterday, the prospect of a non-sexist society is very distant, even in European countries I contacted with sadness that sexism is still a general culture, for example, harassment in France has high rates and in Portugal there are recent cases , where even a Supreme Court judge expressed his machismo in a case of domestic violence that he judged.

Wikipedia is the 5th.

The most accessed site in the world, it has more than 6 million entries, and despite having problems with editing and corruption in its entries, which is treated but can go online and cause confusion, its importance is undeniable, and denying it is not living the present reality.

New media is no different, Wikipedia the 5th. most read site in the world, it has recently been reported that the majority of women influential in scientific investigations are ignored by the site.

The article written by James Vicent in August 2018 in The Verge Magazine, says that 82% of the biographies are written about men, cites the example of Teresa Woodruff, a scientist who had no entry on Wikipedia (now has), and was named one of the most influential people in investigations and Artificial Intelligence by Time magazine in 2013.

Another influential researcher cited is Jessica Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who wrote Pineau’s new entry, a system called QuickSilver, and spoke about Wikipedia:

“… it is incredibly biased and the under-representation of women in science is particularly bad”.

The article focused on AI research and also cited robotics researcher Joële Pineau.

However, new media have given women power and a voice too, it is undeniable that a number of excluded social groups, cultures almost disappeared, and many minorities now have a voice thanks to new media.

In social media media, facebook and instagram, there are countless cases of exposure of sexist images and content, which are not always denounced and punished for offensive practices

 

 

Digital influencer, the power in new media.

25 Feb

Digital influencer is a new area of expertise in the media, since the first bloggers they exist, they talk about curious things from serious topics, to cooking, fitness, sports or anything that is on the rise at a given moment, those that are successful mean a lot in in terms of statistics and funding, but little in terms of serious and political content.
I quote from a Brazilian Felipe Neto, around 32 years old, I didn’t go check it out, I just read it somewhere, sometimes he’s smart, sometimes comedian and ironic, he talks about everything, especially unpublished cultural facts, like the Passos Family that formed a “ trupe ”that won with a carnival satire marchinha (*primary sing of carnival) “The fault is of the PT (left party)” on CBN radio won the marchinhas contest.
They say he has millions of followers; I didn’t check it out and there are also “robots” and “influencers” capable of producing values, but the visualizations are really astronomical. You must be unaware of Christian Figueiredo, who is around 21 and has already launched a book “Eu sou loko” (I´m crazy) and has already done marketing for Colacoca (or other) and Disney, and if it goes to a mall it will drive teenagers crazy, ask your son, nephew or grandson who he is , 50% chance that they will know.

The Santa Catarina´s Luba, Lucas Feurschütte. he is around 25 years old, and has already made a successful video with Christian Figueredo asking: “Are you a gay”, there is a third party that I don’t know who participates, but maybe he’s also successful, his success is Luba TVGames ( around 230 thousand followers), I will not exhaust the list, I just point out an unknown universe of those over 30 years old, at least the vast majority, young people are under their enormous influence.
If your son is a teenager, pay attention to these names: Júlio Cocielo, who got involved in a controversy for making a racist comment about the player Mbappé, oh this you know, another name is Luccas Neto, 25 million subscribers and billions of views,
The third in Brazil is Kéfera Buchmann do 5inco Minutos channel, I don’t know how ironic it is with the American program 60 minutes, but it talks about beauty, sketches, parodies and has a very fine humor and 11 million followers, Whindersson Nunes, who once in a lecture I played with him and all teenagers reacted, and the adult who would say the conversation did not understand anything, and of course, Felipe Neto.
From other countries all I know is youtuber PewDiePie, a Swedish comedian around 30 years old, I discovered that his name is Feliz Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, and also those from Instagram, but there are “common” media names like Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi players. soccer, Beyoncé and Selena Gomez singers, Justin Bieber singer and others, personally I am a follower of friends and family.
It’s all I know, I dedicate myself little to these conversations, but the desire for power made me go after what young people are concerned about, in 3 or 4 years they will be in college and I don’t want to miss the joke, or the conversation, or the “ power ”that people of our age lost to young people.
Oh, it’s all media people, yes, but the new media philosophers (its comm