Writing on the Wall

I have just been very entertained.

Allen, my new Taiwanese-Canadian web-friend asked me to go look at the film Zeitgeist (Z)

So I did the unthinkable and threw myself into a conspiracy theory film. And I have to say it was really good fun, I was thoroughly gripped and entertained throughout, and learned some very interesting things, although verifying them is entirely another matter.

So I want to do a sort of film review of this web film. It is a film that attempts a global vision, and that is distributed on a global media, and so is probably worth debating as a form of emerging global public debate.

It is interesting how constructing myths these days so often takes the form of debunking other myths. Z takes this form, part I attacking Christianity, Part II attacking the official account of 9-11, part three turning explanatory and discussing the history and power of the federal reserve and of the banking elite that are standing behind it. The synthesis is that these banking groups have been triggering wars for profit for donkey’s years, that they are happily dumbing down the American public, and that they hope to produce a world government, totalitarian in its application of accounting standards.

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Second Life is becoming a destination for increasingly many. But what is a parallel reality useful for?

Well one answer is that it gives an interaction space where people can meet and learn. Sloodle is one such project. They are taking the very good open source distance learning platform Moodle, and making it work within the 3D visual space that is second life. In other words they are using second life to add extra dimensions to an allready successful e-learning platform. And Moodle is successful, it has just been adopted as standard by the biggest distance learning institution in the world, the Open University, and they are also showing an interest in Sloodle. The head of e-learning at the OU can be found on the Sloodle list.

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One of the key issues of defining democracy at a global level is trying to understand what we mean by ‘public’ on what is effectively a new and emerging scale for debate. For democracy to operate we need to have ways for the ‘public’ to define themselves as a body at this level, and for ‘public’ opinion to be expressed and debated. There is no polity without a population or community that is to be defined in relation it. This leads us to ask not only what sort of polity are we hoping to constitute, and around which kinds of principles and institutions, but also how are the relationships with populations to be built up within this?

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