[Dancecult-l] maybe logic online courses

wayne marshall wayneandwax at gmail.com
Mon Sep 17 19:54:31 CEST 2007 

This announcement reminds me that I should perhaps mention that my own class
on EDM culture, now in its third incarnation at Harvard Extension School,
will be offered again this fall and can be taken at a distance (via lecture
videos, blog discussions, and the occasional SecondLife listening session).
If people on this list know any prospective students for such a course, by
all means point them here:
http://www.courses.dce.harvard.edu/~musie145/

Still tweaking/updating the syllabus, but the course remains a ridiculously
ambitious attempt to survey the wide world of electronic (popular/dance)
music. I'm looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Wayne

On 9/17/07, Kath O'Donnell <aliak77 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all, in case anyone's keen, there's some interesting online courses at
> Maybe Logic site http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm
>
> the email below came via the media-squat (Douglas Rushoff's site) list.
> he's teaching a class in a couple of weeks.
>
> a Philip K Dick class started today - examining a couple of his books &
> films made of the stories. it's being taught by  Eric Davis. I signed up for
> this one and so far the intro note & first week questions are interesting.
> the RU Sirius ones in the past sound interesting also.
>
> the site forums are at:
> http://www.maybelogic.net <http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm>
>
> it'd be interesting to have more of these short courses - perhaps someone
> from dancecult could approach the site to take a class or host one somewhere
> else. I know I'd be interested and others might be also (eg not doing a full
> uni course but still interested in the topics)
>
>
> chrs
> kath
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.aliak.com
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Douglas Rushkoff
> Date: Sep 15, 2007 9:59 PM
> Subject: [media-squat] I'm teaching a course
> To: media-squat at yahoogroups.com
>
>   I'm Teaching a Course
>
> For those of you who always wanted to take a course with me but don't
> go to NYU, or who go to NYU but aren't in my department, or who ARE
> in my department but have come to realize that I haven't been
> teaching there for a while, this is for you:
>
> I'm teaching a course through a distanced learning site called Maybe
> Logic Academy - where Robert Anton Wilson used to teach everything
> from James Joyce to economics theory.
>
> My course, "Technologies of Persuasion," is beginning in just two
> weeks. I haven't promoted it anywhere - I just haven't had time or
> energy these days to do more than what's right on my plate - so this
> should be a small and intimate group. And it's a hell of a lot
> cheaper than paying for NYU.
>
> Plus, we'll get to be a little crazier than people are generally
> allowed to get in a college seminar room, with some no-holds-barred
> discussions on how media and technology shape the way we think, and
> why we seem to remain so pitifully unaware of the biases of the media
> we use.
>
> The link is here: http://www.maybelogic.org/rushkoffcrs.htm
>
> If you want to know how a distanced learning course through the
> MaybeLogic Academy actually works, I've pasted the relevant
> information from their site at the end of this message. You can also
> see it directly at: http://www.maybelogic.org/academy.htm
>
> ---------
>
> Meanwhile, here's a new piece I wrote for Discover Magazine. I think
> it may bother some people. All my best, Douglas.
>
> New Pseudoscience Patina, Same Snake Oil
> The Secret's self-help message is just common knowledge.
> by Douglas Rushkoff
>
> As the saying goes, opposites attract, as when an electron races to a
> positively charged ion, or the north pole of a magnet pulls the south
> pole of another. But try telling that to proponents of The Secret,
> the latest in a long line of spiritual systems aimed at selling
> personal prosperity through faulty scientific reasoning.
>
> In case you've missed it on Oprah or Larry King Live, The Secret is a
> self-help DVD and companion book synthesizing the pitches of a few
> dozen of today's most prominent self-help gurus. Its creator, an
> Australian named Rhonda Byrne, claims there's a single truth
> underlying all these systems. It's more ancient than the Bible and
> has been intentionally hidden from human beings for just as long. The
> great secret? Positive thinking. Abundance is a state of mind: Think
> healthy, and you'll be healthy. Or more to the point, think rich, and
> you'll get rich. Most of the spiritual teachers in The Secret are
> wealth-seminar leaders who display the book's logo on their Web
> sites. The Secret has certainly worked wonders for its marketers:
> More than 1.5 million DVDs have been sold, and the book hit number
> one on The New York Times best-seller list of hardcover advice books.
>
> While positive thinking no doubt has its benefits—from the placebo
> effect to good old self-confidence—The Secret tries to justify itself
> not only in the language of pop psychology but in that of modern
> physics. According to the book, happy thoughts will do more than
> affect behavior. It claims the interrelatedness of matter and energy
> (a principle proven by Einstein) allows people to change reality to
> their liking by changing the way they think about it. (Thought is
> presumably energy in this schema, and reality is matter.) For most,
> however, this potential for cosmic transmutation is limited to
> attracting more money into their personal bank accounts.
>
> To be sure, it's entertaining to marvel at Masaru Emoto, a Japanese
> alternative healer who claims that crystals grow more symmetrically
> inside bottles labeled with positive messages than in those with
> negative messages attached. But such "results" can be explained by
> the observer's tendency to notice the crystals he is looking for
> rather than the ones that don't fit his expectations. That's why
> people basing psychiatric therapies on pseudoscientific research will
> get mixed results at best. Stick a Post-it note with a positive
> message on a schizophrenic's forehead and see how far you get
> changing the water molecules in his brain into happy ones.
>
> Meanwhile, a growing arsenal of healing machines based loosely on
> tenuous nonlocality theories from the fringes of quantum physics have
> become an increasingly popular alternative to the discomfort of
> scientifically verifiable chemotherapy. With names like SCIO and
> Rife, these machines don't even need to be in the same room or city
> as the patient they're treating—since, as their proponents reason,
> quantum mechanics doesn't recognize physical distance. Sure, if this
> "energetic medicine" makes a person feel better or more optimistic—
> and doesn't delay or replace therapies that might actually work—
> there's no harm except to the wallet.
>
> So why bother condemning all this wishful thinking? After all, who of
> us hasn't ever experienced a bit of The Secret's real power? Wearing
> an expensive suit to an interview or flying first class, as one of
> The Secret's featured instructors suggests on his Web site, can make
> you feel and act differently. Sometimes spending more money does seem
> to bring more money in, and speaking positively often leads to better
> results than whining about how tough life is.
>
> But such techniques are hardly new, let alone secret. Like mastering
> the will through self-hypnosis or better negotiating through body
> language, the "power of positive thinking" has nearly a century-old
> track record among car dealers, admen, and others for whom attitude
> means as much as, if not more than, attributes. It's from this
> universe of phantom values and socially constructed truths that The
> Secret derives its ultimate power. Try sharing The Secret with some
> refugees from Darfur; you'll probably find the results are not
> terribly impressive.
>
> No, The Secret is best applied in the same foggy arenas from which it
> emerged. It's great for self-help gurus, spiritual evangelists,
> salespeople, and multilevel marketers because it's based in the same
> kinds of mythology on which they've always relied: There's a timeless
> principle, a preexisting law of nature only now becoming understood
> by science but completely easy for you to use to make your life better.
>
> Just pay me, and I'll share it with you.
>
> --------------------
> Maybe Logic Academy
>
> Maybe Logic Academy is an innovative online learning institution and
> community. The Academy features online courses by some our most
> important and ground-breaking writers, theorists, artists and teachers.
>
> Courses are grounded in the philosophy and perspective of maybe logic,
> an approach which emphasizes the fallibility and relativity of
> perception and tends to approach information and observations with
> questions, probabilities and multiple perspectives rather than
> absolute truths. This "model agnosticism" informs all MLA courses by
> maintaining an experimental attitude towards any particular paradigm,
> theory or model of reality.
>
> Academy courses are designed to help individuals broaden their
> perspectives and perceptions of the world. Our mission is to create a
> learning and community environment where alternative models,
> philosophies and methodologies can be discussed and explored at length
> with the guidance of an 'expert in the field.' If students leave the
> courses with more questions - and more options - we've done our job.
>
> Academy Schematics
>
> Each course has its own secure online site where students and faculty
> collaborate in forum discussions and where all course material is
> published and archived. At the beginning of each week of the course,
> the instructor publishes the week's assignment. This assignment could
> include readings, exercises, study questions, web links, meditations,
> video or audio lectures, etc. Discussions then ensue and develop in
> the course forum based on the week's material. The instructor will
> direct the forum discussions by various postings throughout the week.
> Any "live" event like a chatroom gathering will be scheduled at times
> most convenient to everyone. But if you can't make the scheduled time
> you won't miss out on any of the content as all material is recorded
> and published on the course site.
>
> MLA courses are asynchronous. This means that the international
> student body does not have to be online at the same time. Since all
> course material is published on the course site, all you need to
> participate in MLA courses is an online computer. Once registered,
> students can login from any computer with an internet connection,
> anywhere on the planet.
>
> There are no grades or official marks of accomplishment. Essentially
> the more you put into the course (i.e. doing the readings, exercises,
> etc. and contributing to the course forums) the more you'll get out of
> it. This student-centered approach tends to foster an environment
> where each student's insights and questions are valued and help shape
> the content and direction of the course.
>
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