I had never heard of Jonathan Harris, but this will absolutely not be the last time I pay attention to his work. I'm not so sure what will talk about in this post will relate to coding or the course of the web or really what it will do. But I loved his "lecture." It reminded me of a poem I read the other day. In my illustration class, we had a Final Comps deadline last week which basically meant that you better have some shit done or your ass is grass. Class time consisted of poking through everyone else's work and writing ambiguous comments on sheets of sketch paper that were left beside each piece. I was trying to only look through the projects that I knew would be good (the entire semester is dedicated to one project; most people make books). One of my classmates, sure of having good work, was illustrating a children's book of poems. I think a friend of his did the poetry, which was for the most part very good (and his illustrations were steller as always). They were all very cleaver and perfect for a fun and games type of child audience. They dealt with concepts like the babysitting aunt that could seriously be an alien and your parents were once 8! I laughed out loud at several of the poems and I think that it was the only book that actually kept me captivated through out the entire thing.
There was one poem that stood out though. It was about loosing. The speaker of the poem admitted to stinking at everything. He never won. He never even came close. Obviously, in the context of a children's book, I was expecting some sort of turn around ending; an unseen positive that could be generated somehow from the speakers abundance of misery. Instead though, the speaker sais something that can basically be translated to, "Its ok that I'm a looser, because without people like me, who would win?" WHAT?! Seriously? in a children's book? I thought that maybe the author was just having an off day and decided to write some morbid shit. I mean how else do you put something like that in a book for kids? To make matters worse, the illustration was a big glorious ribbon that said looser on it. Jesus.
Regardless, I liked the poem. Just not in a childrens book. The Harris talk reminded me of it because he brought up the point of there being only a hand full of nerdy dudes running the internet's social structure. Imagining those guys, and thinking about what Harris said about programmers not being comfortable with their bodys, made me think of the speaker of the poem. They're the losers that make it possible for everyone else to win. In essence that is what everyone wants.. I think. Contributing to others happiness. I mean, thats what is so awesome about being a movie star or a famous musician.
I remember an interesting study I researched when I was in general psychology about how people react stronger to personal identities rather than groups. Basically, it said that people were more likely to donate to a cause when the cause was paired with a picture of a face rather than a picture of a croup of people. Well, what if that study can be applied to these social-loser-computer-genius'? Ok, so I know I'm rambling a bit here, but hear me out. So: if people always want to contribute to others happiness and people gain the most empathy for individuals rather than groups.. would that mean that people gain the most happiness from contributing to the happiness of individuals rather than groups?
Ok, so down to the nitty gritty with it and then I'm done: Sex is probably one of the highest acclaimed past times of any culture throughout history. What happens during sex? Two people make each other extremely happy. Soooooo, if programmers are generally people that are uncomfortable in their physical bodies, is it possible that their sexual tension and therefore social frustration lead them to reach people in a different way that is programming their digital social interactions? Harris was very proud, and rightfully so, with his mural that his roommates could use as a pickup line. Is that a pre-learning-code way of dealing with the problem?
who knows.
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