Alan’s next experiment

@Alanji I won’t be able to attend, but were I to come I wouldn’t want it to be recorded either. I think it’s best to take a vote and record only if there are no objections. I can see no purpose of recording such meetings except for for the participants own benefit - but people can also take notes.

Sorry to hear that.

So far as recording is concerned, my initial intention was to make the recording available only to participants or possibly registered members (I think this is possible$). Possibly at a later date I might publish an extract if it were particularly inspiring or informative (maybe with permission¥) - like Geoffrey‘s zoom recording which has inspired a lot of people, me included. Surely this could be of possible great benefit to others.

What is your objection to video recording? Is it the fact there is a video in which you could be recognised, which I can understand, but it is possible to turn off your video (not ideal). What about voice recording? It is possible to record voice only and also to publish voice only.

¥ an undertaking to publish only with permission could be rather meaningless. There is nothing to prevent anyone with a copy from publishing it. (Other than pure intent of course😉)

$ these are the options which are available. Not sure what “authenticated users” or some other options mean.

Share this cloud recording
Share this recording

Publicly
OR
Only authenticated users can view: Signed-in users in my account

Add expiry date to the link

Viewers can download

View recording on demand (registration required)

Passcode protection


Sunday morning tends to be a busy time for me. Late morning onwards is better. Anyway I’ve got a birthday party this Sat and can’t make it. I don’t want you to work around me as it’s unclear when I can join. You should all go ahead though. I think it’s a fine idea.

I don’t have anything against recording per se. It’s just that - at this stage anyway - I wouldn’t want an informal chat I’m involved in to be recorded. More a preference right now than some hard objection. Lots of reasons: privacy, spontaneity, comfort, not wanting something I say casually to be captured for posterity and taken out of context etc. I might change my mind about this down the track.

you have chosen to attack me (water off a ducks back) rather than look at some of the issues my posts have brought up for you.

On the contrary, lately I am more open to how I am feeling than ever, with a lot less actualist morality keeping a lid on things. That doesn’t mean I plan to start expressing left, right and centre, but whereas usually I might have essentially pretended to be harmless by not writing what I mean, I did my best job at the time of writing something fair whilst being aware of feelings as well.

I realised lately I have so many actualist rules for myself (such as cognitively reframing as you just have that everything is “water off a ducks back” whilst repressing feelings), that I am choosing to explore my feelings a lot more.

I think we feeling beings in this forum are probably all guilty of trying to act like we are already free. It’s such a trap. My aim is to be as harmless as possible but I will no longer repress feelings in order to offer a poor man’s imitation of harmlessness (which breaks down so easily under pressure anyway).

In terms of what I wrote, I don’t see an attack. But yeah I am pushing back on what looks to me like an attempt to exert some status and authority in this group. As an example, look at the way you responded to @Srinath’s concerns about recording compared to how you responded to me. You might find some beliefs about hierarchy/status there.

Just my two cents - I think a vote is superfluous as there’s already a vote implicit in it, which is who wants to participate. Alan wants to do this chat his way. He is the one setting it up so of course it’s up to him. His way is to record the video so as to be a benefit to others, that’s Alan’s opinion that it will be beneficial, others may disagree.

The people that agree with the format, ‘vote’ by participating, and those that don’t, don’t. I don’t see anything ‘wrong’ with this. Anyone can set up their own chat, and organize the time, get people to participate, etc, without recording it.

And whoever does participate can do so to the degree they feel comfortable - from most anonymous (no video, pseudonym) to least anonymous (video, real name (first & last?? lol)).

And whoever doesn’t want to participate - it is their choice, nothing gained nor lost.

If Alan’s goal was to get as many people to participate, then he could hold a vote and pick the format such that the most people participate. But if his goal is to record a video chat among people who want to be recorded, then that is a different matter and a vote doesn’t make sense.

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I think you hit the nail on the head, @claudiu, and Alan must choose between the possibility of having more participants without recording, or recording with fewer participants.

Personally I have no problem with my voice being recorded (and not because it probably won’t come out due to my inability to speak English :grin:) or my image (although those who see my face live -as in Geoffrey’s meeting-, will doubt that the one in the picture is still me, so maybe it’s time to change that photo… :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:).

That said, I do have a preference to hear from more of you. So I would prefer Alan not to record the meeting if that way Felix participated (or anyone else who may have decided -may be without saying so- not to do it for that reason).

However, maybe Alan wants to privilege the possibility of sharing it over the number of participants.

So, as @claudiu said, Alan is free to record or not his meeting, and the rest of us are free to participate or not in it.

I have no special desire to record, especially the early meetings (assuming we have more). As I already said, possibly the greatest benefit would be enabling the participants to listen to what has been discussed. This was a great boon during the intimate ambience experiment which Claudiu recorded.

It is also possible to record the conversation (not using the zoom recording) without anyone ever knowing, so giving any sort of undertaking could be superfluous. However, it’s all we’ve got. Let’s see what people think (multiple choices possible):

Accessing recording
  • Share with participants only
  • Share with discourse registered members
  • Share only with anyone who requests the link
  • Publish the link on the forum (discoverable)

0 voters

Yikes. Zoom meetings are recordable without anyone knowing? I guess this is true for all conversations everywhere. Time to re-think privacy expectations. :thinking:. Personally, I love the idea of a permanent room for face to face talk. But I hate the idea of anyone being able to record incognito. This is especially true for any conversations that can turn personal as these would more often than not. :thinking:

Yes true of all conversations. TBH I have not tested recording video but am pretty sure it is easy (certainly for anyone fairly competent). Dona sometimes records my conversations with the oncologist and doctors (very useful).
I always assume that anything I put out on the Internet - video, chat, email et cetera is publicly available/visible.

Why do you hate the idea Jon?

Because it’s so easy to do. A phone call can be recorded but I never think of it. It takes a little bit more conniving malice to set it up and it would be much harder to be used against me for no one knows who I am. No one knows my face. That changes with zoom. So some dummy can just press record while I’m talking about that one time I peed on a cat while rimming myself to the sweet melodies of Enya. Then go and put it on YouTube. And now my future employer at the pet store has second thoughts about hiring me.

LOL Good tale Jon. Hope it’s tue :rofl:

In some contexts that might make you more employable!

Regarding the record / don’t record issue, maybe it’s the millennial in me but I’m pretty ambivalent. I don’t think there is a 100% right answer either way, we’re all beginners at this. We have no idea what will happen on the video call, and no idea how some future ‘potential actualist’ (whatever that is) or potential employer may or may not respond to seeing it. It’s an experiment.

I would like this to be what each of us experiences tomorrow.

Sitting with friends, utterly relaxed and noticing that there was no personal agenda whatsoever, no plan to stir the conversation into a particular direction, nothing to emphasize or hide, no self-centredness or favouritism, no shame, shyness, embarrassment, no power or drive – just being as I was. Sitting in this group, as one of many, my sole interest was that everyone present (including me as one of those present) enjoyed themselves/ obtained the maximum benefit from our meeting.”
(Apologies to Vineeto)

I highly recommend becoming free of the human condition!

Go for it Henry. You have my 100% support. It is also the only thing one can do to impress Richard (from the horses mouth)

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He said something similar to me! I remember feeling very ‘taken aback’ that none of my usual tricks worked on them. It’s a very strange feeling.

It was/is a nice bit of back pressure for me - impress Richard, ‘I’ want that lol

Yes it can be quite a shock to discover that none of ones precious tricks and strategies work. Sometimes I think about emailing Vineeto and discover a reluctance to do so - it might be an admin matter, yet ‘I’ know
‘I’ can’t get away with bluffing, boasting, approval seeking, pretending, hiding, showing off, wanting answers or any other of these pathetic attempts to reinforce ‘my’ existence, even if attempting to cunningly disguise it as actualism progress.

Yes, it’s true for anything, so it seems wise to re-think our privacy expectations.

I do not mean by this that we should purposely expose ourselves to situations that can indeed generate problems of exposure, like so many people whose privacy has been violated or misused (memes, tweets, disclosed health conditions, personal data) with negative consequences in their work and family life.

But it is true that these possibilities are increasingly in other hands, and that it is a good opportunity to investigate what part of our precautions belong the sensible and what part to the self that we want to eliminate.

Personally I did’t know, so this lack of knowledge led me to choose to experiment with myself to see how I felt participating in this public forum (which I had not done in Richard’s) and without anonymity.

Although some of those negative aspects may emerge over time, so far the positive ones included witnessing emotional reactions related to how I value what my acquaintances or relatives may think of me, with my shame, with my fears, with my prestige, with exposing my defects, with my difficulties in articulating language or thought, with the possibility of being corrected, with the possibility that someone may use what I expose with bad intentions, etc.

I clarify, as on other occasions, that this is a descriptive and not a prescriptive comment, as I am not saying that all this cannot be achieved in private forums and/or preserving anonymity in our expositions.

It is an experiment with myself which, as such, I may change in the future.

Great to hear Miguel :grin::grin::grin::grin:

Hey everyone,

I’m posting this in both threads related to the Zoom call. Alan won’t be able to make it today as he had to go to the hospital for due to some complications related to his cancer. I’m not sure what this means for the video call today. Dona’s with him right now and asked me to let ya’ll know.