[Air-l] Re: first post (An Internet Without Space)

[elijah wright]

Eero,

i know you're an aussie, and that your discourse conventions are a bit
different than they are stateside, but you're coming across in this
message as pretty rude.


> study will turn more towards real number crunching, rather than worrying
> about "cyberspace" and "cyber communities".

rebellions that do not work through an understanding of what their
precursors were inevitably seem to fail.  several people appear to be
engaged in this discussion with you, currently.

and, by the way, there are plenty of people here who crunch the numbers
through one set of methods or another.

> I think the new generation of students will force change as people who
> are less tolerant of "cyberisms" graduate and influence academia. I also
> think this new wave of Internet Studies scholars will drive the area
> into a more commercially focussed future as they understand the
> opportunities to be gained by excelling in the research of real data.

be aware that your 'new generation of students' is a loose agglomeration
that doesn't even share common research methods, much less opinions about
abstract concepts.

second: 'scholarship' and 'commercially focused' have traditionally been
diametrically opposed.  with reason.

and could you define real data, please - either you're making a 'slap' at
the rest of the community, or you've gotten your head stuck somewhere
unmentionable...


> However...the internet as we know it may not last more than another
> decade, it will be replaced by something else, but I imagine that
> whatever replaces it will still be a communications tool.

this is a bluesky argument.  people have been arguing that the 'net is a
passing fad since sometime in the mid-1980s.  (!!!)


> So perhaps rather than concentrating on the "internet" part of this
> equation, all the little bits that are floating around in the academic
> world in related areas should pull themselves into one universal school
> of communications study so that they not only allow for greater
> diversity of study but also protect their own academic industry from the
> inevitable technological change.

AoIR is sort of a public face for the 'invisible college' of people
interested in internet-related research.


> division and I would see this evolving in a more global sense through an
> online Division rather than being an individual battle for status at
> every single university. How this would be put together in flesh and
> blood terms I leave to the geniuses of organisation.

... in other words, "i don't really understand how universities around the
world work, so i will put out this grand idea and let someone else figure
out how to implement it"?  jesus.


> Thus, when the internet dies and is replaced by something else there is
> still a home for those who want to study the new emerging technology.

there are list-folk who're on their third and fourth 'careers' - people
always find something useful to do with themselves as their interests
change or evolve.  :)


elijah