Is Computer Networking A Feminizing Technology?

This question is more specific to the Internet, but I am using "Computer Networking" in the title as that is what is used in the video as I don't think the "Internet" existed as a public service at the time. .

If you do not want to watch the whole video below, I recommend at least watching from 3:00 minutes onward, as that is the most pertinent part to this thread. Here is Terence Mckenna (Yes Terence Mckenna of DMT machine elves fame) giving a lecture in 1984 of how he sees computer networks as a feminizing technology. I've noticed a certain amount of tension in the gender threads recently, also with the given election in US and the UK this year, I think this is possibly an interesting topic for discussion. I find Mckenna's insight into the what would become the Internet, and how it would be utilized is pretty amazing.

Personally, I think if I were to take sort of a techno-Jungian approach to the Internet, I think a lot of the procedural and operational aspects of what makes the Internet, tends to be more masculine but the way we utilize interfaces on the Internet tends to be more feminine.


http://youtu.be/ani7XjOMGbo

 

It is only as masculine or feminine as the tuned in wishes it to be

 

Terence Mckenna was a genius. I used to be a huge fan. However, I don't understand why he chooses to label one "male" and the other "female". Based on what? Is it simply a poetic expression? Both systems were and are being built by males. He talks about "patriarchal system", yet where is the female pioneering equivalent of a Terance Mckenna?

 

Perhaps it is the inherent social excess of networking which he related to the feminine? Is this all we have on his views of the subject?

 

While I can understand the concept, I don't see it the same. If anything I would say the hardware would be "masculine" and software "feminine".
But to be honest, McKenna is difficult for me to watch/listen to. While some of his ideas were/are very insightful and intriguing, he muddle-fucks things up too much with his litany of esoteric sounding bullshit.
It gets to a point of him sounding like the guy raving on a street corner, but politely.
I would personally find his work more "bearable" if he didn't always try to come off so "poetic" and shit. Just stick to the science and facts, extrapolate but keep it within reason, etc.,etc.
There is a time to wax poetic when talking of mind, spirit and psychedelics, but seriously, not every time you open your mouth!

But I do agree very strongly with one idea he put forth in that clip, with the internet and the freedom of access to information, there is no excuse for ignorance on a topic any longer.

 

GEEZ, did you guys actually listen to it?
He equates the liberating aspect of the internet as being feminine.
It is just another iteration of yin-yang, opposing forces, with the "Masculine" representing control and oppression and "Feminine" representing liberation, freedom and growth.

Social networking as you are thinking didn't exist in 1984.
c'mon, get with the program.

 

I think the gender specificities are influenced by Carl Jung's work or archetypes. I agree with you in regards to alot of the foundtional aspects of computer systems, but from there as I mentioned, I'm referring to how the systems are utilized, like more by the general population. For instance, in this archetypal sense, social networking to me seems like primarily feminine applications.

There has been a lack of female philosopher/psychonauts

 

Yes and I freely acknowledge my overarching ignorance of the evolution of computer networking in general.

Liberation and control, chaos and order, yin and yang. To equate these concepts to a form of sexuality in a desire to understand them isn't wrong but it does beg the question of its conceptual necessity.

I stand by my earlier response of the chosen interpretation of the thinker

 

I think one thing that may "interfere" with you guys (GB and those that have responded) fully "getting" what he meant is the simple fact that the era McKenna was talking of was before you guys were even born. Not sure if you guys can really wrap your heads around just how revolutionary the PC and internet really were at the time this was recorded.
What I mean is you guys have no choice but to process the info through a brain/thought system that was raised with the internet. You simply can't call on experience to grasp what he is saying.
Simply put, you guys didn't experience the paradigm shift like us old fucks have, you were born into this one.

I can imagine a world before cars, but I will never "know" what it was like nor would any of my imaginings even come close to what the reality was.

 

In that video, I think he's prompted a question about psychedelics.

I don't think he held science in lofty regard, from what I've read and heard, he seems to embrace the technique but sees it as having major failings. To parphrase one of his great quotes "In Science, you can get a raise for proving yourself wrong."

Some might find that poetic but I find him more amusing and charming in that regard.

 

Uhhmmm, ok, but McKenna did rather clearly say that it was the liberating aspect and access for anyone with the stuff that he felt was feminine. Doesn't have jack-shit to do with the development and evolution of computer networking.

and the whole "opposing forces" being feminine and masculine is as old as time and has been applied to every aspect of human behavior, so don't know what your on about in the second sentence.

 

Would you with your different viewpoint wish to expound upon Mckenna's musings so that we can understand then?

Personally I feel as though regardless of the Era the desire to compare and contrast perceived reality to accepted medians is something humans have done since the first blooming of consciousness but yet again perhaps I am ignoring these nuances in some fashion

 

I brought up the video, so apparently I relate to it, you seem to be the one dismissing it as "waxing poetic."

The trajectory of this stuff has only grown exponentially, perhaps younger generations might even have better abilities to analyze these sentiments because as alluded to in the lecture, it was such a limited population scale at the time.

 

I'm sure you can relate to it, never said you couldn't, just that you will never know what the "atmosphere" was at the time. all the little ineffable bits and pieces that comprise a shared paradigm. That paradigm radically shifted with the advent of the internet. You have no basis for personal comparison to comprehend what the previous paradigm was like. That is not any personal failing on your part, just how it is.

I'm not dismissing the ideas or concepts, merely McKenna's penchant to present info in the manner he does. He loses part of his audience when he goes off on a poetic tangent.

and some of you guys always give me shit whenever I point out the difference between actually experiencing a thing and studying it.
Simple fact of the matter is there are some things some people will never "know" as in experience due to when they arrived on the planet, nothing more, nothing less.
and with the internet and the communication it affords, those differences are even more pronounced.

why do you always seem to take it as some personal indictment against younger people?

granted your generation has perspectives that I lack by virtue of our difference in years and experience, but I don't get all butthurt over the fact that you have experienced many things I haven't and therefore any attempt I may make at understanding or fully appreciating those things would be naive at best.

 

not much to expound on regarding the topic, in a nutshell he said the liberating aspect of the internet was feminine, and this was at a time when there was almost nothing out there except for government sites.
The masculine aspect is the control that "slipped" through the cracks with the advent of the internet.


comparing and contrasting perceived reality is fine as long as you remain aware of the construct that you are currently employing to do that comparison and that it is also subject to being completely inaccurate.

 

Its a feminizing technology only because nature herself is feminine. Westerners are so used to thinking in metaphysical terms they tend to view nature and technology as just different masculine expressions, perhaps, explaining why God in western cultures never has a feminine counterpart. However, the internet in particular is a wildly feminizing technology in mind blowing ways he does not address. The next twenty years will blow everyone away because AI is coming along with a theory of everything and our all too often dysfunctional masculine western civilization will never be the same again when everyone's cellphone has the intelligence and compassion of what for us would be a God.

 

I practically never bring up age in these discussions, you bring it up about as frequently as Mckenna brings up Psychedelics. I'm not butt hurt at all, I just don't agree with you, particularly when it's a source I posted about.

 

actually it's not age but rather experience I focus on. In this instance age plays a factor in regards to the events discussed in the lecture because there was such a dramatic shift.


what is it you don't agree with?
that McKenna essentially equated the liberation that the internet could bring as a feminine characteristic or that some people will never "know" certain things by virtue of their age?
both are true statements, so I'm not sure what there is to disagree with about my comments.

 

If I am understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that Computer Networking is feminine in the sense that it is in the process of developing the dynamics to allow for the Birth of AI?

 

Don't worry about it Noxious