an anthology of reading notes, scribblings, and other scraps from the cogitative expeditions of Orest Kinasevych
“Polyculturalism directs attention to how people pick up proficiencies from multiple cultures throughout their life span through a range of different learning processes, some explicit and some implicit.” (p 639)
“God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.” (p 8)
“Indigenous languages also represent complex systems of knowledge developed and accumulated over thousands of years. Local languages are indeed a kind of cultural treasure; they are repositories of diversity and key resources for both understanding the environment and utilizing it to the best advantage of local populations, as well as of humanity as a whole. They foster and promote local cultural specificities, customs and values which have endured for thousands of years.” (p 2-3)
“One study group has argued that we have an obligation to future generations to think fifty years ahead, and criticizes most commercial and political planning for its ‘horizon blindness’ beyond about ten years.” (p 67)
“… as Silicon Valley’s parents increasingly panic over the impact screens have on their children and move toward screen-free lifestyles, worries over a new digital divide are rising. It could happen that the children of poorer and middle-class parents will be raised by screens, while the children of Silicon Valley’s elite will be going back to wooden toys and the luxury of human interaction.” (¶4)
“Persuasive technology is the design[3] of digital devices and apps to influence human thoughts and behavior. While these techniques are used for positive purposes (e.g., more efficient website navigation), they are also employed with the guidance of psychologists and other behavior experts working in the tech industry to persuade users, many of whom are children, to spend long periods of time using social media and video game sites.” (¶4)
“Also noteworthy in this episode is the way each professional interprets the problem according to his own specific type of expertise. The chemist studies organic molecules, the automotive engineer redesigns vehicles, and the highway planner looks for ways to reduce congestion.” (p 44)
“The dominant program is materialized in actual technologies through designed-in values and purposes. The dominant actors thus always have the ‘facts’ on their side. The anti-program may be confined at first to discursive expressions such as protests and demands articulating values different from those of the dominant actors. The subordinate actors’ demands usually appear to be unrealistic, ideological, in the face of the ‘facts’.” (p 6)
“… primarily, the factory was [page break] an invention concerning the organization of work, with an earlier origin than most of the machines it contained.” (p 18-19)
“While engineers physically construct or make an object, interest groups also construct the object — by virtue of the language they use to describe the object, the ways in which it is marketed and sold, and the ways in which it is regulated and understood.” (p 28)