Socialism 2013 Conference

[Jimmie Higgins]

WeAreMany.org has begun posting mp3s of talks from the Historical Materialism Conference and the ISO's Socialism 2013 Conference:

The Political Economy of Racism (http://wearemany.org/a/2013/06/political-economy-of-racism)

Global Slump: The World Economy Since the Great Recession (http://wearemany.org/a/2013/06/global-slump) (David McNally (http://wearemany.org/bio/david-mcnally))

Marxism and Halloween (http://wearemany.org/a/2013/06/marxism-and-halloween) (China Miéville (http://wearemany.org/bio/china-mi%C3%A9ville))

Women, Work, and Austerity Today (http://wearemany.org/a/2013/06/women-work-and-austerity-today)

[Lucretia]

As always, the presentations are of varying quality but always usefully provocative.

[Hermes]

I really wish they'd included the comments/questions after the speech, instead of just the speaker.

--

Unless I'm missing something, and they did, somewhere.

[Le Socialiste]

I really wish they'd included the comments/questions after the speech, instead of just the speaker.

--

Unless I'm missing something, and they did, somewhere.

Which one? The audio and videos from the conference typically don't include questions or comments from the audience (probably on account of time). It would be cool, though. Some of the talks I sat in on had great discussions afterward - like Ahmed Shawki's talk on "Perspectives for the Left (http://wearemany.org/v/2013/06/perspectives-for-left)."

[Jimmie Higgins]

I really wish they'd included the comments/questions after the speech, instead of just the speaker.

--

Unless I'm missing something, and they did, somewhere.

No, they don't. They used to and I'm not sure what the specific reason is. I actually don't miss it and there were logistical problems with it. At the time when the recordings also covered the discussions, fewer talks were recorded - only the large and medium-sized ones - because there had to be at least one person in there recording the whole time, running around the room to stick a microphone near the people in discussion, etc. Now we just have people bring mp3 players and we just send one with the chairperson to each session - they put it on the podium and hit record and that's it.

The discussions at the conference are actually much more interesting to me now than when I first joined and the percentage of sort of flat discussions were higher IMO. So being at the conference and hearing or participating in a debate or having people bring up questions that make you think about something differently is worthwhile - but poorly recorded versions of those discussions where you can barely hear what people are saying... not so much.

It also slowed down the discussion because people had to wait for the guy with the microphone to run around like Phil Donahue and frankly when I was new to radical politics, it was intimidating to try and offer a point of view or ask a question with a recording microphone shoved under my face.


Some of the talks I sat in on had great discussions afterward - like Ahmed Shawki's talk on "Perspectives for the Left (http://wearemany.org/v/2013/06/perspectives-for-left)."Yeah I didn't go to that one and I'd love to hear that discussion actually. At any rate, as it is I think the wearemany site was a great idea and I wasn't able to go to conference last year so I pretty much just spent the next month listening to all the mp3s during my commutes to and from work.

[Hermes]

No, they don't. They used to and I'm not sure what the specific reason is. I actually don't miss it and there were logistical problems with it. At the time when the recordings also covered the discussions, fewer talks were recorded - only the large and medium-sized ones - because there had to be at least one person in there recording the whole time, running around the room to stick a microphone near the people in discussion, etc. Now we just have people bring mp3 players and we just send one with the chairperson to each session - they put it on the podium and hit record and that's it.

The discussions at the conference are actually much more interesting to me now than when I first joined and the percentage of sort of flat discussions were higher IMO. So being at the conference and hearing or participating in a debate or having people bring up questions that make you think about something differently is worthwhile - but poorly recorded versions of those discussions where you can barely hear what people are saying... not so much.

It also slowed down the discussion because people had to wait for the guy with the microphone to run around like Phil Donahue and frankly when I was new to radical politics, it was intimidating to try and offer a point of view or ask a question with a recording microphone shoved under my face.
work.

I understand the issue regarding logistics, I just think it's a real shame that they were effectively lost. I think it kind of warps the discussion a lot (I'm not arguing this is intentional, again logistics), especially in certain sessions where there were a couple of comments/questions that put forth ideas totally opposed or unique to those of the speaker.

It also seems odd to do so especially with those that also had video included with them, but iunno.

--

I'm not saying the wearemany site is bad; I love that I can easily link people to the talks, etc.

[Lucretia]

The thing is, in order to capture audio clearly, you don't really need to have a Donahue-type setup. Maybe to capture professional studio-quality samples, yes. But to capture decent audio, all you really need is a decent handheld recorder, and MAYBE have it hooked up to a couple of wireless mics in two or three other places in the room. And the sound quality of the people giving the talks actually doesn't sound noticeably better than such a setup anyway. Perhaps the tech people should consider not treating the wearemany recordings as basically identical with the in-room speaker/audio setup.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The thing is, in order to capture audio clearly, you don't really need to have a Donahue-type setup. Maybe to capture professional studio-quality samples, yes. But to capture decent audio, all you really need is a decent handheld recorder, and MAYBE have it hooked up to a couple of wireless mics in two or three other places in the room. And the sound quality of the people giving the talks actually doesn't sound noticeably better than such a setup anyway. Perhaps the tech people should consider not treating the wearemany recordings as basically identical with the in-room speaker/audio setup.no, trust me, listening to 45 minutes of barely audible questions, random coughing and electric buzzing is not worth the effort.

As it is now, the tech people only have to set up by puting ipods with recorders in boxes and when the chairperson goes to the session, they sign it out on a clipboard and grab one. This way it's very little effort and all the presentations are recorded.

Going through, setting up multiple microphones for 8 or so talks four times a day and then going back and synching and engineering the sound would be a nightmare IMO.

[The Idler]

Seriously though, the SPGB record and share all their talks and audience discussion (in fact have been doing since the 1970s) using one recorder and it works fine 99% of the time.