crystal ball for the future

This is the last blog for my eculture subject. I have to write about my prediction for the future. So let’s take the crystal ball out of the closet and check what the future has for us. What do I see for the future?



I would like to talk more generally of the possible overtaking of the Internet by the governments or the big multinationals. For the moment, in the year 2007, it is still possible for anyone to touch any subject and to write nearly anything on the Internet. This can be any subject like those we talked about during the lecture: extremists, cybersex, representation of war, and so on. Everyone have different opinions of what is acceptable or not, and some people will find the extremists world or the cybersex appealing while some others will find these are subjects that should not be allowed on the Internet.

It does bring me to the big question: should we allow our government or upper power to have a say of what should or should not be written on the Internet? We are - in Australia, America, Europe and other countries around the world - in what our governments are proud to call (it sells positively the country abroad!) a democratic country where everyone should have the freedom of speech. So even if we are often disturbed with some of the things written or showed on the Internet, should we allow our government to take away our freedom of speech, our democratic rights by allowing them to have a say in what is and what is not allowed on the Internet?



I believe the word ethic still counts a lot in the modern world of today. They are forbidden subjects, subjects that no one should take lightly, like the extremists and their unilateral view of the world, or like the world of sex and the use of children for the only purpose of the pleasure of some adult’s viewers. These areas should be controlled, like the use of the children for the sex industry totally banned, not only on the Internet, but also outside the Internet area.

Unfortunately, by allowing governments to have a total control, to edict laws for the Internet users, to tell us what THEY think is right or wrong, we have the risks of loosing what we have fight for, our freedom of speech, our democratic rights. How can we be sure that if we were allowing the people on the power then would not in a near future arrest whoever they want, citizen that simply do not always agree with their governments, citizens that are trying to make others see another side of the story.

In fact, we could say that the world of extremist is pretty similar to the world of the government. They both want citizen that only see their points of views without asking questions, without thinking critically.

So I would say that we should think ethically to the question of what can be and what cannot be written and shown on the internet, like children used in cybersex, crimes against minorities shown on the internet by extremists groups like KKK in order to show the world how powerful they are. These are definitely things that should never appear anywhere, in flyer, newspaper, magazine or the Internet. But we should not forget that most importantly we should protect our democratic rights and freedom of speech like we would protect our own child. If we don’t and let go than we will have left an opening for powerful people to have a say to whatever we think, whatever we write on the Internet or anywhere else, even perhaps arrest us and put us in prison, or more extremely kill us if we think we are dangerous to them. We can think to the Nazis, China and other horrors stories we have heard or read on people having their rights stripped by the government at the power at a specific period.

The Internet has opened many possibilities and they have the most time been used with a positive approach but as always they are some that will use the Internet negatively. Only the future will tell us what have been done of this marvellous encyclopaedia, this marvellous knowledge that is the Internet. I hope one day our future generation will be proud of the advance of the technology the ancient did and not be ashamed of the negative use and repercussion the past generations have made of the Internet. I hope in the future, there will still exist people that can openly critically see, think, and tell about important subjects, on the Internet and more generally in every aspect of life on earth.


But I must say I am a bit of a pessimist on this subject and I do believe that in a nearer future than what we think, we will have slowly given to the power of governments and big enterprise and their will be only a handful of critical thinkers that will be afraid for their life as they will disturb the right order of the non-thinker citizen of the internet generation.

The way wars are reported and its repercussion.

A very difficult subject for me to write about this week as I believe that we should be, in our modern world of usually educated and informed people, able to avoid wars and that wars, for whatever reasons they are happening, are usually bringing nothing else than destroyed and lost lives.



Wars have often been misrepresented to citizen of a country. We always want to believe that our country, the one that is at war with another, has the right to do it in order to save us and will often believe whatever is reported to us. Many German people felt that the 2nd world war was the fault of Jews. Journalists were working for Hitler, for Germany, to misrepresent the horrors the Jews were living, the horrors of the war. But since the Gulf war - this war were the US were going to save the world against the horrible people they were saying are the Arab people - the way war is reported has changed. As written by Jordan Crandall, during the Gulf war they were around 600 journalists assigned to give us all ‘front row seats to the war”.


By reading this fact, my question is why did we always see the same images, the same reporting? With so many journalists someone would expect a variety of views regarding this war, a variety of images. As we can read in http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=&pnt=102&lb=brusc , a reading I would greatly recommend to people interested in the impact of misrepresentation of wars, we can see that many people do not really know the real reasons behind a war and have a wrong impression of this war with the program and newspaper they are reading, listening and viewing everyday. The world has mainly seen what is convenient for the American government to show: they are the good one and the others are the bad one. The same can be said today with the second Iraq war. The difference being that many viewers are aware of the biases of the war reporters or journalists with the knowledge of what happened during the Vietnam and the gulf wars but do not, usually, mind – as they often don’t ask themselves if this is a true presentation of this war - that they have a unique view of the war, the one that the respective country government allows the journalist to project their readers or viewers.

I am still bothered to see that a wide number of people do not care if the War reportages do no really represent 100% what is happening in a special war. Today we, as viewers, are in search of more sensational images that will give us the impression we are viewing the war in direct, like a reality show. In fact, I would go further to say that the war does not interest many if it is not presented as a reality TV show.

Then we can wonder why do we rarely see the disturbing images I have found on the Internet. Is it because it would make the US citizens or other country citizens think a bit more about the reasons of a specific war, the fatalities and horrors that are going on in the other country, the cost of this war.




This is unfortunately the world we are living in, a world were we, as viewers and readers are asking more reality programs, more sensational stories and images that are given to us by journalists. It is a pity that we cannot find more journalists that are ready to work as independent, without the pressure of bigger company or of the government. It is sad to see that we are now in a world where the hyper reality is more important than the reality. It is natural to want to put all faults on the other country we are against to, the one we are at war with, but it is not normal not to try to understand what sort of war conditions are living the citizen of the other country.

We can also ask us the question why do we often hear about the war on Irak but not about so many others going on in the world, like the one in Darfur (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0819-26.htm). I like what is written on this website to make the readers better understand the way war are reported and when they are good enough to be reported.

• Invisible because it is happening in Africa. Invisible because our mainstream media are subsidized by the petroleum industry. Think of all the car ads you see on television, in newspapers and magazines. Think of the narcissism implicit in our automobile culture, our suburban sprawl, our obsessive focus on the rich and famous, the giddy assumption that all this can continue indefinitely when we know it can't -- and you see why Darfur slips into darkness.

• “Why is it, I wonder, that when a genocide takes place in Africa, our attention is always riveted on some black American miscreant superstar? During the genocide in Rwanda ten years ago, when 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in 100 days, it was the trial of O.J. Simpson that had our attention.”

It Does look to me that hyperreality and entertainment are only about what many wants to hear and see to the detriment of so many important subject to learn and hear about.



We had the Vietnam war, then the gulf war, now Iraq (http://www.historyguy.com/War_list.html#warlist13a ) and one would believe that we would have learnt with these experiences to be more careful with our thoughts on what is represented to us by journalists and governments. But it looks like the human being will never learn from his mistakes and continue to do them for at least many more years to come. So my last question I ask myself is: when eventually the actual war going on between the US and the middle East (this war that the US wants so much to win to whatever cost) will be finished, if it ever does, what will the US fight or try to empower? Australia, China, Europe?!? And will we, as citizen of a country, believe whatever is presented to us without questioning if this is the truth, a true representation of an event, or just what someone want us to believe it is.

new puppies

I had to tell the good news we had in our family and put some picture of the new puppies we have.

Noisette, our beautiful gorgeous chocolate labrador, had six little puppies. 3 males and 3 girls. it took 12 hours and since last Sunday we take shift with my husband to always be with them. That means we only get each of us a maximum of 3.5 hours sleep every night (I am the kind of person that will never leave the puppies by themselves until they are big enough!!!), and this for the next three weeks at least.

So everyone is really tired in my house, noisette too. But it is all worth it when you look at those six beautiful little ones. So we have chubby or momy boy as he always, I mean really always, shout, pancacke- the smallest (we will keep him), pinky (boy but marked him in pink and saw after he was a boy, cute name no?), princess, muffin, whity. Everyone is doing fine.

So the family have grown pretty quickly in only a day. We are now two adults, one child, one bearded dragon, two cats, one mouse, a dog, and six puppies. I still want one day a goat but I would have to move as we do not have an acre!

Enjoy your days and sleepy night, I know we will enjoy our days and nights but not sleep!!!


Coucou tout le monde, noisette a enfin eu ses bebes. Ils sont trop beaux.

Donc, Noisette notre superbe chienne labrador chocolat a eu six petits. 3 males et 3 femelles, cela lui a pris 12 heures et depuis dimanche passe on fait le tournus avec mon mari. Nous ne dormons donc en moyenne que 3.5 heures par nuit et on est creves.

Les petits sont superbes et cela vaut la peine tout le boulot que cela demande. Il y a donc chubby, pancake, pinky, princesse, muffin, whity. Tout le monde se porte bien.

La famille s'est donc agrandi tres vite en une nuit et nous comptons donc pour l'instant six nouveaux arrivants que nous adorons bien sur.

Apreciez vos nuits de sommeil pour nous!

culture and internet

This week blog will be about some sentences I found really interesting in the reading ”E-scaping Boundaries. Bridging Cyberspace and Diaspora Studies through Nethnography”. I must say this week subject was really touching me, as I am one of those that left their own country to migrate in a new one, I am one of those that lost a bit of their own culture and history on the way of their new life.

On page 183 of “critical cyberculture studies” it is written that “many people wish to learn about their culture because they want to recapture the power to name themselves. That is, they need an identity, not only so they know their own roots but also so others can learn of their roots”.

I personally can see that after more than ten years away from my birth country, I am finding difficult to not have a real identity, I am Australian citizen but I am equally a Swiss citizen, and I am finding it more difficult as the years pass, for many not to know anything about my past and my roots. I am proud to be Australian but I am also proud to be Swiss. I am proud of my personal history but it is a history that only my own family and really closed friends now, not anyone else. I can now with my personal experience understand how so many cannot really speak about their adoptive country as the one they really feel their own because they are still considering their birth country as part of them (often it is the country where they have spent their youth and grew man or woman). I had a chat one day with someone that came in Australia 20 years ago from Bulgaria and had four children born here in Australia. He told me that even if he was calling Australia home, that he loved this country and it was where he would finish his life, his heart was still in Bulgaria. I believe this is often what could be named as your roots. I read on the page 196 about who could be a Diaspora in Modern society and I have seen that It was funny to see that I could put a tick to all six qualification to be a classic exemple of the conventional understanding of Diaspora and I suppose so many migrant would be part of it too.

The Internet has allowed many in our world of today to be aware of so many different cultures other than their own and so in fact often think other cultures are better than theirs. But as we can read on page 184 “this return to the homeland is also desired by some people who reside within the homeland and who believe globalisation has destroyed their motherland and culture” (Ignacio 2005). I do personally think that in a way the Internet has allowed us to have the knowledge of so many different cultures to the detriment of our own culture. We are often more aware and more interested to hear about what is going on in the US or other countries than what is going on in our own countries. We are often more aware of the American culture than our own.

Having migrated in Australia nearly five years ago, I am still able to continue to follow what is going on in Europe via the Internet. I can follow everyday the news of Switzerland and Australia, exactly at the same time by simply opening two windows on my computer. But I have also seen that in fact the Internet is just making it harder to accustom myself to this new country that is Australia by in fact allowing me to have one foot in my birth country and another foot in my adoptive country. As we can read on page 184, “ these imaginary returns to either a home never seen or a home never experienced …”(Ignacio 2005). It does not always need to be a home never seen or experienced but it can also be that the internet help to imagine a life that would have been in the other country than the one we are living in, whichever. Again I believe you can really understand this idea if your are a migrant, not if you are an expatriate, a visitor, an exchange student, or anyone that is for a short term in a country. Having loved to be in every countries I lived before, I was often judgmental of people thinking like I do now. I did not really think of the loss of their history, the loss of part of their culture. I could not understand their feelings before, as all the countries I have been before where not for long term, for life.

I can understand that many will have imaginary ideas of what would go on in a country where they never lived. I had some. Often the reality is far from what we thought or what other people told us. The Internet should normally help us see what is really going on in a country but it does not as someone often see or understand what he wants to see or understand. The United States of America is a good exemple of so many wanted to live there, this democratic country where everything can be possible, where everyone can be successful and can become rich. Although they coud easily find out about this country, almost as if they were living in this country, find out about all the not-so-nice-things happening there, find out about how not so democratic this country is, where not everyone becomes rich and famous, they still wants to go there.

So for me, yes the Internet is an excellent information library, newspapers, news and I often feel so much more informed than before the arrival of this Internet. I am lucky to have lived in Japan from 1991 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2002. I have been able to see the differences, good or bad, that the internet has made in my daily life and how it changed my way of seeing not only Switzerland, Australia or Japan, but also the rest of the world. I still believe we should not think the Internet is the answer to everything and that without it we could not survive. Before the internet we were able to learn from other cultures from stories from travellers, from stories from migrants and we should use the Internet to help us to continue to have more knowledge first on our own culture and than on other. Not the contrary.

Cybersex

Oh god, this week lecture has been a really interesting experience. We have first definitely seen that sex does sell more than other subjects, with around three times more students in the lecture than usual and we can better understand why do so many enter in this very lucrative market that is the porn or sex industry. As written in www.orroz.net (sexual phantasms and reality), in the USA, the porn industry has a revenue between 4 to 6 billion dollars per year (2001). Why would you open a company that will not be assured of having success when you can open a sex enterprise with a very good probability of success?

(Cybersex is sometimes so real!)

I will for this week lecture base my written opinion on what happens in France or Switzerland and the researches I have done on the Internet. I am not really an expert on Australia and its sex industry!

I am not sure how many have read “The Marquis de Sade”. This is an old book about his life (the marquis de Sade was born in 1740 and died in 1814), and it shows that already in what would some call ancient time, they were people with sex desires that not everyone could understand and that they were willing to do anything in order to satisfy their sexual phantasms. Also, in the 80’s in France and Switzerland you could buy magazines only related to sex and rent porn videos directly from the video shop if you where eighteen (they did not always ask for ID though). One of the most famous magazines was Union Magazine with real or fake sex stories, soft or harder pictures and different possibilities of contacting people with same sex liking than them. If you wanted sexy lingerie or other sex toys you had to enter a sex shop and look and/or tell what you were looking for to a salesman or saleswoman.

Nowadays we have the Internet and what is called cybersex. What is so different to what is written in the “Marquis de Sade” or a Union - or other like it - magazine, is that you do not need anymore to be eighteen to have access to whatever domain of sex you are interested in. The Internet has allowed anyone to have access to millions of different sex websites, with or without accident, and their anonymity is nearly always assured.

I have done some research, from home as I was not allowed to enter any of the sex websites from Swinburne (I wonder why?!?), and those searches and readings have been sometimes funny (have a look at some pictures I have put on my blog), sometimes scary and disturbing (paedophilia, zoophilia, …). I would also call some of the pictures of computerised women an oeuvre d’art. So I have to say that if before doing those researches on the Internet about cybersex I did not think cybersex does change human sexuality I could have absolutely no doubt after those readings that it does definitely change human sexuality and will even further change it in the future as many will not know when hyper reality begins and reality stops. The frontiers are already blurred and the technology will make even more difficult to differentiate reality from hyper reality. We can already see that many images of computerised women on the Internet look like certain real models in magazines. Or is it that certain real models in magazines are so retouched that they do look like the computerised images of women on the Internet. Not sure we can always see the difference, that we can see what it is real and what is unreal.

In the beginning of 1980, promises were made that we would all lived in a virtual word created by computer (we can think to the Terminator) and that we would even make virtually love in the virtual world. These ideas were shocking at that time but look now pretty realistic in the sex domain of 2007.
We can read on http://www.croixsens.net/sexe/cybersexe.php that cybersex has four factors to help it become so tempting - and addicting - for millions of people around the world. Those factors are:
1. It is cheap; the only thing needed is an Internet connection.
2. It is in general anonymous and you can hide cybersex dependence even to your nearest friends, family or even your spouse.
3. Everything is found really quickly, just a few seconds and clicks of the mouse, not so much time to change idea.
4. Every little emotional discomfort is hidden by the sexual excitation, exactly like would a powerful drug act.

So who are those people accessing sex websites? They can be anyone and this is the danger of cybersex. There is, usually, only one button to press: “I acknowledge that I am more than 18) and here you are, entering the doors of a sex website and having the possibility to satisfy all your weirdest sex phantasms and desires.

As we can read on http://www.orroz.net/ (sexual phantasms and reality) so many try to find excuses to their abuse of internet sex websites. Some of those excuses are that it is virtual, not real so it cannot be dangerous or addictive, that the women are all agreeing to be there and all love sex, that looking at some nude pictures of children on porn websites is not that bad as there is no sexual act included and it is for the beauty of the body, and anyway those children are smiling so they must be happy, and we can go on and on about excuses. Those excuses are always untrue. It is not because it is virtual that it is not dangerous. Usually but not always, the women in porn sites are paid for it and do not like to do it. Enjoying looking at nude pictures of children is horribly wrong and this is called paedophilia, with or without sexual activities with children and finally children do not enjoy being part of the porn industry and being used by adults for their own personal phantasms.

(A life destroyed in a click)

The problem with cybersex is that often the ones that are looking and enjoying porn websites will want to access harder porn websites and in higher quantity, and this will include paedophilia and zoophilia porn sites and this is when I think the limits are reached and phantasms should remain phantasms, and people doing/showing these things should be stopped.

Cybersex does not especially annoy me if it does only concern willing adults and does not hurt anyone. But it does disturb me that often it helps paedophiles or other whacko of sex and the porn industry to use children and even animals for their personal pleasure. Children are the one that pay the hard price of the cybersex and porn industry. I am wondering how many children around the world are being used and abused for the pleasure of so many adults that use the Internet and its anonymity in order to satisfy their sexual phantasms (http://www.technewsreview.com.au/cat.php?cat=11). And of course by allowing someone to have access to so many different porn websites can give them the impression that they are not abnormal, that they are in fact totally normal, as so many others do it.

Have al look at this video about cybersexe on http://www.nouvo.ch/95-1

I do believe that cybersex is addictive, like alcohol or drug, exactly because of this virtual reality, a better reality than many live or see (better body, better skin, better sex, women that are not bickering or having a headache when the men wants to have sex, impression that the other sides of the camera wants the same than you do, and so many other reasons). I do not believe that we can, or should stop cybersex as many adults do enjoy it and do not abuse it and especially do not click on paedophilia or other unethical websites. But I would like to believe, that one day it will be possible to totally stop the use of unwilling children, adults and animals that are hurt and abused by the sex industry. The sex industry did not wait for the internet to be one of the most lucrative industry and have always used not only willing but also unwilling people to satisfy other people sex phantasms so I do not believe that the problems is cybersex and the internet, but more who is using it and for what.

Not really necessary to translate, image pretty powerful