We found the following set of questions on a site referring to the World Social Forum meeting in Karachi at the end of March.
They are quite stimulating so I thought I should share them with you. If any reader of this blog wants to tackle them, or stimulate me in doing so to start a dialogue, let me know.
Questions on virtuality and development:
In what sense is virtuality altering our concepts of property? Present debates on intellectual property rights seem to be largely governed by considerations of economics, law and politics. Are fresh questions being thrown up in regard to the relationship between private property and alienation? Is property now related to some new form of alienation and human activity? Will addressing such questions be relevant to reconstructing the debate on politics of emancipation?
Is virtuality just a new location for organisation or a radically new mode of organisation? Is there a relation between this question and images of new architecture of human settlements? Is the concept of network essential to it or just a contingent expression?
How is virtuality reshaping scientific research and institutions? Is the organisation of science changing in a far-reaching manner? What implications does it have for scientific practice?
Is network society the virtual society? Is weakening of the boundaries of the nation-state because the ruling classes are reconstituting themselves through a new unity in the virtual space? What is the consequence of such understanding for both the politics that there is and the politics of emancipation?
In what sense is virtual real? Are human sensibilities, physical, aesthetic and ethical simulated in the virtual space? Does it add only a new dimension to human existence or transform it altogether?
Would art now be as respectable as science in the world of knowledge? That is, does virtuality legitimise not only different locations of knowledge as suggested, but also create legitimate space for art in the epistemic world?
Knowledge in society is related to livelihood activity of the people without often being mediated by business. Does the virtual realm also provide such scope?
Software as knowledge, knowledge as software? What does the primacy of software imply for knowledge?