Monthly Archive for July, 2007

veritas – gpsts

Published by nesson on July 31, 2007 in harvard, poker, rhetorical space, SET and trust. Closed

“To avoid destruction, the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.” george kennan

lovely thought
but a huge problem

the ideal of our nation is a government under law, not under men
yet now ingrained deep in our government is an attitude that deploys law as a weapon rather than follows law as an ideal

this ingrained ends justifies means attitude to the weilding of prosecutorial power corrupts the ideal of law.

imagine the universe of people divided among three groups in relation to law.
one group consists of those who obey rules because that’s what they have been taught to do. think of this group as a flock that asks and perhaps needs to be taken care of. another group consists of individuals who see rules for what they are and rises above them or sneaks below them when there is need. this second group subdivides between those who constrain them selves by belief in and expression of law as an ideal expressed in ethical behavior, make this group two, and those who abuse the credibility of law by abuse of power, group three.

my goal is to lead group two in its tension with group three to become self aware and combine its rhetorical force to express enlightening truth.

i teach law at harvard law school. i teach about truth and evidence of truth sufficient to persuade. i’ve been teaching Evidence at hls for enough years to have an army of students who might welcome from their old teacher and help propagate a new approach to truth and persuasion

truth, not just logical but emotional and physical. i believe there is truth in our hearts which we can seek to know in our minds and express in our actions. i am a student of truth. each of us has our own. i am we are students expressing truth. i am teacher. we are teachers. i want my students to find truth in themselves and express it.

truth for our future lies in a balance of power which has seen for profit legal corporations influence law in their self interest to the point of crushing public information space with law. but now a new form of organization is capable of thriving, made possible by the internet’s enabling people to connect. as legal architects we are able to conceive and propagate new forms of legal organization

my path to teaching my conception of truth leads to and through teaching poker as skill in seeing and understanding from another’s point of view. i teach this as a fundamental skill not just for lawyers but for anyone who is eager to learn how the rhetorical world works and connect it to the physical. i teach the teaching of it as exemplar and research.

there is corruption of law in relation to poker. our government seeks to kill online poker as collateral damage to its gambling hypocrisy, passing a midnight bill that never saw committee as part of a terrorism act, prosecuting the founding companies and individuals who made online poker possible, and thumbing its nose at little Antigua and no doubt soon to give the finger to the WTO which has ruled in Antigua’s favor against our govt.

this is exemplary of the corruption of law i would like to see our government foreswear.

i want to array the intelligent forces of the poker playing poker thinking world against it.

the united states government v. the intelligent forces of the poker playing poker thinking world

–announcing a trial on the issue of the legitimacy of teaching games of skill and of learning how to create environments in which to learn and play–

–announcing a poker strategic thinking workshop in singapore–

Online Poker – Internet Freedom – Open Education

Organized by the newly forming Global Poker Strategic Thinking
Society, this workshop combines open philosophy, internet strategy,
instructional entertainment, and vision of a line of development for
integrated real and virtual education fueled by human interest in
mastering games of skill, poker in the lead. We will begin by
distributing in advance of our workshop a paper on education in
virtual worlds. We will aim our trajectory going forward as projection
of a new way of thinking embodied in the learning and understanding of
a game. We will demonstrate the teaching of the game to beginners. We
will talk about why it is a good idea to teach poker to kids. We will
demonstrate transition to an integrated real and virtual internet
environment. We will introduce team play. We will examine
critical issues relating to poker and other games of skill in
education and beyond. What are the key strategic thinking points of
departure? How far should we go in promoting poker in the field of
education? Should poker be taught to children on the $100 laptop?
Can poker and poker strategic thinking serve as a departure point for
openness on the Internet, global education, and beyond. We do not
expect any previous knowledge of poker. We invite participation by those with
curiosity to learn.

international poker

Published by nesson on July 26, 2007 in General, poker, rhetorical space and trust. 1 Comment

so exciting for me to read rachel brewster’s paper on reputation. she teaches me evidence of truth at the level of nation states. she speaks of agreements that are “enforced” by mutual benefit, of agreements enforced by fear of sanction, of agreements enforced by fear of loss of reputation for keeping agreements.

so how did it go at cato

meeting itself disappointing but informative of how unrecognized and unrecognizable the antigua story is
set-up by cato not bad
thank you sally james
mendel begged for negotiation and made clear that he’s been wanting negotiation all along
jackson remarkably uninformed and obtuse but clear that the us govt defense will be mistake and then fight on the form and size of the award and bet that when the chips are down the wto won’t want to go there
vision a rhetorical poker table with players sitting round
antigua, us govt, EU, developing nations, WTO
so imagine
wto says antigua can violate us copyright
what happens next

i want to meet the warden

Published by nesson on July 25, 2007 in General and jamaica. Closed

wayne marshall
to me

show details
9:09 pm (16 minutes ago)
and we thought radio and riddims made for some off-the-chain rehab. check out this routine, c/o 1500+ Filipino prisoners !

what is the story behind this video. who are the people that made it. has the making of it had positive effect on individuals and institution. is it possible that a different way of thinking could change prisons.

flash singapore – from becca

Published by nesson on July 25, 2007 in General. Closed

Re: filter flash (SoP Edition) Inbox

Rebecca Nesson
to Patrick, me, Geoff

show details
7:01 pm (11 hours ago)
Hi Patrick,

I can fill in a few details.

For Internet & Society, you may want to talk to Geoff McGovern, the Second Life teaching fellow for that course. I’ve cc’ed him on this email. In that class they actually webcast the class meetings live into Second Life so that distance education students could participate in the classes in real time. Geoff will have more information on how they made use of the Second Life platform.

For State of Play V, it should definitely be put right up front that Prof. Nesson and a team of students from the law school and the college are going to present a workshop on poker and education and to open discussion about the idea of creating and using existing virtual/online poker environments for education. I’ve cc’ed my father on this email so that he can put you in touch with either Elizabeth Stark or Andrew Woods, the students who are doing the organization for their workshop. In addition, my father will be presenting a paper that he and I have co-authored on the use of virtual worlds for education.

Finally, it may be worth mentioning the role that Berkman Island played in the earlier State of Play conference for which it was built as well as the continuing Berkman events that are hosted regularly at Berkman Island and are open to the public, such as the fellows lunch series. Catherine Bracy will be the best person to give you the details on that stuff.

One more thing — though speculative, might be included. That is that the Extension School is seeking to collaborate with the Berkman Center on expanding the Second Life campus so that it can accomodate more Extension School classes and can also serve as an instructors’ resource center with guides to using virtual worlds in teaching as well as helpful teaching tools that can be used in virtual classrooms.

I hope that helps!
Becca

On 7/24/07, Patrick McKiernan wrote:

Rebecca –

With all of the Second Life talk going on I wanted to see if I could get your input on Berkman history in Second Life for a special issue of the Filter we are going to send out in advance of State of Play. Gene was kind enough to make a list of courses below, but if you have any details or additions to make, they would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much.

Pat

Gene Koo wrote:
>
> Berkman’s work in virtual worlds combines our interest in leading-edge network technologies with innovations in education. This summer, we are co-sponsoring the State of Play V conference in Singapore, where our own Catherine Bracy and Gene Koo will be leading a workshop on how virtual worlds can be used for purposeful teaching as well as open-ended learning. Bringing together leading commercial game designers, educators, and Singapore government officials, the workshop collides the global with the virtual.
>
> Not just convening discussion, Berkman has been leading the way in using virtual environments for education:
>
> * CyberOne (Fall 2006) – the first law class taught in Second Life. Taught by Prof. Charles Nesson at HLS and Rebecca Nesson with Gene Koo at Harvard Extension. This class was also noteworthy in being open to all takers.
> * Trials in Second Life (Winter, Spring, Fall 2007) – Prof. and Ms. Nesson continued their work in Second Life, using a virtual courtroom on Berkman Island to conduct mock trials and taking advantage of the unique features of a virtual environment.
> * Internet & Society – [not sure?]
> * Virtual Worlds: What They Are, How People Are Using Them, And How You Can Too (Fall 2007) — Examines models for virtual world law and government, economics and business, cultural norms, art, education, and activism. Rebecca Nesson.
> * Hub2 (Fall 2007) – In this collaboration among the City of Boston, Emerson College, and Berkman, Boston residents reimagine their public and civic spaces using Second Life. Gene Koo.
>
>
>
>

—
Patrick McKiernan
Communications Coordinator
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard Law School
(617) 384-9100 (P)

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu

think.poker.asia

Published by nesson on July 14, 2007 in General. Closed

think poker.islam

think we can make cyberspace what we want it to be
knowledge beyond authority

foucault – think poker

Published by nesson on July 11, 2007 in poker. Closed

if you want to ride along on the world series of poker, if you enjoyed holden’s big deal and the original alverez, then latch on to foucault. reading him is like being there.

Forwarded Conversation
Subject: Quick Update
————————

From: andrew@bostondebate.org
Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 4:11 AM

Wow, what an absolutely huge day today. I’ll get out a report with all
the details hopefully tomorrow, but I finished with 344,100 (average
should be around 160,000), up from 30,100 at the beginning of the day.

Off to bed.

——–
From: Charles Nesson
To: “andrew@bostondebate.org”
Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 6:31 AM

fantastic
go go go
i am totally hanging on your reports
they are great

—
when appropriate (in my judgment) to an open project and not sensitive (in my judgment) in terms of privacy, i may post email to my blog. all privacy requests respected.

I left the house around 11AM on Friday bound for the Rio and the main
event of the 2007 World Series of Poker. Vegas is experiencing record
highs for the week, with the thermometer topping out near 120 degrees.
It’s enough to leave me sweating after a two block walk to the car. As
I cruised up I-15 with A/C on full blast, George Thorogood came on the
radio. I’m not generally the sort to sing out loud, but this seemed
like a good way to get pumped up, so I declared along with him that I
was, “B-b-b-b-b-aaaaaad. Bad to the bone!” Then, sadly, an even more
fitting song came on: Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”.

This year, 6000 people are expected to enter the $10,000 poker
tournament. If that number proves accurate, then there will be 5999
broken hearts. No one enters the tournament without a dream of winning
it, and in fact, everyone has a chance, no matter how slim, of
actually taking home the bracelet. One of the keys to poker’s appeal
is that it blends elements of skill and luck. The best players win
often enough to show a profit, but they still lose often enough to
give everyone else a chance. Even though I believe I had a substantial
edge over last year’s field, I was still very fortunate to finish in
the money. There were many players better than I who did not do as
well, and many players worse than I who did better. That’s poker, and
heart-breaking as it can be, it’s also the beauty of the game.

***

Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984)
Truth, for Michel Foucault, is problematic when any attempt is made to see truth as an “objective” quality. He prefers not to use the term truth itself but “Regimes of Truth”. In his historical investigations he found truth to be something that was itself a part of, or embedded within, a given power structure.

begin with the meta idea of truth we all share
each of us may have our own and all of us have one
move to the necker cube and three hats and seeing from another’s point of view
then poker
foucault – think poker
cc on the chips – icommons

taking the copyright fight to a new arena

Published by nesson on July 2, 2007 in poker. Closed

the narrative of the new york times story is that larry wants to win a rollback of the length of the copyright term but finds the mindset of copyright forever immovably entrenched by corruption. ok. larry, shifts focus from creative commons to corruption.

what if the corruption of larry’s concern is an expression of our economic archtecture only to be changed when the current dominating bloom of for profit corporations is balanced by proliferation of open architectures for producing value.

wikipedia but a beginning — all of education lies ahead.

what is larry fighting for. what is the arena of his action. he says let’s not think about a judicial solution, let’s think about a democratic solution. a democratic internet solution. internet freedom. let’s teach about truth as it is now open to us to do, mediate it with point of view, tickle the kids with a riddle, build diadic truth into a game, internet poker with creative commons chips. kids learn about copyright right from the start. internet education in democracy in action. icommons.

knowledge beyond authority