Interview with Gareth Mitchell for BBC World Service (radio), we cover Oscar Pistorius, new technology and the ethics of sport.
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Journalism
Last month, I had a photo essay published in the Dutch architecture journal S+RO. Their special Olympic Cities edition covers a range of subjects, mine presents an overview of ways of seeing the Olympic city, framed by the following proposition:
Occupying the Olympics: Spectacle, Subversion, Surveillance, Sponsorship
Sponsorship, surveillance, spectacle and subversion are not discrete categories within the Olympic city. Everyone attempts to hijack each others' message or get around the other's guidelines.
The International Olympic Committee limits the sponsors' privilege by forbidding their presence within Olympic venues. The sponsors limits the host city's privilege by securing all billboard space for their own campaigns and erecting their own meta-event within the mega-event with vast temporary buildings and by staging their own Olympic programme. The Host City draws people away from the sports towards experiencing their culture and heritage, in order to recover some of their financial loss. Spectators roam the streets searching for scalpers' tickets, finding that the only scalpers are executives from top sponsors who have wads of free tickets they will sell at face value. Even the athletes try to get around the rules by doping.
The Olympic park is a new kind of theme park – 'a theme park without a theme' as writer Iain Sinclair put it in his latest book Ghost Milk. However, the park is no longer enclosed; the city has become the park. For London 2012, there is already a big wheel installed for tourists to ride.
This world is not hyper-real like a Disneyland, but an Uberland where consumption even relies on its own global currency – VISA, the exclusive card of all Olympic activity. All 204 visiting nations are able to access the Olympic experience by this simple chip and pin transaction, while London 2012 banks on providing its second Austerity Olympics anxious that the city may be burning with unrest, as it was in the summer of 2011.
These images tell stories of alternative Olympic experiences the protests that go unnoticed by the 20,000 journalists who shuffle form one sports venue to the next blinkered from what happens in the city.
Here is an indication of the layout:
Today, I published an article in the Guardian about how HE has been affected by the Olympic process leading up to London 2012 and what we can expect next. Heres' the post in full
The Olympics and Higher Education: What just happened?
With less than 6 months to go until the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games, do we know what will be its legacy for higher education?
A conference taking place at the DCMS today aims to reveal what just happened, but also how we might capture what is about to happen during the Games. However, there is more to the impact of the Olympic and Paralympic Games on HE than just how academics have researched and evaluated them.
Back in 2005, I attended a pre-win event about how education would be affected by the London 2012 Games. Some of the speakers - many of who held high power roles within British education - spoke with lofty ambition about how the Olympic period was an opportunity for reform in British education. Inspired by the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin, who was himself inspired by the British education system and a reformist, there was everything to play for back then. But have these aspirations been realized? Did the Olympics transform education in the UK?
Certainly, a lot within higher education has changed since Britain won the bid. A lot has changed in the world. Earlier this month, the historic site of Ancient Olympia - where the ancient Games began - was in the news due to thefts at its Olympic museum. Seen as a direct consequence of Greece’s current economic woes, it is worth remembering that this is a nation that hosted the Athens 2004 Games and which has contributed more to Olympic education than any other. Its International Olympic Academy, which is located nearby the museum where the thefts took place, has been providing higher education students from around the world with Olympic education for over 50 years. If Greece can hold together a summer programme of Olympic education in such times as these, then the bar has been set very high indeed for the UK and its future contribution to Olympism.
Even without a similar length of history, the UK has a strong commitment to supporting higher education endeavours around the Games. The British Olympic Association has hosted an annual National Olympic Academy for many years, where students, teachers and HE professionals gather to consider the state of the art for the Olympics. As well, the UK has a well-populated register of Olympic scholars, as evidenced by the recently launched ‘Games experts’ website (http://www.games-experts.com). This portal will have particular value during the Games period, when some 30,000 journalists will be seeking expert commentary on all aspects of the Games.
It was set up by PODIUM (http://www.podium.ac.uk), the London 2012 HE & FE Unit, which itself is a unique and pioneering agency in Olympic history, providing a crucial catalyst for collaborations across the sector and necessary liaison across various stakeholders. A quick glance at PODIUM’s websites offers a snapshot of how the Olympic & Paralympic programme has informed the strategy of numerous universities around the UK – not just in London. From setting up undergraduate modules on media training in order to staff Olympic venues to building links with hospitality courses or security, there is hardly one dimension of the higher education sector that has not been reached by the Olympic programme in some way. Research from last year showed that over 90% of all HE and FE institutions expected to be involved with the Games in some capacity.
This does not mean that all HE professionals or institutions have placed themselves firmly behind the bid, or the Olympic programme. Many academics have devoted their careers to criticizing the overblown commercial projects of mega-events, the exemplar of which is the Olympic Games. The day following the DCMS conference is a Political Studies Association meeting at Southampton Solent University, which will cover such topics as ‘Occupying the Olympics’ and the rise of new media activism as community of critical debate.
Examining the bid commitments made by London 2012 back in 2005, educational is located within the very final paragraph of the final chapter titled ‘Olympism and Culture’. For those unfamiliar with the term ‘Olympism’ a study of the philosophy of sport literature and Coubertin’s own writings reveals how he devised the modern Games as a philosophical framework. To this end, one may see the Olympics as, first and foremost, an intellectual project – a desire to promote a higher education.
As with many aspects of London 2012 – indeed, with all Games from bid to delivery - there are educational promises that have not been kept since 2005 – the creation of an London Olympic Institute and a literal ‘Friend-ship’, which would house a range of projects during the Games. Their absence does not negate the fact that the higher education work that has taken place during this pre-Olympic period has been substantial. Research Councils have worked together on funding programmes, Funding Councils have developed extensive programmes of activity, and the Games have given rise to cross-sector collaborations, particularly between education and the arts sector.
What happens next is the crucial question for me. What will be the HE legacy beyond the Games? Will HE institutions continue to pursue an Olympic mission in their work or will they move on to the next political agenda?
The next Olympics take place in Russia with the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. Russia has created the world’s first ‘Olympic University’ as the framework for its HE contribution, concerned with teaching and researching mega-events, along with their management and administration. This institution has global ambitions to become a centre for training after the 2014 Games.
While it is unlikely that a London Olympic University is anywhere on the horizon, if educators are truly sold by the idea that the Olympic & Paralympic Games can bring about some kind of positive re-think of how education should take place, then this conviction should not end in 2012.
Professor Andy Miah (@andymiah) directs the Creative Futures Research Centre at the University of the West of Scotland. http://creativefutur.es He is author of ‘The Olympics’ (Routledge, 2012) http://Olympicsbasics.eu
Today, I published an article with the Guardian Higher Educaton network, which discusses strategic decisions for researchers in preparation for REF2014 - the UK's governmental research evaluation in universities. The piece draws together many conversations I've had with colleagues in the last few years about what matters when publishing. I've always been a staunch supporter of book chapters and edited volumes, but evidence from RAE2008 makes it hard to sustain a commitment to such titles. On balance, I'd advise people to focus on journal articles, unless they are too impatient to publish something.
Anyway, here's the article in full and on the guardian website.
With Ref2014 deadlines approaching, where should researchers invest their time over the next year, if they are in need of one or two extra outputs before the cut off? Should you write for journals, edited books, or perhaps even attempt to complete that overdue monograph? More importantly, what should we be doing in the future? For many units of assessment, the results from RAE2008 show clear weightings in terms of what universities consider to be worth submitting in any given unit of assessment. So what should academics do in targeting their work for publication?
Much of this debate is subject specific. In RAE2008 the law submission showed little interest in edited books constituting less than 1% of the total submission and focusing much more on journal articles. Books are similarly ill considered for the life sciences, for which much of this debate is, for want of a better word, academic. In this case, authored books are mostly seen as textbooks, intended principally for student bodies to purchase, not for peers to read. The progress of science runs too quickly for an author to wait for their cutting edge contribution to come out in a book. Writing a textbook can have value, but not for theresearch assessment. All that matters are journals and the higher the impact factor, the better.
For the non-Stem subjects, there is much more variation. Impact factors are generally low – rarely getting over three – making comparisons across journals more difficult. As well, the submissions to RAE reflect ambiguity over which kinds of outlet matters most. In history, a whopping 29% of all submissions from RAE2008 were authored or co-authored books, while 34% where book chapters.
However, in sociology, only 17% were authored or co-authored books while 63% were journal articles. A similar tendency towards journal articles is apparent in education, while for media and communications 42% were journal articles and 27% were book chapters. This may also suggest that media subjects place more value on book chapters than sociologists.
It seems clear from all non-Stem subjects that edited books – as opposed to book chapters in edited books – are the biggest loser with only very few submitted. This will come as no surprise to many researchers, since it is generally the contents rather than the act of editing that is typically seen to have intellectual worth. However, this need not mean that edited books lack value, since they could be a very good way of contributing to the discipline, rather like being a journal editor. Yet, given the amount of time it takes to edit a book, some very careful thought is needed before entering into a contract.
The relative lack of book chapters in most of the non-Stem submissions also raises question about their perceived value. One reason for this may be the ambiguity over the peer review process that surrounds edited books. While a good publishing house and a strong editorial team may suggest integrity, their efforts will still stop short of a blind peer review process. Another problem with book chapters may be citations. Books are not entered into the same indices as journal articles, nor have the same kind of flexibility of journal articles. For instance, it is difficult for buyers to purchase just one chapter from a book, should they wish.
Yet, writing book chapters can be a great entry point for many early career researchers and for the advanced scholar, the appeal of the potential quick turn around may outweigh the frustration of sometimes tiresome peer review process of journals. After all, reviewing papers is another part of the economic black hole within HE, a volunteer labour force with little accountability.
Publishing in edited volumes generally involves a more flexible and supportive peer review process, while also more generous time scales. That said, many books can take forever to be published, so it might hinder progress to publish if the editors suddenly slack off. The worst I have encountered is six years from submission to publication. This is less likely to happen with journals, but some do have a remarkably long publication lead-time.
As for all our research, the importance of the contribution rather than its medium should matter most. There's still a lot we don't know about the relative quality profile of the output weightings. It also matters what one's peers are doing, so identifying that peer community matters.
However, if seeking to advise scholars, then targeting journals rather than books may be smarter. On the other hand, writing one's own book can be an important step towards establishing ones reputation beyond journal articles.
Of course, there is nothing like receiving a beautifully printed book that can sit on one's shelf alongside its peers. Journal articles rarely offer the satisfaction of having completed something that also has an attractive, tactile quality. Some clever publishers are republishing collections of journal articles as edited volumes and this may be a very sensible way to go.
Personally, I would mourn the demise of the edited collection, but would certainly welcome the rise of the special journal edition that is republished as a paperback, especially if I can choose the cover. Whether there is a market for such publications remains to be seen, but new markets do seem to be emerging.
Just the other day, I searched my name in Amazon, just in case there was something I had published without my knowledge (it has happened). I noticed that there is a publisher – which will remain unnamed – creating new books drawing content from freely available content online, from such sources as Wikipedia. If this is the future of book publishing, I'm out!
latest article for the Huffington Post focuses on the politics, philosophy and potential of bioart.
IN RECENT YEARS, a new breed of artists named bioartists have begun to infiltrate gallery spaces and scientific laboratories in pursuit of creative expression and new knowledge. Their number includes some of the world's most adventurous avant-garde artists, whose core currency is the playful and sometimes political exploration of new media through which to create art that will change our way of seeing the world. One such artist in this field, Gina Czarnecki, is having her first UK retrospective opening on December 8th at The Bluecoat in Liverpool. Yet, there is a great deal more at stake with this new form of creative practice.
In the past, the medium of such artists might have been oil paint, water colours, or in more recent years, film, video, or digital technology. Today, their medium is biology – our biology to be more precise, and that of other species. However, their work does not simply derive from our present, post-genomic era; it also foregrounds what comes next. They conduct sociologies of the future, shaping the ideas of science fiction writers, film makers, and the work of scientists. By envisioning new forms of biological transformation and utilization, their ideas become constitutive of our era, in the way that artists before them did.
To this end, bioartists also scrutinize contemporary bioethical issues and scientific practice, such as the utilization of embryonic stem cells, or the development of transgenic species. However, it is far from clear that the intention of such artists is to resist such processes. Indeed, some are seeking their development in order to make their art possible, such as Stelarc, the long-standing performance artist who regularly alters his body for his art.
Beginning with live body hook suspensions in the 1970s, Stelarc’s most recent enterprise involves creating an ear on his forearm, grown from a cell culture and sculptured over a period of six years. The next stage for this work is the utilization of stem cells to create the precise ridges of the ear that only nature has been capable of perfecting, so far.
If this were not evidence enough of how artists celebrate the transformative aesthetic potential of biotechnology, then consider the subsequent stage of Stelarc’s Extra Ear. The end goal of the project is to implant an auditory device within the ear and for it to be remotely connected to the Internet, so web browsers can hear what the ear hears creating a distributed auditory system.
Other artists, such as Ionat Zurr & Oron Catts from Australia are scrutinizing the need for us to farm animals, at a time when environmental activists point out the amount of energy needed to sustain one animal life – and indeed, the harmful gases generated by such life forms! As an alternative, they have developed something called victimless meat, grown from cell cultures, which has the neat consequence of also attending to animal rights concerns, since there is no sentient life to speak of that is harmed by the consumption of such products.
Biology has been a medium for artists for some time. Everything from saliva to human excrement has entered the play space of artists over the years. The difference in these new works is their experimentation with cutting edge scientific applications, such as stem cells, cosmetic surgery and biotechnology generally – technologies that are at the margins of human experience and about which there is considerable controversy.
The resulting works vary considerably and they range from the weird and wonderful, such as Eduardo Kac’s fluorescent, transgenic bunny, to the sublimely curious such as Julia Reodica’s designer hymens, a collection of synthetic hymens, which invite questions into the role of virginity and its loss in the 21st century. Alternatively, Yann Marussich’s whole-body secretion of a blue dye in a piece of live art called ‘blue remix’ heralds a new era of performance..
These artists have varied intentions and, like all good work, their art invites numerous and sometimes contradictory responses. It would be a mistake to suggest that they are pursuing anti-scientific ideologies, since this would radically limit the willingness of scientists to open their doors to such practice. Instead, the emphasis is on collaboration and shared vision, about nurturing new ways of interrogating the end goals of science as the utopian visions of humanity.
However, one can read a deeper politics into such desires. Their gentle tip toeing into labs raises important questions about how we organize society and understand our own humanity. For instance, why do we privilege scientific knowledge over, say, aesthetic, as evidenced by the way in which funding is skewed in favour of the former? In short, the efforts of bioartists is doing nothing less than attempting to disrupt the global knowledge economy by reinstating art as the primary medium of developing insights on the, as yet, unstudied future.
In so doing, the work of bioartists also raises difficult ethical questions. For instance, it requires us to consider by what codes of ethics such work should be governed? This is often the initial response of critics who find such work disturbing, offensive or potentially illegal: how could one play with transgenic science simply to create a new aesthetic artifact? However, there are good reasons for refraining from such judgements and this is because the aesthetic content of such works is only one way of evaluating their worth.
The more relevant ethical view to take reveals itself when inquiring into some of the challenges that such artists have faced in the pursuit of their work. For instance, in 2004, US bioartist Steve Kurtz was pursued by the FBI under suspicion of bioterrorism, after petri dishes with biological matter inside them were found in his home.
Such artists would want us to see them as acting on our behalf to make science more accountable to a broader public and for their work to engage us more fully on its long term goals and aspirations.
So, the transgenic art of Eduardo Kac invites us to consider the limits of ‘Playing God’ and he is quick to point out that scientists have already undertaken such experiments, we just don’t hear very much about it, or it is cloaked in some remote chance that the experiment will lead to knowledge that will assist humanity in some specific way. In any case, if one wanted to read Kac's fluorescent bunny as the next era of personalised pets, what should be our objection? Doesn’t our desire for pets necessarily commit us to their objectification and servitude, even though we might claim they are our companions?
In the end, if we are to experiment with creating new forms of life with synthetic biology, cloning and genetic modification, shouldn’t we just admit that it is for little more than our own amusement, whether that is the amusement of our own existence, or that which we find in witnessing great art?
Tomorrow - or later today if I find my password - I will publish this article on the Huffington Post, but here's a sneak preview: Professor Andy Miah considers why the UK Leveson Inquiry into Press Ethics should lead us to conclude that, while journalists shouldn't be hacking our phones, we should be hacking theirs.
The UK's Leveson Inquiry this week brings into focus the many debates that have taken place over the last two months about whether the British media's ethical foundation needs a radical overhaul after the apparent transgressions that have occurred through the News of the World phone hacking controversy. Many of these debates have global implications, given the nature of news syndication today; News International being among the most obvious example.
Much of the moral debate on this subject has focused on the case of Milly Dowler's family who are perhaps the most worthy victims in this situation. The knowledge of their daughter's voicemail being hacked at such a crucial time in the investigation of their daughter's disappearance amplified the trauma they experienced around Milly's death.
However, among the most crucial aspects of this debate is the way that celebrities – notably Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan – have intervened to speak on behalf of a community for which many people are unlikely to find much sympathy – the rich and famous.
One of the challenges with celebrity witnesses in any legal environment is that their creative personas often intertwine with the public's opinion about the merit of their concerns. Who didn't watch Steve Coogan's testimony and expert to hear a joke? And we got one or two. Upon noting that he saw journalists rummaging through his bins he noted that they did not look like tramps, adding “well almost”.
Equally, the reporting of celebrity testimonies occurs via the people who are the subjects of their criticisms – journalists. So, it is always risky when appealing to people with public profiles to establish the facts, especially when attempting to aid the public understanding of legal debates. In part, this is why many courts maintain a distance from media reporting, so as not to pollute the hearing with media opinion.
This isn't the first time that celebrities have questioned the intrusion of the press – the Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones wedding photos debacle between Hello and Ok! Magazines or Earl Spencer's pursuit of a European ruling on privacy are two of many more instances that have occurred over the years. Yet, the difference here is that the debate about the phone hacking case has focused more on the ethical rather than the legal changes that may be necessary to make. But, what ethical principles have been broken or which of them should more adequately be upheld?
One of the challenges in this case is that the difference between morality and ethics have been conflated. To be clear, journalists are governed by ethical codes but, in this case, it is the absence of a moral conscience that has caused more outrage, rather than just a transgression from an ethical framework. Codes of ethics compel rather than determine how people will act within a professional context. In contrast, moral convictions tend to prevail without the need for professional coercion.
This difference between morality and ethics is crucial when deciding what should be done. Journalists often operate by their own sense of morality when investigating stories and, at times, this may challenge their Editor's own sense of morality. Sometimes, this is a good thing, especially when Editors become too powerful and a newspaper loses sight of its public obligation, as may be said of News of the World. However, when the Editors and the journalists lose any degree of commonality in their sense of what is in the public interest and worthy of reporting, then we find a situation like the present case.
The public interest and respect for privacy is the standard moral tensions within debates such as this one. Journalists have claimed that there is no better way to find the truth than to listen to somebody's private messages, while the victims of hacking claim that privacy must still ensue despite their celebrity lifestyle.
There are a number of bad arguments that surround this case. It is inaccurate to claim that a person's phone messages are any great insight into truth; they are fragments of conversations at best. Even if they were helpful in determining facts, embracing such modes of practice within journalism would lead to the end of all privacy claims for all kinds of people - perhaps everyone. This would include permitting access to how journalists obtain their stories through coercion or entrapment. We would find ourselves in a situation where homes are wire tapped at will and by a range of institutions on the basis of public interest. The absence of all privacy is unlikely to create a very trusting society, as previous countries that have taken government surveillance too far have found.
Yet, the public interest argument is also disingenuous. To claim public interest over the justification for publishing stories about the sex lives of celebrities is a huge stretch of the concept. In these cases, it is commercial interests rather than public that are served, where the primary beneficiaries are media organizations, not the general public. At most, a member of the public may choose to consume a different form of leisure experience upon learning of any perceived moral transgression of the key actors, but this is hardly a greater good than the harm that may ensue for the individuals concerned, not to mention their families.
Both Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan are right that their being celebrities does not, in itself, legitimate intrusion into their private lives. There is no 'faustian pact' - as Coogan puts it - even for the celebrities who court the media. There must always be a point at which they – indeed, we – can say no to journalists and expect our privacy to be respected. An obvious example of this is reporting on the children of celebrities. Were the concept of privacy completely dead, then we would tolerate many more intrusions than is presently the case. We don't, because privacy still matters.
A second problem concerns whether or not the kind of journalists that are the focus of this conversation should be called journalists at all, as opposed to some other kind of media professional with a different code of ethics and different public expectations. Such a change in status would lead to a situation where the coverage of celebrities would occur via some form of contractual agreement, rather than free press. Importantly, this would not mean the demise of a free press, only that many of the periodicals whose work is primarily entertainment than news would lose these freedoms. I see no great loss in this regard, especially as most so-called news content derives from the work press officers and agents anyway.
There is one other further dimension to this debate that is rarely discussed, which is people's reliance on the media in an era when content is open and available. Most of us don't have time to follow proceedings in full, but today we have the opportunity to watch the full, unedited testimonies of the Leveson Inquiry witnesses without having to rely on a mediated interpretation. Today, public institutions have become news providers and our reliance on traditional media should be reduced considerably. In an era of pervasive media, we have also recreated an unmediated world.
So what is the answer to the question about how the press should be regulated? A number of ideas have been discussed from licenses for journalists to leaving things just as they are and making the present regulatory systems more effective. Some have argued that the system is perfectly fine – the journalists were caught by the system - and that any regulatory system will always be imperfect. As such, the possible loss of a free press that may ensue from tighter regulation would outweigh the possible infractions that evidently do occur within the present system.
The loss of a free press has such great implications for society that the anxieties of celebrity's losing control of their private lives is unlikely to be of any great significance in the grand scale of things. However, public laws are put in place for all kinds of people and we are asked to imagine how they would affect not just celebrities but people from any walk of life who may find themselves in a position of vulnerability, as is true of the Dowler family.
On this basis, change is necessary. Self-regulation with independent auditing is a much better way to monitor ethical practice – it works quite well in hospitals with Institutional Review Boards, for example. The press needs a much stronger internal ethical structure than is presently in place. Such boards should benefit from independent consultation from media ethicists and lawyers, whom are able to critically scrutinize day-to-day practice.
Such a system may also include, for instance, journalists having their own communications recorded in the course of their work, so as to later scrutinize their methods. If call centres monitor the calls with clients, why shouldn't journalists have their calls monitored 'for training purposes'? Journalists shouldn't be hacking our phones, we should be hacking theirs.
In advance of one event I'm involved with at the Battle of Ideas this weekend, I've written a brief article for the Independent. The title is'People should be free to take smart drugs if they choose to'. Here's the link and the text below.
People should be free to take smart drugs if they choose to
If you could take a pill that would instantly improve your memory or increase your ability to make sense of complex ideas, perhaps even make discoveries worthy of a Nobel prize, would you? What if you could enhance your capacity to assimilate new languages in a fraction of the time than would otherwise be necessary to become fluent? Answers to these questions may now become more urgent as a range of cognitive enhancements are quickly becoming available via pharmaceutical research.
Many of the early signs of these prospects arise from drugs that are presently used primarily to treat medical problems, one of the most famous of which is Ritalin. However, the candidate drugs that could enhance our cognitive abilities is endless and all we are asked to do is decide on whether or not we think their use for general enhancement rather than just therapy is a good idea.
It seems beyond question that many of the benefits of smart drugs would be valued my most people. Who wouldn’t want to make ground breaking discoveries or be able to perform better in exams? Just this week, the journal Annals of Surgery reported improved performance of doctors who use the cognitive alertness drug modafinil.
However, there are also practical reasons for why we would want to improve our cognitive ability on a day to day basis. Being able to remember where we left our keys or what we had to buy at the supermarket spring to mind. Of course, it’s unlikely that people would risk any serious long term health problems that may arise from using smart drugs, so a major obstacle to their use is being able to reduce these concerns.
After that, we may then need to consider what counts as being smarter, so as to have a better idea about what we need to enhance. Answers to this question have eluded artificial intelligence researchers for years, though we do know that there are different kinds of intelligence – logical or emotional, for example – and the improvement of each may require quite different techniques and imply quite distinct consequences. Equally, we would want to know if there were any trade offs in cognitive improvement. For instance, is advanced logical functioning detrimental to the more empathetic dimensions of our humanity?
As well, one of the big questions that follows from a society of brain enhancements is whether their use may be justified for state intervention, perhaps in trying to improve the memory of witnesses in courts of law where evidence depends on it. Alternatively, might society seek to improve the empathetic capacities of criminals so as to more effectively facilitation their rehabilitation?
There can be no doubt that all of these alterations will dramatically change who we are, the conditions of our existence and the order of things within society. No longer would a great school or good parents be such a great influence on whether or not one is able to excel in life. No longer would people who have been unable to excel as youngsters for whatever reason be restricted by this past.
Some would argue that these magic bullets to self-improvement are in fact ways of cheating ourselves, as they would rob us of the journey or process that is required to achieve great things. However, there are many things we do presently that require little effort, but which can have similar enhancing effects – such as sleeping well, drinking coffee every morning, or eating oily fish.
We don’t worry about whether these tactics compromise some sense of our own authenticity, so why should drugs be any different? Neither do we worry that they undermine some other route towards self-improvement, such as studying very hard or paying attention to what’s happening around us.
It seems to me that life is hard enough as it is and the prospect of smart drugs could improve the overall circumstances of many people. If more people have improved levels of all forms of intelligence, then we would find ourselves in a much richer society. This is also why we value education, because we believe that an enlightened mind can make a greater contribution to society and may even lead to a more enriched life. This does not mean that only formal education is valuable, but that the merit of learning is universally shared.
Smart drugs may be no different from a range of techniques that we currently employ to educate people more effectively. Of course, there is always some doubt about whether these are actually improvements. For instance, as many people like the idea of learning via an iPad as learning through a blackboard and chalk, but the really smart people realize that each has its use and that new technology does not negate the value of other methods of self-improvement.
This is why individuals should be left to make their own choice and take their best guess at trying to improve their lives. It is also why the state would be obliged to make smart drugs – which are sufficiently safe – available to all. Indeed, it could not afford to do otherwise.
Throughout October and November, The Independent Online is partnering with the Institute of Ideas’ Battle of Ideas festival to present a series of guest blogs from festival speakers on the key questions of our time.
New publication in British Academy Review about new media and London 2012, thinking about what we learned from Vancouver 2010. There's a head of steam building for London RE: multiple media centres. watch this space. In case you were wondering, the image is a section of the newly approved Orbit viewing tower for London 2012 Olympic Park. I was talking about another design a few months ago called 'The Cloud' and am intrigued by the idea of writing a history of architectural designs that never reached fruition. The boundaries of an Olympic Games playground might be a nice lens through which to undertake such historical work about how we imagined the future, but I wonder how many architects would release their unsuccessful plans.
My latest essay for the Huffington Post, while over in Vancouver covering the Olympic Games. Over the first week of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, British journalism has caught the attention of the global media for their attacks on the Games. The focal point has been a Guardian writer, who is working out in Canada and whose narrative has reached major media providers around the world.
Having been in Vancouver for a few days, I have already been contacted by various international journalists wanting my view on the subject and there is clear sensitivity among the organizers and the IOC over how much this narrative is dominating the coverage of these games.
But, what basis is there for the claim that Vancouver's Games could soon be seen as the 'worst in history'? (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/feb/15/vancouver-winter-olympics-2010). As someone who is working as a British journalist in Vancouver, there is a need to advance a counterpoint to this view on Vancouver's Games, because it is hard to see that there is any basis whatsoever for coming to the conclusion, or even that it could be possible.
Certainly, there have been some shaky starts which have overshadowed certain components, such as the death of a Georgian athlete the day before the opening ceremony. There was also considerable concern about the lack of snow at venues, which has led to the cancellation of tickets for sports. There have also been protests around the city, notably involving disruption to the torch relay's final leg, and the lighting of the cauldron had a minor glitch.
However, none of these episodes detracts from the fact that the Olympic Games in Vancouver are delivering a vastly enjoyable experience for hundreds of thousands of people around the city and the mountain resorts. Transportation has been seamless and venues are packed every day.
There is no lack of excitement about the sports and the Victory Ceremonies venue is sold out each night for what is one of the biggest Winter Games time celebrations in history. Throughout the streets, there are huge numbers of people who are living the festival experience of the Olympic Games, unconcerned about whether they have tickets or not.
All over the city, expressions of celebration and criticism are widely apparent. For the latter in particular, Vancouver has delivered more expressions of social concern than any other recent Olympic Games. This is a victory that Vancouver, as a host city and as a community can claim, as their Games shine a light on contemporary social injustices, which the Olympic movement as a whole seeks to interrogate.
As someone who advocates critical journalism on the Olympic Games, the British media are risking their own credibility in focusing too much on the wrong kinds of issues around Vancouver.
Speaking yesterday at the International Sport Business Symposium in UBC former IOC Vice President Richard Pound gave an overview of the massive logistical challenge that is the Olympic Games. He concluded by noting that if one athlete misses their competition due to disruption, then it is disastrous. However, if a journalist misses the competition, then all hell breaks lose.
This speaks to a major challenge around the Games in terms of how it privileges media to such an extent that they can lose all perspective on their role. At an Olympic Games, the media are not merely the messenger, but a powerful arbiter of truth, the independence of which is compromised due to the formal, financial relationship they have with the IOC.
What makes an Olympic Games successful depends often on whether the media decide they're having a good experience or not. This is why so much investment and attention is given to making their experience first class. However, there is no mechanism to hold journalists accountable for their reporting, nor is there space to independently assess media experiences. The result is that a single story with relatively limited evidence to support its claims can be amplified to reach global attention. This seems to have happened with some of the British reporting.
One of the twists in this saga is how people in Vancouver are interpreting the British complaints, which are seen in the context of the fact that London 2012 Games is next. Is London trying to make Vancouver look bad in order to ensure that London's Games will be remembered as the best in history? After all, it is much easier to follow an act that has received widespread criticism than one that has been regarded to be a high standard to reach.
Regardless of the reasons, given Britain's role in the next Olympic Games delivery, its media should focus more on representing how and whether the Olympic Games of Vancouver is fulfilling its broad role as a mechanism for social change around sport participation, rather than spend time detailing all of the trivial flaws in what is an otherwise a very fluid Games.
Being able to deliver a Games at all in the wake of global economic meltdown is an achievement that many cities would not have been able to attain and, despite the controversies, medals will be won, countries will have been brought closer together through sport, and new legacies of spectator participation will have been forged through the Vancouver Olympics.
The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games may soon be regarded as the Twitter Olympics. You can keep track of my own postings via articles written for the Huffington Post. The first two entries for this Games have been about the Opening Ceremony and New Media Activism. Much more to come, including a piece on doping, the Olympic Truce. In the mean time, here's some retro stimulation:
[slideshare id=2644724&doc=miah2009wearethemedia-091203154944-phpapp01]
As the Vancouver 2010 Games approach, will these be a genetically modified Olympics? This essay is a reply to Friedmann, Rabin et al in Science this week.
At the end of 2009, I published a review of this new book from MIT Press in ScriptEd, the Edinburgh Law School journal. A must read for all artist activist wannabes... [issuu viewmode=presentation layout=http%3A%2F%2Fskin.issuu.com%2Fv%2Fcolor%2Flayout.xml backgroundcolor=FFFFFF showflipbtn=true documentid=100105163518-bcd5a1f845904992b39bf3201b57bf35 docname=tacticalbiopolitics username=andymiah loadinginfotext=(2009)%20Tactical%20Biopolitics%3A%20Art%2C%20Activism%20and%20Technoscience%20(book%20review) width=600 height=849 unit=px]
We should welcome with open arms the rich possibilities of technologically enhancing our bodies. Just so long as we don't all end up looking, and thinking, and acting the same.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/01/body-enhancement-cosmetic-surgery-genetics
From recycling to mass protests on social networks like Facebook, having an ethical conscience is becoming part of our daily lives. Now it's the turn of governments and companies to change, writes Andy Miah
From March 2009, I will be writing a monthly online clolumn for the Guardian's science section, focusing on ethics and emerging technologies. I will include links to articles here. April 09: Make me a superhero / March 09: 'We're All Activists Now' / still to come: social media / life-extension / ethical culture / cosmetic surgery / climate change / synthetic biology / artificial life
Yesterday, I received this comment on my 'Something Political' post in andymiah.wordpress.com : International Bloggers' Day for Burma on the 4th of October International bloggers are preparing an action to support the peaceful revolution in Burma. We want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons. These Bloggers are planning to refrain from posting to their blogs on October 4 and just put up one Banner then, underlined with the words „Free Burma!“.