the refletive phylumetic flurorescene of post chagrinesque telling Aug 26 '02    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Books Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: A Literature Unit From $8 Olivier Dunrea - Ollie From $7 The Bottom Line Everything and nothing ventured and everything and nothing gained I first joined epinions back in late 1999, I would suppose among the flurry of the web’s so called elite, (Justin, Carl, GAC, Maura etc) who with a post-modernist statement brought a kind of light hearted multi-perspectivity to epinions. I felt that we all were the first to somehow found a morphic field of a spacious quality that would provide a basis for all who were to follow. I also feel that way about my intensive work with the web from 96 to 99, and now see that the masses have flowered from these seeds, with livejournal’s and quality web site of personal expression weaving a coherency of what we all experience, see and live. Of course it was blindingly clear in the beginning that Epinions was of a consumerist paradigm, not usually the type of framework to support(?) the individual in their predilections and eccentricities of understanding, experience and truth. Although, in some sense we were being asked to share those unique ways of understanding to perhaps the bluntest and most immediate STUFF of which we all know and understand. That one could contribute one’s views about the products and things of our lives to a deeper reflectivity of comprehension, in an individual and unique way appeared to be something of a grace, and the epinions site inherently demonstrated a certain humour and wisdom. One could sense a certain devil may care (and yet we know he does!) rush of the whole dot.com, epublish and be damned to cascading stock options! I believe that there was also a sense that epinions would somehow be thrown back to a more general and standardized consensus of the American people’s consumerism. (I'm an Australian living in Australia) Now this has clearly occurred, we have very earnest reviewers ticking off their check boxes as they scuttle their clipboards along the aisles, assessing reviews to fit into the standardized style and format of a kind of exaggerated superficialism which Americans are known for. Americans are unaware perhaps, that the literal rest of the world does not sneer, inasmuch as wonder in amazement and bemusement how serious you all are, how assumptive and narcissistical your objectification are. Very few dare to tell you this, while you lambaste in promises of your founding fathers and forlorn mothers, while your cities are actually resting and impelled by fear, greed, inequity and inequality – so easily felt and experienced directly in any modern American city. Most are turned away into their middle class caves, to all the things you get for all your hard work. Such is the give and take of god’s lost children. And thus we are. I'm sorry, this review has turned out to be a review of America. Yet, I can’t help but feel epinions is now correctly and appropriately reflecting what American culture is, what America represents and where America lies in the order of things. The end result of ‘the pursuit of happiness’ has brought a kind of stupid contentment, a Jim Caresque determination that everything is alright, while a deeper unease and uncertainty waits within the wings, realising the usual human scenarios of dark underbellies and seething irrationality. I am concerned, I am aware it is too late, I am congiscent of the reasons and meanings and trajectories of humanities evolution. Ray Kurzweil has mapped out a possible future for the western culture, in his book “The Age of Spiritual Machines”. His premise is we develope computers and nanotechnology to the point where according to our own standards of what we are, we become redundant and the machines take over – supposedly fulfilling evolution. I certainly feel this site is becoming more mechanical, and perhaps a modified Kurzweils ‘Cyberpoet’, a robot could be designed to make this site redundant. But then, that isn’t the point is it? It is the human factor, the human elements and qualities of experience and FEELING that bring us to know what is real and appropriate for us. I certainly feel these qualities are being undermined on this site, constricted and brought to become routine commodities of consensus. And I feel it has been designed to be so. I for one cannot assist this process or bring my perspectives to bear on such a situation. I feel like a voice drowned in a wilderness of decisions that have essentially already been made, and that my unique ‘spin’ on various products and services simply hits the wall of a receptivity too blunted by hackneyed lists of lies. Thankyou to who I don’t know...I may not have written 300 reviews, but each one I did write was fun and at the time I felt contributed to an overall fabric of understanding, spreading further than this site. I don’t feel that fabric will miss my weave or even notice - such is this community. My review of Ray Kurzweil’s “Spiritual Machines” will be my last epinions review.

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