Articoli taggati con ‘Identity’
Knowledge and exploitation of local resources: the historical centers of the Comino Valley
This contribution is focused on an area located in the southern area of the Lazio region called “Valle di Comino” that has valuable characteristics from an environmental and historical construction point of view. It’s part of a wider research path carried out within the Laboratory of Documentation Analysis Survey and Technical Architecture (DART) of the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio which deals with the analysis of the historical centers of southern Lazio, from architectural to environmental emergencies
Nudging, Gamification and Paternalism
Paternalism assumes an authority that tries to influence the behavior of people under its guidance in order to improve the wellbeing of the latter. This can be implemented by more or less strict regulations limiting the set of alternatives to choose from and thus reducing the freedom of choice. Alternatively, “libertarian paternalism” does not constrain the freedom of choice but takes advantage of the imperfections in decision-making abilities to push people to make choices that are good for themselves. This kind of pushing people is called “nudging” and a means of pushing people this way is called a “nudge.” Those who get nudged are sometimes called “nudgees,” and “nudgers” are those who “nudge.” When it comes to paternalism then the nudger is an authority, the State, the parents, etc. While, in principle, paternalism proper is coercive, nudging leaves the nudgee’s set of alternatives unchanged. Thus, nudging is a means to achieve the authority’s ends without, in principle, restricting the freedom of choice of decision makers, but make the decision makers decide what the authority is in fact aiming for. Paternalism based on nudging is also referred to as “soft paternalism.” Whitman and Rizzo (2007) elaborate on the warning of a “slippery slope” that leads from soft paternalism to “hard paternalism,” a non-libertarian paternalism implying regulations, legal constraints, and a reduction of freedom of choice, and thus represents a threat to their libertarian worldview. They write “soft paternalism – even if initially modest and non-intrusive – has the potential to pave the way for harder paternalism, including some policies of which the new paternalists themselves would disapprove. We conclude that policymaking based on new paternalist reasoning ought to be considered with much greater trepidation than its advocates suggest” (Whitman and Rizzo 2007: 413).
Does movie poetics dream of territories?
A concept we can not avoid in our days talking about culture and the direction we’re heading towards is globalization. It stretches itself out like an umbrella surrounding cultural phenome-na in a way not experienced before, and its creations make us wonder about our cinema lan-guages. In the global movie market certain national movie industries like the US one are more dominant than others. One might question if there is a kind of ‘cultural homogenization pro-cess’ behind? Still, there is a language emphasizing the local, there are movies that give us tales and stories about the site-specific grounded into their own cities. This article focuses upon these movies, relying on some basic theories within Cultural Semiotics by Jurij Lotman. Per-haps it is possible to see some kind of interaction and connection between these different kinds of movies, or perhaps they are two separate languages living in their own spheres?
Where is Berlin? Too many (virtual) walls shape the town and its communities
Whenever approaching a city for the first time there are different ways, patterns, walls, and stories to unearth its hidden string. I moved to Berlin in Ma, 2014 and suddenly, even before my arrival, I was already playing the most popular sport of the city: speaking about Berlin. This sport has been played with abandon by both recent newcomers to the city and long time Berliners. Such a crowded curiosity makes almost impossible to craft a suitable answer to the main question: where is Berlin? If we want to interpret and understand the city as the backbone for fertile arts field we need to start from the development and diversification of its cultural spaces.