Don't mince words, Meredith, tell us what you really think!

[maradydd]

Ok, so apparently the latest episode of BoingBoing TV is by the guys at monochrom, who are a bunch of Austrians, and it's described as "Web 2.0 meets Marxist economic theory".

I have not actually watched this yet, because the last monochrom puppet show I saw, at last year's CCC, was so pointless and badly executed that enochsmiles and I walked out less than halfway through. (Don't get me wrong, the art was good. But the story made not a lick of sense, the puppeteers had no technical skill -- most of the action involved stick-puppets bouncing up and down randomly -- and it was pretty obvious that they hadn't rehearsed beforehand, given all the missed cues.)

Maybe I'll watch it. Maybe I won't. But the juxtaposition of Austrians doing a puppet show on Marxist economic theory makes me want to put together a puppet show on Austrian School economic theory. Who wants to help? I'm thinking the world needs Lolcat Von Mises.

(digitalusrex, cassandrasimplx, damn do I ever wish I were in Houston right now. And I bet john_j_enright and I could bang together a fun script in Shakespearean blank verse...)

Comments

[hober.livejournal.com]

I love the title of this blog post.


MAAAAAAAARRX!

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

I can has cheezburgrs according to mine needs?

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Well, except this is the Austrian school, so it'd be more like:

1. I can maeks cheezburgers moar efishuntly


2. 


3. Profit!

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

In.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Because I just watched the video, and OMGZ TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT.

Bunch of ungrateful whiny little bitches. They wouldn't even have intarwebz to reach an audience with if it weren't for the New Economy they trash. Or fancy Dell monitors for Xeni to stump on (nice product placement there, guys). Nor would I be able to do what I'm doing with my life -- and I work my ass off so that I can do something I love. The spirit of the New Economy which they so mercilessly trash is one of finding synchronicity and synergy between radically different problem domains, creating opportunities for expression, new useful services, and yes, by god, making money in places nobody would have thought of before. At the heart of every startup, Web 2.0 or otherwise, there's some guy (or girl) who said "Hey, $foo might be kinda cool," and someone else saying "Y'know, that's not a bad idea, let's try it!"

Earlier this evening I was walking into the city centre to get dinner, and reflecting on how my company is really the result of inspiration, idea-sharing, and encouragement from so very many different people. My customer pipeline is 100% the result of just chatting about what I'm doing -- at hacker parties, in small groups of friends, here on this blog -- and listening to what other people are doing, and someone realising "hey, these ideas are kind of like chocolate and peanut butter." From the Wikipedia article I presume they're citing -- "The general idea is that a business should focus on those areas of its operation which are critical to its success and where it has a competitive advantage." I fail to see how this is evil.

Of course, I am a classical liberal, and like Voltaire, I may disagree with what they say but will defend to the death their right to say it. Because that stance embraces my right to call them on their asshattery.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Of course, I am a classical liberal, and like Voltaire, I may disagree with what they say but will defend to the death their right to say it. Because that stance embraces my right to call them on their asshattery.

Off topic, really, but I've been wondering about this principle lately. If some guy is standing on a stage, urging people to lynch me, am I ethically justified in infringing his free speech by headshotting him?

If I am ethically justified in that infringement, what if he's simply urging the crowd to bind me in chains and set me on the road gang, rather than stringing me up from a tree? Do I still have a clean go-ahead on squeezing the trigger?

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

IANAL, and I'm not sure about the second, but legally the first falls under "inciting violence" as far as the US is concerned, and isn't protected by the first amendment. I suspect the similar is true as well, but I suspect the first gives you better self defense claims (imminent death vs. wrongful imprisonment).

Morally... I'll let you figure that out on your own. ;)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

If I could figure it out on my own, I wouldn't be asking for help.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can ever really answer the hypothetical case "do I have the clean go-ahead on squeezing the trigger" for things that fall in a grey area (which I think #2 does). But the question I'd be asking myself is a) are they really just going to put me on the chain-gang, or am I actually headed for the tree? b) do I have a chance of getting out of this later, and possibly getting the bastards punished for their ill-deeds, or is this my last shot at freedom? and c) if I defend myself now, do I have a higher chance of being killed than if I try to get out of this imposed bondage later?

(That last one is pragmatic as well as moral.)

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

enochsmiles' remarks are about the finer points of US law, but your question is one of ethics. IMO, let him talk all he wants; the first person to try to lay a hand on me gets plugged.

[ivy]

That's about my line as well. I don't want to be the first one to escalate to violence for something that someone *said*. It's different when it's something physical. I've never seriously hit someone first for their opinion (playful silly punching doesn't count; anyone being a creep isn't someone I like enough to punch playfully), distasteful/offensive/threatening as it may be. I wouldn't throw the first punch (much less shoot) the guy with the rape/death threats. But if he touches me I'm going to flatten him.

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

I don't know how they missed the cues -- there was a woman standing on stage whose job it was, apparently, to yell out the cues loudly enough that we in the 10th row could hear them.

But, yeah. It was atrocious, starting with the script, going on through the utter incoherence of the whole thing and the nervous laughter of the audience who was too polite to leave, and topped by the fact that half the puppets weren't even showing up on the screen because the people holding them didn't know how to line them up properly. The 10th grade drama geek in me was screaming inwardly.

I had thought Monochrom was supposed to be, err, good?

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

Man. I just watched the movie. It does not explain Marxism at all. I wonder if it's an attempt at irony -- a video, on the web, made possible with technology that would not exist in a predominantly Marxist world, where the major prop is a technological device of the same nature used to access a capitalist company's services which feature as the central theme (the access, that is, not the concepts they're blathering about).

I don't know. Maybe it's the "just having gotten back from Riga, and seeing what that city has done with its newfound freedom from communism" that has me even more disgusted with Marxists than usual. If this was irony, Boing-boing has gone way downhill for not realizing this. If it wasn't, it's lame.

(The high-point of the video is obviously a shameless rip-off of Avenue Q. Enough said.)

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Heh. You say this more succinctly than I do.

The film is not about Marx

[(Anonymous)]

It is about Foucault, and his reading of Marxist theory, and Gilles Deleuze term of "Society of Control" (referring to Foucault).

I watched monochrom's CCC puppet show on video, I liked it.

Re: The film is not about Marx

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Watching it in real life was pretty excruciating, not least because the stage manager kept giving the puppeteers cues that were audible from the ninth row and they just kept missing them. But, hey, different strokes for different folks.

I got enough Foucault to last me for the rest of my life when I was an undergrad. By the time I realised every grand assertion about human nature and society that the guy had to make was totally unfalsifiable, I just couldn't take him seriously anymore, and still don't. Discipline and Punish has some parts that are pretty damn hot, though -- makes for amusing bedtime reading.

Re: The film is not about Marx

[(Anonymous)]

I missed the puppet show live and watched the recording of the stream... downloaded it from the CCC server. I watched it because some people where very enthusiastic after seeing the show live and highly recommended to download the file. What can I say: I liked it... and there is no accounting for tastes ;-)
I have to admit: I follow monochrom's projects for some years now, and I like their general approach. Some projects are extraordinary, some not, but they are always somehow "refreshing".

Concerning Foucault: it's more about how Deleuze takes Foucault's concept ("disciplinary society") and transforms it into his idea of "society of control". But, whatever ;-)

All the best from Düsseldorf
P.K.

Re: The film is not about Marx

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I haven't followed their projects all that closely, but I've seen several over the last few years myself. Typically I find myself entertained by the concept, but underwhelmed by the execution (the early-90s-style computer game about a fictitious former Soviet republic being one example -- the idea was hilarious, and the art and music were pretty good, but the gameplay was clunky and obtuse, with a story that seemed kind of tacked on.)

And then some of their projects just make me want to shake them, like the one where they tried to do a "patient zero"-style disease-outbreak story in real life. In that particular case, they're lucky that the execution was so bad (protip: when making up a biology story meant to cause panic, either use the names of real microorganisms, or at least don't mix Greek and Latin when inventing a scientific name) -- the CDC would not have taken kindly to a rumour which caused a large area to be evacuated and then turned out to be made-up. (Of course, it may be the case that they deliberately chose nomenclature that any biologist would find obviously fake, so that the CDC would immediately see through it. But there was a lot of potential for widespread panic, particularly if a stupid but well-meaning TV station had caught the story, so they're quite lucky that the prank didn't go anywhere.)

I am picky about art, mine and other people's; I favour strong ideas executed just as strongly, an equal blending of artistic inspiration and good craftsmanship. Monochrom is certainly full of artistic inspiration, but in general I have not been impressed with their technique; the visual arts are an exception. But, yes -- everyone's tastes are different, and everyone looks for something different in art.

Re: The film is not about Marx

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, don't talk too bad about my beloved Soviet Unterzögersdorf #1 ;-)) I think it's a masterpiece all in all, and I'm waiting for the second part for a long time! I guess we really have different expectations in art or -- to be precise -- the practice of cultural intervention.
Anyhow, was nice to discuss with you; I'll definitely follow you blog!

P.K.

Re: The film is not about Marx

[enochsmiles.livejournal.com]

You should tell Boingboing to get its facts straight, then. Poor Marx -- he was wrong enough without Foucault's perversions.

(The CCC puppet show may have been edited/better recorded on video; it was definitely not a quality production live. In addition to the complaints that we've made so far, I suspect people outside of a 15 degree arc from the center of the stage didn't get to the see much of the screen in the first place; we were within that arc and there were occasions where the puppeteers blocked the view of the audience. I bet sound-quality was better, too, which is ironic given that most amateur stage productions sound worse on recording than live.)