bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Goal Setting in the Anthropocene: The Ultimate Challenge of Planetary Stewardship
Authors: Young Oran R. , Underdal Arild , Kanie Norichika , Kim Rakhyun E.
Published: January 2018

Whereas the Millennium Development Goals focused on an effort to address the needs of the developing world, the Sustainable Development Goals seek to come to terms with the challenges of a human-dominated planet while continuing the effort to reduce extreme poverty and to eradicate major diseases. In effect, this new effort involves an effort to use goal-setting as a means of coming to terms with the challenges of the Anthropocene, a new planetary era featuring nonlinear changes that are often rapid, frequently surprising, and sometimes nasty from the point of view of human welfare. Emerging issues relating to both the quantity and the quality of freshwater for human consumption provide clearcut illustrations of these challenges. From the perspective of governance, these issues center on efforts to develop allocation mechanisms capable of making adequate supplies of water available to growing urban populations, to explore the potential of “green water” as a means avoiding severe water shortages in arid regions, to acknowledge an individual right to water as a basic human right, and to protect the collective rights of future generations to benefit from the Earth’s life-support systems. Success in these efforts will require the development of a firm normative foundation on which to build effective institutional arrangements. An appropriate way forward may be to introduce a basic sustainability principle or a sustainability Grundnorm.
Global Goal Setting for Improving National Governance and Policy
Authors: Biermann Frank , Stevens Casey , Bernstein Steven , Gupta Aarti , Kanie Norichika , Nilsson Måns , Scobie Michelle
Published: January 2018

The chapter focuses on the inclusion of “governance goals” in global goal-setting mechanisms, especially the Sustainable Development Goals, and is centred on a question; can better governance, in itself, be a subject for global goal setting? We focus in this chapter on three core qualities of governance, which are good governance, effective governance, and equitable governance. In our understanding, “good” governance focuses on qualitative characteristics of governance such as accountability, transparency, participation, and the rule of law. Effective governance looks at improving the overall problem-solving capacity of governance. Equitable governance focuses on the processes and distributive outcomes of governance, including the need to protect the interests of poor and vulnerable groups. The uncertain relationship between good, effective, and equitable governance shows the importance of monitoring indicators that are related to these concepts at various levels of aggregation, both in relation to particular goals and national or even local contexts.
Measuring Progress in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
Authors: Pintér László , Kok Marcel , Almassy Dora
Published: January 2018

The chapter argues that the global process that lead to the adoption of the sustainable development goals is synergistic with the decades-old ambition to redefine the framework of how society measures progress. The political interest in goals also brought renewed interest in measurement, but it is also raising the question whether standard ways of thinking about measurement will be enough to realize the SDGs transformative potential. Moving beyond its traditional conceptualization as a technical exercise, viewing measurement through the lens of political economy opens up new possibilities for understanding its potential as a transformative force. Conceptual aspects, actors and actor interests, mechanisms and institutions, and instruments are proposed for consideration both by the policy research community and by practitioners engaged in SDG implementation. The scope of inquiry would also need to go beyond questions related to the supply side and more explicitly address issues related to the use of measurement in policy design, monitoring, reporting and accountability mechanisms.
Corporate Water Stewardship: Lessons for Goal-based Hybrid Governance
Authors: Yamada Takahiro
Published: January 2018

This chapter analyses the way in which the UN Global Compact Office (UNGCO) has attempted to mobilize the private sector to contribute to the attainment of MDG 7 through its initiative, the CEO Water Mandate. Since water governance represents a global environmental issue, which is characterized not only by the absence of an international regime, but also by the need for technical information on water resources that can be provided by major corporations, it requires goal-based hybrid governance, where successful governance depends on effective collaboration of corporate water users. As such, the UNGCO has found it necessary to contain the associated “risk of goal displacement” by engaging in “activation,” “orchestration,” and “modulation,” of which “orchestration” has proved central. The output of this process has been the concept of corporate water stewardship representing a shared knowledge base, which allows corporations to manage their physical, reputational, and regulatory risks.
The United Nations and the Governance of Sustainable Development Goals
Authors: Bernstein Steven
Published: January 2018

The United Nations – with the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development playing a leadership role – is a central and necessary governance node to make progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. However, their scope and nature as goals and the normative character of sustainable development that demands integrative and coherent governance create significant challenges not easily met by traditional tools of multilateralism. Governance arrangements must therefore balance political authority at the global level with recognition that action and resources must also be mobilized at regional, national, and local levels and by a wide range of public and private actors. The High-level Political Forum must, therefore, be an orchestrator of orchestrators that promotes coordination within a fragmented governance space. This chapter assesses the prospects of UN-led governance under these circumstances and identifies key institutional mechanisms and conditions under which they have the best likelihood of mobilizing action on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Signatures
Authors: Maurer Bill
Published: January 2018

Digital signature pads, which require the use of an electronic stylus to draw one’s signature on a screen to authorize a transaction, are an occasion for play and politics. They raise questions, too, about the legal status of the signature and its possible futures under digitization. The chapter looks at signature pad art as well as hacks that force the generation of a paper receipt to avoid signature capture. It places such practices in the history of trompe l’oeil money painting in the 19th century US, which commented on money, representation, fiction, counterfeits, and reality, and the mortgage crisis, in which signatures played a big role in authorizing bad loans. Bringing in the work of graphic designer Troy Kreiner, who made a collaborative work involving imaginary signatures on tablet screens, the chapter argues that paper still shapes the imagination and the legal status of the signature as both the sign of sovereign identity and as an ephemeral afterthought, or a joke.
Tallies
Authors: Graeber David
Published: January 2018

For millennia, humans have used physical tokens to record credits and debts. This chapter focuses on objects broken apart into pieces that can be put back together again to indicate an obligation incurred or a debt settled. From sheep’s knucklebones or clay potsherds in ancient Greece, to notched wooden sticks that could be broken and put together again, tallies were circulating records and tokens of debt, from Europe to China. Tallies emphasize money’s role as a unit of account rather than a medium of exchange, as well as its connection to interpersonal credit and, alternately, to its cooptation by the state. The author uses tallies to reflect on the ephemerality of money, debt, oaths and even love.
Sharing
Authors: Bezaitis Maria
Published: January 2018

Using the so-called “sharing economy” or on-demand economy as a jumping off point, this chapter considers the logic and commodification of the gift. Early users of Airbnb, a digital platform that allows homeowners to offer their residences for short-term rentals, would often leave gifts for their hosts. These gifts spotlight the home as both an intimately personal space and as a zone of commerce, both emotionally and economically dense with relationships. Airbnb heightens the contradictions of these relationships. Leaving gifts after an Airbnb stay imparts a sense of connection and belonging, despite the short-term nature of the relationship and its mediation by money. Are such gifts payments? Are they expressions of a desire to connect? The author concludes that the gift maintains its relevance despite the asset monetization of everyday life represented by the sharing economy.
Minitel
Authors: Mailland Julien
Published: January 2018

Long before the World Wide Web, Mintel made France the world’s most “wired” country. Started in France in 1979 through the state-run monopoly telephone service, Minitel became the world’s first mass market for e-mail, online chat and bulletin boards, e-commerce, online games, online porn, and other hallmarks of digital life. But the thing that made the Minitel system so successful was its “kiosk” billing system. A government ministry collected fees from users of privately maintained online services as they connected to these services through the network’s gateway dubbed, and then rebate two-thirds of those fees to the content provider. In many ways, the Minitel kiosk lives on the design of the Apple app store billing system.
ATMs
Authors: Bátiz-Lazo Bernardo
Published: January 2018

This chapter investigates the history of the ubiquitous yet banal Automated Teller Machine, or ATM. There is no single inventor of the ATM. Rather, it emerged through innovation around the globe and across the industry. In order to build a successful ATM system, engineers and bankers had to overcome challenges that ranged from security and authorization to weather-proofing electronics. This chapter surveys some of those developments. Increasingly, ATMs are being designed to offer a variety of services beyond dispensing cash. In the future, the ATM may prove to an important site of automated retail banking and consumer financial services.
Energy and Society
Authors: Smil Vaclav
Published: January 2018

This chapter shows how energy has shaped society, from prehistoric times through today’s fossil fuel-driven civilization. It suggests that both prehistoric human evolution and the course of history can be interpreted as the quest for controlling greater stores and flows of more concentrated and more versatile forms of energy. It also views human dependence on ever-higher energy flows as an inevitable continuation of organismic evolution. The chapter first provides an overview of how energy flows and storages are measured before discussing how the combustion of fossil fuels and the generation of electricity gave rise to a new form of high-energy civilization whose primary energy sources now include renewable energy such as solar and wind energy. It then considers several first principles that underlie all conversions of energy, including those for calculating energy and power, and concludes with an assessment of complexities and caveats involved in measuring energy storages and flows.
Fossil Fuels, Primary Electricity, and Renewables
Authors: Smil Vaclav
Published: January 2018

This chapter discusses the evolution in uses of fossil fuels, primary electricity, and renewable energy. It first considers the transition from phytomass fuels to fossil fuels and how it resulted in the substantial increase in per capita consumption of energy. It then explores the beginnings and diffusion of coal extraction, the replacement of charcoal by metallurgical coke, and the introduction of steam engines and oil and internal combustion engines. It also looks at technical innovations brought by the transition from phytomass fuels to fossil fuels and from animate to mechanical prime movers, focusing on trends in the production of coal, hydrocarbons, and electricity as well as renewable energy and the use of prime movers in transportation.
Fossil-Fueled Civilization
Authors: Smil Vaclav
Published: January 2018

This chapter discusses the rise of a fossil fuel-driven civilization. Modern civilization depends on extracting immense energy stores, depleting finite fossil fuel deposits that cannot be replenished even on time scales of a magnitude longer than the existence of the human species. By turning to these rich stores we have created societies that transform unprecedented amounts of energy, resulting in enormous improvements in agricultural productivity and crop yields. This chapter considers how unprecedented power has sparked a tremendous increase in consumption of energy, particularly fossil fuels and electricity, in areas such as modern agriculture, transportation, and information and communication. It also examines the contribution of energy to industrialization and economic growth and concludes with an assessment of the negative consequences of high energy use by modern societies.
Drawing Physics
Authors: Lemons Don S.
Published: January 2018

Drawing Physics is a collection of 51 essays each one organized around a simple, informative, line drawing that conveys a key idea in the history of physics. The essays, each approximately 1000 words long, are chronologically ordered from Thales, who around 600 BCE explained and used the principles of triangulation, to Peter Higgs, who received the Nobel Prize in 2012 for his prediction of the Higgs boson. The essays expand on the science conveyed in each drawing and place that science in a broader cultural context. The essays are grouped into five sections: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern Period, Nineteenth Century, and Twentieth Century and Beyond. Each essay stands alone and requires no background in physics or mathematics.
Middle Ages
Authors: Lemons Don S.
Published: January 2018

In the middle ages (550-1510 CE) scientific knowledge was consolidated and translated, first from Greek and Latin into Arabic and Syriac and then from Arabic and Greek into Latin. Alhazen (1020 CE) was an important Arabic speaking scholar who made important contributions to a theory of vision and of refraction. Oresme and the school of Oxford scholars were the first (1360 CE) to describe uniform acceleration graphically. Leonardo De Vinci was a prolific inventor and user of informative diagrams – one of which describes the cause of “earthshine” (1520 CE).
Early Modern Period
Authors: Lemons Don S.
Published: January 2018

The early modern period (1543-1785) contributed many physical concepts that are simple enough to be conveyed with a diagram. Copernicus’s heliocentric universe (1543), Galileo’s discovery of the mountains on the moon (1610), Kepler’s laws of planetary motion (1620), Boyle’s law (1662), Newton’s theory of color (1666), and Bernoulli’s principle (1733) are but six of the eighteen topics covered in this period. Experiments and observations that generated measurements became the norm.
Nineteenth Century
Authors: Lemons Don S.
Published: January 2018

The Romantic Movement gave impetus to a process of unifying the forces of nature – an impetus that bore fruit in, especially, Oersted’s demonstraton of the magnetic effect of electrical currents (1820) and Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism (1865). Also, during this period Sadi Carnot articulated the first version of the second law of thermodynamics (1836) while James Joule’s painstaking experimental demonstration of the mechanical equivalent of heat (1847) is an essential foundation of the first law of thermodynamics.
Moving Forward Together: An Introduction
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

This chapter serves as an Introduction to the book. It discusses the book’s origins and the connections between the authors and their respective organizations – the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute and Civic Exchange. It describes how Los Angeles and Hong Kong and several Chinese cities such as Shenzhen and Guangzhou have emerged as global cities, the urban development strategies they have pursued, and the urban environmental challenges they face. It answers the question, why a book about Los Angeles and Hong Kong and their connection to China and identifies for all three places the six urban environmental areas that will be analyzed – ports and goods movement, air quality, water supply and water quality, the food environment, transportation, and open and public space.
The Global Goods Movement System
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

The chapter describes the history and current issues associated with the large container port facilities in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China. It describes where and how goods are transported from the places where they are produced to their final destination. It analyzes the environmental and health impacts that have developed along this goods movement pathway. Through research and action, pressure has increased to mitigate port and goods movement environmental and health impacts, including most prominently air pollution. That in turn has led to some modest, though important policy changes towards greener operations and where actions in Los Angeles have influenced Hong Kong and vice versa, how both have influenced China’s own policies and operations. The book also identifies and analyzes new trends that are emerging, including the increase in size of the largest container ships, the consolidation of the shipping industry, particularly among Chinese state-run companies, and new and expanding port operations due to the enlargement of the Panama Canal.
Breathing Air
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

This chapter analyzes the history and current state of air pollution in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China. It describes the health and environmental impacts from various pollution sources, and includes a particular focus on diesel and particulates. It identifies the research and action that has been undertaken in all three places, how they differ and how they overlap, and the policy agendas and initiatives to eliminate, reduce or control air pollution that have been developed. It also explores cross-border pollution issues, particularly between the Pearl River Delta and Hong Kong, and how policy changes in one place (e.g., Los Angeles) have influenced the other places (e.g., Hong Kong and China). It also identifies where policy changes have been successful and where they remain incomplete or poorly implemented.
Water for the City
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

This chapter describes the history and current state of water supply development and the water quality issues that Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China have needed to address. It identifies the efforts to undertake long distance imported water transfers and their environmental impacts; water quality problems from surface and groundwater sources, and water management issues, including a discussion of water privatization efforts and increased bottled water sales. It analyzes different river systems and watershed basins and various dependencies on non-local sources, such as Hong Kong’s dependence on water from Guangdong waters, Los Angeles on water from Northern California and the Colorado River, and China’s coastal regions and regions in the north on various transfers from where water is more plentiful to where it is scarce. It also looks at the water quality-water supply relationship and how polluted sources have led to a loss of supply.
Transportation in the City
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

This chapter describes and analyzes how Los Angeles became an auto-dominant region, how Hong Kong built a much admired rail passenger system, and how China, in rapid fire succession, witnessed a massive increase in car use and metro development. It identifies the air quality, land use, and mobility shifts associated with these changing transportation systems. It describes how Los Angeles seeks to lessen its car dependence with its new push for rail and increased bike use and walkability strategies; how Hong Kong struggles with congestion due to increased car ownership and car use while still relying on the link between its metro and rail system and concentrated real estate development near metro stops; and how China’s cities, such as Shenzhen, race ahead with new metro and high speed rail development while confronting the environmental problems and challenges related to its enormous growth in car use and the erosion of its Bicycle Kingdom reputation.
Spaces of the City
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

The chapter analyzes and compares the different uses of urban space – whether public space, open space, or privatized space -- in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and China. It contrasts the modernist spatial strategies that cater to the automobile and traffic flow and the desire for speed with an alternative view about a more walkable, bikeable, and transit friendly urban environment. It compares the immigrant and different ethnic experiences – a Latino immigrant urbanism in Los Angeles, elderly women dancing in the streets of the city in China, or the immigrant communities constructed in the village-in-the-city enclaves in places like Shenzhen and Guangzhou. It describes the rise of the gated communities in all three places in contrast to the growing advocacy around the right to the city for everyone.
Social Movements and Policy Change
Authors: Gottlieb Robert , Ng Simon
Published: January 2018

This concluding chapter explores the development of different social movements and the push for environmental policy change. It profiles three powerful advocates for change – the organizer, Angelo Logan, in Los Angeles; the inside-outside player and policy leader, Christine Loh, in Hong Kong; and the champion of a place-based resistance and activism – the late Xiao Liangzhong. It evaluates the differing roles of social movements and protest actions, their ability to bring about change, and the search for an alternative politics that is at once local and global.
Introduction
Authors: Moulthrop Stuart , Grigar Dene
Published: January 2018

This chapter explains the occasion for the book, the threatened obsolescence of key works from the first modern generation (or “Golden Age”) of digital writing. The authors attempted to preserve not just the material form of the works, but the experience of their operation or performance, recording encounters with the works on vintage equipment. Traversals represents a second stage in this process, reflecting both on insights gained in the preservation effort, but on the interventions themselves and the cultural meaning of obsolescence.
The Archives Pertaining to Bill Bly, Curator and Translator
Authors: Grigar Dene
Published: January 2018

This chapter provides a reexamination of Bill Bly hypertext We Descend. Previously criticized for its quality as a work of hypertext fiction, the work instead is recast as a hypertext archive, a compilation of texts relating to four distinct time periods held together through a focus on the character Egderus. Hypertext functions, the chapter argues, as a mechanism for moving through multiple disparate storylines chronicled in “generations of historical documents” and collected over a long period of time. At the heart of We Descend lies the nature of truth and what constitutes authenticity, particularly when evidence itself is questionable and controlled by a political agenda.
Afterword
Authors: Grigar Dene
Published: January 2018

This chapter concludes by raising the issue of the Sappho Syndrome, whereby whole works disappear and only are known through fragments and references to them. In doing so, the chapter provides a call to action for Digital Humanities to take on the task of preserving the cultural heritage reflected in born-digital media through a multi-faceted approach involving not just emulation and migration of media but also collection and documentation.
Quantum Physics Takes Free Will into Account
Authors: Cirac Ignacio , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this dialogue, the physicist Ignacio Cirac, director of the Theoretical Division of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, outlines why quantum physics has brought about a much greater change than that caused by Einstein’s theory of relativity, how quantum physics takes free will into account and how it combines with philosophy. He describes why quantum theory defines “everything else,” yet is unable to define itself. Explaining how, together with Peter Zoller, he developed and presented the first theoretical description of a quantum computing architecture based on trapped ions, and, how this quantum architecture will be viable and capable of performing calculations we cannot perform at present. Their quantum computer calculates in qubits, which would require at least 100,000 qubits to function, rising to 1,000,000 if error correction is implemented. It will be able to perform calculations previously unachievable and create encrypted messages impossible to decipher. Building a functional quantum computer still requires a huge technological change, which has yet to come about. Lastly, Cirac explains the differences between European and American visions of science and why mathematicians are even more conservative than physicists.
For Exoplanets, Anything Is Possible
Authors: Seager Sara , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

Sara Seager, the pioneering astrophysicist, mathematician and planetary scientist reflects in this dialogue about how exoplanets, the purpose of her science, discovered her before she discovered them. She also explains her relationship with mathematics and why for her physics is the most beautiful way to describe the universe, as well as explaining the growing scientific interest to discover planets that orbit a star different to our sun. Later, Sara explains that all astrophysics projects she works on are very long term and is consequently concerned about whether there will be enough young people in this world of immediacy with sufficient patience to become astronomers. She also goes on to explain why life capable of travelling across galaxies will be non biological, as well as discussing how, and with what help, she is facing the greatest challenge of her life: trying to find another Earth, in other words, another planet like Earth with signs of life.
The Challenge of Climate Change
Authors: Molina Mario J. , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this conversation, Nobel Prize winner Mario J. Molina reflects on the ethical side of science. He explains how several decades ago, together with the scientist F. Sherwood Rowland, he predicted that human activity was endangering the ozone layer. They discovered the mechanisms which could bring about the destruction of the layer due to the continuous release of industrial compounds, such as the so-called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), into the atmosphere. Professor Molina relates how the issue with the ozone layer was the first example of a problem on a truly global scale for science and, as such, had to be tackled, because without the ozone layer, life on our planet would not have evolved as we know it. Education and training are proving a great help with how the present challenge of stopping or mitigating the daunting problem of global warming should be approached. In the dialogue, different courses of action for persuading both decision-makers and the public are proposed. It is however proving rather difficult to achieve and something which, according to Professor Molina, is also related to education.
The Laws of Thermodynamics Tell You What Is and What Is Not Possible
Authors: Corma Avelino , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

Avelino Corma, the distinguished research chemist explains why scientific discovery is difficult. He then explains how ‘molecular recognition’ is achieved in nanochemistry, how molecular design and creating nanoreactors with zeolites is carried out in the laboratory to trap nanoparticles and make them react selectively, and what is meant by the ‘sociology of nanoparticles’. The relationship of chemistry with brain function or genome evolution is also considered. He then reflects on the role of chemistry from ancient times, when the discovery and synthesis of ammonia enabled the development of agriculture and societies, to the world as we know it today. The reason why chemistry is a fundamental discipline for balancing our ‘energy basket’ is also discussed, particularly with regard to achieving sustainable development of our planet.
Wisdom Hewn in Ancient Stones
Authors: Ochsendorf John , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this dialogue, the prestigious professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, John Oschendorf, reproaches engineering for abandoning construction techniques that had performed wonderfully for four thousand years. He regrets that digital instruments currently used by engineers and architects are incapable of explaining why amazing buildings such as the Beauvais Cathedral in France, or that of Palma de Mallorca in Spain, or the Pantheon in Rome, are so stable. For John, the history of construction is open and can provide us many ideas from the past which we can use to build new things today. One example of this is Guastavino family, who were capable of building the vaults of a thousand of the most important buildings in the United States by using traditional vault technology dating back to 14th century Valencia and which they continually sought to improve. He also explains in the dialogue why our ideology of progress is misguided.
The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge
Authors: Abelson Hal , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this dialogue, Hal Abelson the acclaimed professor, scientist and distinguished member of MIT CSAIL, and co-chair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET), firstly discusses the potential of the digital revolution and Internet. He talks about the reasons that led him to initiate Creative Commons (Abelson was also involved with the start up of MIT OpenCourseWare, Public Knowledge, the Free Software Foundation, and the Center for Democracy and Technology). He then describes in detail the MIT model. On the one hand it is based on not making distinctions between teaching and research, and on the other it focuses on radical meritocracy, which gives rise to a culture of open exchange and openness. He moves on to explain details of the philosophy behind the prestigious MIT Course 6, which uses semiconductors to bring together the physical side of electrical engineering and the logic side of IT, thereby generating a range of innovative interactions. He finally talks about the foundations of leadership which MIT have laid and continue to maintain in education and innovation.
We Need Algorithms That Can Make Explicit What Is Implicit
Authors: Grau Bernardo Cuenca , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this dialogue, Bernardo Cuenca Grau, a computer scientist at the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, begins by explaining his research in technology based on ontologies and knowledge representation, somewhere between mathematics, philosophy, and computer science. He goes on to argue why we need to represent knowledge in a way that it can be processed by a computer and therefore enable automated reasoning of this knowledge using artificial intelligence. Later he explains how his investigation probes the limits of mathematics to find the most appropriate languages for developing practical applications. For example, the large-scale processing of structured information linked to comprehensive health systems. Bernardo is supportive of collective tools such as Wikipedia. He also discusses why in his opinion the success of a scientific or technological idea depends very much on luck, and why the semantic web has not been defined. Furthermore, he argues why bureaucracy confuses process with progress.
The Challenge of the Open Dissemination of Knowledge, Distributed Intelligence, and Information Technology
Authors: Margulies Anne , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

Anne Margulies has contributed to breaking new ground in education and knowledge dissemination since she spearheaded the start-up of the pioneering MIT Open Course Ware. This enables MIT to capitalize on the advantages of online media for the global dissemination of knowledge without any limitations. In this dialogue, Anne begins by reflecting on the effect technology is having on education, and the ways in which our everyday and working lives are becoming more intertwined due to how crucial the Internet has become; creating a situation without which governments could barely function. After this, she outlines research being carried out in Harvard University, where she is CIO, to identify all types of technology innovation in education in order to create something which they call innovative pedagogy. Anne then gives her view about the current need of humanities for considerable digitalized resources to be made electronically available in order to concentrate them in “digital humanities”. Finally she discusses how Harvard is currently trying to balance the virtues of face-to-face teaching on campus with those of a more virtual experience, arguing why there will never be a single right model, but rather many.
Technology Is Something to Make the World a Better Place
Authors: O’Reilly Tim , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

In this dialogue, Tim O’Reilly begins by explaining why change is natural and good and how we have to be open to the future. Later he discusses how the logic that makes things work is related to science and not to a particular set of beliefs; to understanding what is efficient and why within this logic there is a hierarchy that is made up of a set of values. He goes on to explain how the Web 2.0 applications he formulated— for example, the social networks—use network effects by harnessing collective intelligence in such a way that the more people there are who use them, the better they become. After this, he describes how his analysis of the paradigm shift in open code is equivalent to that expressed by Thomas Kuhn in his work “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. Later on, O’Reilly reflects on the different possible kinds of Internet of the future before moving on to explain why the most innovative people go beyond the limits of “canonical knowledge” in their daily practice, and the way in which their artistic transgressions or discoveries make them part of the new canon.
Order in Cyberspace Can Only Be Maintained with a Combination of Ethics and Technology
Authors: Barlow John Perry , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

John Perry Barlow starts the dialogue explaining the reasons that led him to draw up and disclose his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, in Davos. He then discusses why he believes that people who use the term ‘intellectual property’ have got the wrong idea about it, and puts forward his ideas about frontiers in general and in particular the electronic frontier. He deliberates on whether the Economy of Ideas is capitalist, socialist or Marxist, and whether it should be supervised by someone or not. He also explains why cyberspace has still not been dominated by any world power, and explores the contradiction of why the differences between the rich and the poor have increased considerably since the onset of the global Internet revolution, what the cause of this is, and what has happened to all the hopes placed in the Internet by the underprivileged. Finally, he talks about how the structure of local cultures in cyberspace and their relationship with the global culture of the Internet is evolving.
The Free Software Paradigm and the Hacker Ethic
Authors: Stallman Richard , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

This dialogue is preceded by an introduction about Richard Stallman and the power of “code”, by Lawrence Lessing, as well as a detailed biography of Richard revised by himself. In the conversation following this, Stallman analyzes the origin and validity of the ‘hacking’ and ‘hack’ concepts and the differences between ‘hackers’ and ‘crackers’. He then describes in detail the concept, dimension, forms of creation and the development of software code, especially free software and its implementation framework. He later reflects on and outlines his vision of the relationship between the use of technology and ethics, and about ethical hackers. He also talks about the good and bad behavior of companies and, in this context, his criticism of Corporatocracy. Afterward, he describes concepts about how the creation of software code works compared with other creative arts, such as literature. He goes on to analyze the mechanisms for how ideas are patented in the industrial world, in particular the case of software development. He finally talks about why his vision of free software remains valid and how it should be dealt with during education.
Mind over Matter: Brain-Machine Interfaces
Authors: Carmena Jose M. , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

The neuroscientist and engineer, Jose M. Carmona begins this dialogue describing research in the field of brain-machine interface (BMI) and neurotechnology led by his own laboratory in UC Berkley. He outlines how his neural engineering research group works, defining it as a fusion of neuroscience with the main engineering disciplines, and how disciplines are balanced in your laboratory. He moves on to discuss the “hard problems” in AI (Artificial intelligence), which is one of the fields that drew him toward his current scientific activity. Later, he talks about how two-way interaction in the brain-machine interface works and how, through mathematical algorithms, the movement intentions are “decoded”, and the motor intentions are “translated” in an attempt to get the mind to control and feel ‘the machine’, or the prosthesis, in order to provide paraplegic people with mobility based on the huge plasticity of the brain. Next, he discusses the revolutionary ultrasonic technology—“Neural dust”—which he is developing with colleagues at Berkley. Finally, he explains his vision of "artificial consciousness”, and why the Brain-machine interface will play an important role in the search to understand how the brain creates the mind.
There Will Be No End of Work
Authors: Osterman Paul , Plasencia Adolfo
Published: January 2018

Paul Osterman, Professor of Human Resources and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, starts the dialogue by explaining why offshoring is not a new phenomenon and then argues that a “stairway” should be built inside companies so that the employees can improve their conditions during their working lives. He expresses his disagreement with Rifkin’s theory and outlines why he believes there will be no “End of Work”. Later he reflects on how to balance supply and demand in the labor market with university training, and why ethics is important in the corporative world and how they try to instill this in students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He goes on to defend the need to fight for open knowledge and for ‘opening up’ the economic system related to this, and argues why the challenge of creating ‘decent’ jobs according to standards for decent work, with social protection and decent pay continues to be decisive. Finally, he gives his opinions about new systems for organizing work in the new economy, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), which is based on human intelligence tasks (HITs).
Negotiating Control: Distractions, Stress, and Boredom
Authors: Vickery Jacqueline Ryan
Published: January 2018

This chapter compares two competing discourses about the role of mobile media at school: adults’ expectations of control and students’ expectations of trust and negotiation. Controlling or banning mobile media at school is typically justified as a necessary way to minimize distractions or stress. Rather than banning mobile phones and media all together, this chapter argues that schools should help students set healthy boundaries. Second, it demonstrates how students view mobile media as a necessary and beneficial tool for learning. They negotiate restrictions to alleviate boredom, stay connected to peers, and to enhance learning. The chapter concludes with ways schools and students can work together to develop digital literacies that minimize risks and enhance the educational potentials of mobile media.
Conclusion: Opportunity-Driven Expectations
Authors: Vickery Jacqueline Ryan
Published: January 2018

This chapter considers how we can reframe debates about digital risks and harms in a productive way that considers opportunities and equity. There are at least three connections that contribute to opportunity-driven expectations. First, the lived experiences of youth need to be represented in media narratives and reflected in policies. Second, young people’s practices must be taken seriously by educational institutions. Third, adults should be ready to help young people navigate not only risks, but also opportunities. Without dismissing legitimate concerns to young people’s safety, the chapter argues that we must pay more attention to inequitable opportunities for marginalized youth and do more as a society to empower all students with the digital literacies necessary to leverage media in ways that are beneficial on an individual and societal level.
Revolution in Mind?
Authors: Hutto Daniel D. , Myin Erik
Published: January 2018

This chapter introduces the E-turn in cognitive science –the move to embrace enactive, embodied, extended and ecological views of cognition–and the empirical and theoretical considerations that spurred it on. It explains how E-approaches differ from classical forms of cognitivism: in particular the degree to which different E-approaches move away from the cognitivist commitments to representationalism, computationalism and mechanistic explanation. Against this backdrop, it becomes clear in which ways REC’s proposal is not just radically revisionary but revolutionary in spirit. The chapter also sets out the basic rules of naturalistic play, reminding the reader why attempts to dismiss REC by appeal to a priori intuitions about what is essential to cognition violate the methodological scruples of naturalism.
Functional Analysis and the Species Design
Authors: Neander Karen
Published: January 2018

Chapter 3 is about functional explanation in biology, rather than directly about mental content, but in this chapter the author defends a controversial premise of the methodological argument for teleosemantics (given in chapter 4). The premise is that physiologists and neurophysiologists ascribe normal-proper functions in explaining how bodies and brains operate for significant scientific reasons. How an organic system operates in the here and now depends on the actual causal contributions its components make in the here and now, and yet biologists also describe the normal-proper functions of components when explaining how (and not just why) complex organic systems operate or function the way they do. Central to the biologists’ task is describing systems that are functioning normally or properly (e.g., normal human visual systems, or normal human immune systems). The author explains how this role of a malfunction-permitting notion of function (sometimes called a “normative” notion) is consistent with the etiological theory of functions, but the aim here is not to establish the truth of the etiological theory of functions (which is defended in other works).
Mapping Israel, Mapping Palestine
Authors: Bier Jess
Published: January 2018

Mapping Israel, Mapping Palestine is an analysis of the ways that segregated landscapes have shaped digital cartography in Jerusalem and the West Bank since 1967. Extending work on how technology is socially constructed, it investigates the ways that knowledge is geographically produced. Technoscientific practices are situated in landscapes that are at once both social and material, and this influences the content of digital technology in sometimes unpredictable ways. Therefore it is necessary to reflexively engage with materiality and space in order to enable more diverse forms of knowledge. Maps are an iconic symbol of modernity, and they have been central to debates over the future of Palestine and Israel. This has only intensified as Geographic Information Science (GIS) mapmaking has led to increasingly minute forms of surveillance and control. Intended to display objective facts, maps inspire extensive discussions. However, the framing of these discussions cannot be divorced from the participants’ asymmetrical mobilities within the very terrains that they seek to portray. Therefore it is essential to investigate how Palestinian, Israeli, and international cartographers are unevenly affected by the segregated landscapes which their technologies have helped to create. Mapping Israel, Mapping Palestine addresses these important issues by bringing together the disciplines of critical geography, postcolonial theory, and science and technology studies (STS). It presents an analysis of the maps and mapmaking practices that result when diverse cartographers chart the same landscapes that so condition their movement. It investigates the myriad ways that the segregated landscapes of the Israeli occupation shape knowledge about the occupation.
Where Cartographies Collide
Authors: Bier Jess
Published: January 2018

Chapter 1, “Where Cartographies Collide”, analyzes the unique position of maps in Palestine and Israel. Maps are everywhere in the region, but many of them are not used for getting around. This is because of the difficulties updating maps due to the restrictions on mobility under the Israeli occupation. The chapter introduces the notion of the geographic production of knowledge, which draws attention to the materialities and spatialities of technoscience. It also analyzes three main themes that run throughout the book: internationalism, landscape, and symmetry. In the process, it tells the story of the parallel lives of two pivotal cartographers of the mid-20th century: Sami Hadawi and David Amiran. Through a comparison of these major figures, it explores how politics shape the practice of science and technology. It also delineates how, despite the use of aerial photography and digital data transmitted via the internet, maps continue to be shaped by where and how they are made—as well as who is making them. Lastly, it draws on Edward Said’s notion of traveling theory to present an argument for a reflexive method of traveling ethnography.
The Low-Wage Sector
Authors: Temin Peter
Published: January 2018

Worker incomes stagnated in the 1970s, barely growing in the following decades. Jobs grew for low-wage occupations and for high paying jobs, but not in the middle, leading to an hour-glass job profile. Factory and good service jobs were threatened by introduction of computers that replaced workers, the dictates of finance that changed employees into subcontractors, and by the growth of foreign competition and investments. African Americans migrated north to find that good entry-level jobs were hard to find. As the Great Migration ended around 1970, Latino immigration swelled, spreading poor people from the South and Latin America to the rest of the United States.