Category Archives: Student Blogs

Me Manifesto (Blog 10)

@YakustaLeader4

Within the Hacker manifesto, the freedom and power seemed that hackers are being held back by others around them. To a hacker, it appears that they actually do have a lot of power and a good amount of freedom as well, “a door opened to a world…” (Mentor Paragraph 6). Whereas in the Cyborg Manifesto, it seemed that femine roles within games and in other areas are stereotyped majorly. That women don’t have that much freedom or power because of the stereotypes by males.

Gamer Manifesto:
You may call me a cheat or a hacker.

However I am not either.

I am the best there is and I set out to be the best in every game I play.

Whether its racing, football, or Call of Duty, I strive to be the best there is. Shall I fail then I get back up and go harder and faster than before.

I will not be put down and out, I will come back and beat who ever has beaten me ten fold.

I know everything there is within the game I play, so much that I am made out to be a cheater, yet I do not use any cheats.

If you question me thats fine, but I will still win whether you like it or not.

I am an ultimate gamer, set out to be the best there is, striving to know everything about a game.

Love me or hate me that is fine. But this is my manifesto as a gamer.

Best there is and best there ever will be.

Gamer Culture

@MyDtcAccount – Jonathan Crabtree

 

“It builds problem-solving skills!”

 

“It increases hand-eye coordination!”

 

“We can be and do whatever we want in videogames!”

 

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard these “reasons” when people who love to play videogames try to convince others that playing videogames are beneficial to them and, ultimately, society. In the TED Talk that we watched in class on Thursday, the speaker said that we actually need to start playing MORE videogames in order to help our planet survive. Now, I realize that she was talking about specific games that cause people to solve real-world problems, but I have my reservations about those kind of games ever hitting the mass market. My “manifesto” is that the gamer culture should stop fooling themselves, and start to view videogames as nothing more than they are. A pleasant waste of time. That’s not to say that videogames are terrible and should be avoided at all costs. It’s impossible to think that anyone can be productive 100% of the time and not take breaks for pleasurable activities. But when people start to view their videogame time as productive, that’s where problems start to arise.

 

As far as the “reasons” given above, they are all easily shot down. The “problem solving” reasoning is given all the time, but how much of a crossover is there between that and real life? My guess is that it hardly ever comes into play at work, home, or school.

 

The “hand-eye coordination” claim is legitimate, but more problems than benefits come from the physical aspect. Sure, your hand-eye coordination is improving, right along with the shortening of your hip-flexors, causing an anterior pelvic tilt, which leads to low-back pain and compromised posture.

 

Finally, the excuse that you can “be/do whatever you want” is a reason that really irks me. What’s the point of having the virtual reality? Why would you want to do that instead of improving your own life? It comes at the expense of affecting your real life, and I believe that that is much more important than your make-believe avatar.

Manifestos for Everyone

@cougar_sean

Both the Hacker Manifesto and the Cyborg Manifesto deal with the question of freedom and power within their texts. The very word “manifesto,” according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.” Does this not, by the very definition, give way to the power of speech—and the freedom to say what you believe? The First Amendment of the United States’ Constitution applies to all US citizens. Why shouldn’t it be applied to hackers and what Haraway refers to as cyborgs? The hackers mention that they “exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias…” (Paragraph 13), which proves the existence of racial equality or rather the lack of race altogether in the digital world. The Cyborg Manifesto, on the other hand, discusses the equality of women in the workforce. It is said that there is a “continued intense sexual and racial division of labour, but considerable growth of membership in privileged occupational categories for many white women and people of colour” (Haraway 19). Beyond this, hackers feel a sense of connectedness to the machine, much how cyborgs feel, but also because “It does what I want it to” (Paragraph 9). This idea of bonding with a machine is not new, but the spread and support of people who seek out that connection is.

Gamer Culture Manifesto: Much like hackers, gamer culture is often times stereotyped and belittled because of misunderstandings. Society sees a person staring at a screen for endless hours, but a gamer sees a window into a virtual world. In life, a person may feel powerless, a slave to the man. But in games, one is only as limited as your own imagination. In many ways, games are an escape from this world and a window into the next.

Manifestos and Gaming

@KatieGullans

Being absorbed into that screen. Now it’s a world.

They say it’s a box. Keep playing and we’ll live in a box.

But it’s a castle. We’re living in a castle.

They say it’ll rot our brains. Fry our brains.

Nope, that’s just the zombies. We found an excellent way to survive the apocalypse. Surround the house will treadmills. That will keep them occupied.

They say it doesn’t solve anything. It’s a waste of time.

But we’ve solved difficult puzzles and got through the dungeons. It inspired us to think of real life puzzles. We have the ability to build a city out of legos and a theme park of origami.

We play games. We’re gamers as you might say.

Games aren’t limited to the virtual world though. Everyone plays games. That’s how we learn in a fun way to figure out life’s problems. We play soccer, stratego, egyptian ratscrew, mario kart, and D&D. Gamers can solve real life issues if they use the things they learned from gaming. Those “break from reality worlds” are filled with imagination and something exciting happening. If we make games out of things, people will be more interested in working with them(Gamer video). It will help them think more logically to tackle a real life situation. They just need to be willing to step out of x-reality.

In the hacker manifesto, it explains that hackers are curious and need to figure out how things work. They have this freedom and power in that you can’t stop all of them in what they do. Hacking is what gives their life meaning. Games for gamers is what gives them life meaning.

Blog #10

@JaredAbrahamWSU

Anonymity: The quality or state of being unknown or unacknowledged (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/anonymity)

One of the many benefits of being a creator of online media, is the fact that you can be anonymous in your authoring of a project. There are no racist of sexist judgments based on the authors identity, unless the author chooses to tell the world their skin color and gender. In the different medias of  the past the author of a book would have to meet with a publisher to get their book into the open market, but based on the content of the book and the publisher’s opinion of the author, the book might be rejected. The same would be true in the graphic design or music industries.

In “The Hacker Manifesto” what is basically being said is that; because you are sitting at home designing a website or writing a book, the publisher cannot judge you on who you appear to be. Instead they will judge you on the quality of the work that you have produced. One could see this as a step towards equality for all people. This is perhaps the best thing that has come from the internet and computer age. Suddenly the reader does not care what your name is or what you appear to be.

Another good thing that has come from the digital age is the ability to get information out into the digital world. You no longer need to know the right people to make it in a given industry. Instead, you can post your created content and let the world judge you by your merits.

Digital Media Piracy

@v_kono

The subject of digital media piracy is a highly debated topic among people today. We hear of people getting sued by the RIAA and other companies that slap lawsuits against everyday people for digitally stealing copyrighted work. I took on this topic in my final paper for English 102. In my research, I have found that people acknowledge the fact that they are pirating software, feel guilty, yet continue to pirate anyway. Why do people pirate? I have found that people like the word “free.” The quality is identical to that of paid content, so why not? We have to remember about TINSAAFL. TINSAAFL stands for: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Whether the pirating individual ends up with a lawsuit over their pirated content, or artists end up not receiving the profit that they should be. In an article titled “Targeting Websites Dedicated to Stealing American Intellectual Property,” Daniel Castro said: “Online piracy harms the artists, both the famous and struggling, who create content, as well as the technicians—sound engineers, editors, set designers, software and game programmers—who produce it.” Many reports confirm that firms lose billions of dollars every year due to digital piracy. In 2005, $18.2 billion dollars were lost due to piracy. While I acknowledge that I am a part time digital pirate myself, I believe that individuals should pay for the content that they desire. It’s stealing, and it is morally wrong. Money is being lost, and people are losing their jobs. Is it really worth it saving on a $0.99 song?

 

One Code To Rule Them All

In Donna Haraway’s Manifesto is written through the female lens. She is seeing and grounding her ideas and conceptions from a woman’s view and how ‘cyborgs’ would be androgynous and creating any kind of “positronic brain” on gender would be obsolete. Her view on this is counter intuitive to her message in wanting women to be free of the typical female stereo type actually shines a spot light on it.

Whereas the Hacker Manifesto does not use any gender identifying terms and only identifies the hackers in question as being as young as a pre-teen as we see the hacker being referred to as “Damn kid…”. The only time gender is portrayed is when you follow the link “hacker” it has a picture of a young woman in an overcoat that looks like she does not care what you may think of her and her actions. True to form the manifesto continues in being gender neutral while describing what a hacker is and what they represent.

When people read something like the Hacker’s Manifesto most automatically picture the stereotypical image of either an awkward pimply teenager or a grown man that has not come out of his parent’s basement in three years, but the picture breaks from that image with the picture of the girl giving women credibility in the hacking world.
We are in a “Great Digital Saltation” as the whole world is experiencing and contributing to the instantaneous transitions and creation of new technology.

Audra Mann | @WSUVcollegeMom

Response 10

According to Webster Dictionary, a manifesto is defined “as a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.” The hacker manifesto is a deceleration that a hacker is an intelligent person with motives of curiosity and not of destruction and crime as portrayed by society. Although they may be judged by society as criminals, we can never stop a hacker, as stated in the hacker manifesto “You may stop this individual, but you can’t stop us all… after all, we’re all alike.”

My manifesto on freedom of online information… The internet has created a vast place with endless information. So much knowledge can be found on the internet. Just like everything evolves overtime, the power of knowledge has evolved. I now no longer need to wait for a book to arrive or pay for a class to learn something. When passion for knowledge is there, the internet is there to feed that passion. Why would we want to hinder learning? In this instantaneous world, we now have the power more then ever to learn. The internet keeps information in stone forever. This stone “cloud” of knowledge should be feeding us and we should not hide anything from us. No longer should humans be limited to information in order to expand our minds on our own. Academic journals and encyclopedias should be free for all people to view and read. The more we allow our selves to learn, the more we can grow as a society. Freedom of information is our human right.

Manifestos and the freedoms of online information….

@Heather94720356

In the ‘Hacker Manifesto’, the illustration is clear that there is one stereotype for a “hacker” and that type is of none other than a fraudulent criminal. It is clear that really very few hackers are actually criminals; their purpose is for the challenge and learning experience of creating something new out of a previous work possibly along with many other benefits. The argument of the ‘cyborg manifesto’ is that we are all, in some way, cyborgs in the sense that it includes any type of realities. According to Hathaway, “Cyborgs are socially constructed hybrids of machines and organisms.” Both of these display a similar passion for individualism in both the cyber and the real world by defending the right to explore and create at whatever pace the creator desires.

The freedom of online information has grown so rapidly, some describe it as limitless. You can enter any search engine and the imagination of the user is the only limit to what will be found on the internet. Societies around the world are so infused in the social networks that they have actually exposed themselves to the virtual world and its users. Many people do not realize the freedoms regular users, hackers, and private officials have access to once their information is submitted into cyberspace. This could be both positive and negative your information could either be used for a monumental level of good, or it can be utilized and turned into the darkest evil. Remember no one really knows who is on the other side of the networks of the cyber world or their intentions. Moderation of personal information is encouraged for the safety of yourself and other users. The internet shall not be used as a weapon for evil but a joyous electronic engine for knowledge and personal gain.

Rachael Schultz: Manifesto

@RachaelS_DTC

The gamer culture is composed of freedom of speech, but also the power of promoting your own values. Most game designers are white males and their values are presented to the gamers, most of which are younger boys of a different race. These “games that are being designed unconsciously include the biases, opinions and reflections of their creators” (blackvoicenews.com). This has a negative impact on the young gamers. If their race is represented in a negative manor, then their self confidence is deteriorated. In other words, the values and perceptions of the white game makers are being promoted through the gamer culture to the gamers. Can this negative affect on the gamer culture be changed and improved by controlling the portrayal of characters? Why not? As a bridle controls a horse and protects the rider, restrictions on games can control the messages given to children and protect them from discrimination. The values of the game makers are forced upon young gamers with their power to control their message. In order to stop discrimination, restrictions on the portrayals of characters of different races need to be enforced. Unfortunately, restrictions remove the freedom game designers have. The gamer culture is based on the freedom of speech and creation. Shall we take away freedom in order to change the gamer culture to stop discrimination? I wish it was that easy. The fact is control is not the answer. “[W]e can learn from our fusions with animals and machines how not to be the Man…”(Manifesto).