post). But the query is, how useful are these skills inward a historic catamenia when computers no longer exist? If nosotros are preparation ourselves to hold out amend together with amend at using computers – i.e. thinking similar computers – aren’t nosotros getting less together with less proficient at NOT using computers? (Of course, non only are their cognitive tradeoffs to hold out considered amongst our increased Web use, in that location are negative psychological consequences to this every bit good – which is the subject of my side past times side blog.)
Another affair that becomes clear inward reading this mass is that the tenets that underpin applied scientific discipline are self-reinforcing. For example, Carr identifies the Internet every bit 1 of many “intellectual technologies,” inward that they seek to “extend or back upwards our mental powers” (44). In using the Internet, nosotros tacitly select the correctness of this endeavor; together with the to a greater extent than nosotros purpose the Internet, the to a greater extent than nosotros come upwards to value its cause. Nowhere is this to a greater extent than evident than inward Google itself. Carr quotes Richard Koman, who said that Google “‘has boot the bucket a truthful believer inward its ain goodness, a belief which justifies its ain prepare of rules regarding corporate ethics, anti-competition, client service together with its house inward society’” (164). Here nosotros encounter inward activeness the reshuffling of the hierarchy of value system. Whereas 1 time honesty together with community etc. may own got been at the top, hither they are subordinated to liberty of information. (For evidence of this, authorities annotation the many lawsuits against Google’s Book Search together with their dismissive, cavalier attitude, Google’s Eric Schmidt saying: “‘Imagine the cultural impact of putting tens of millions of previously inaccessible volumes into 1 vast index, every give-and-take of which is searchable past times anyone, rich or poor, urban or rural, First World or Third, en toute langue – together with all, of course, solely for free’” (162).) The Google Book Project vaults “data” together with “information” to the pinnacle of our priorities, asserting withal 1 time to a greater extent than “the machine” over “the garden” (167). It is lilliputian surprise, then, that Westerners encounter their bully philanthropic mission every bit beingness the increased access to information for supposedly ‘disadvantaged’ populations (e.g. the well-meaning but solely misguided One Laptop Per Child Initiative; proving that poverty is measured inward diminished informational resources, rather than diminished social bonds, happiness, etc.).
What is fifty-fifty to a greater extent than worrying – together with frankly insulting – is the assertion past times these intellectual technologies (the Web to a greater extent than so than others, I would argue) that nosotros would hold out “‘better off’ if our brains were supplemented, or fifty-fifty replaced, past times artificial intelligence” (173). When societies were becoming literate, in that location was similar debate most the impact it would own got on people’s minds. Socrates feared that writing would learn people to boot the bucket less subject on their ain memory, together with retrieve things “not from within themselves, but past times way of external marks” (177). And he was right. But this is always to a greater extent than truthful amongst the Internet, which encourages people to completely offload their retention to the Web, to relieve upwards precious encephalon space. But Socrates’ wariness should show to us exactly how far our draw inward the sand has moved, how much nosotros own got been changed past times our technology. If books were at 1 fourth dimension anathema to us, together with at nowadays many of us encounter cypher incorrect amongst deferring past times default to Google’s search results, it should advise to us that perhaps nosotros involve to rethink the seemingly unquestionable feel of the mission of intellectual technologies.
Another way that applied scientific discipline changes us is that it homogenizes us culturally, so that nosotros lose all rich, human ways of doing every bit nosotros supersede them amongst specifically technological ways of doing. (This is some other ground for my aversion to One Laptop Per Child – pushing Western values to non-Western countries.) Carr writes, “Culture is to a greater extent than than the aggregate of what Google describes every bit ‘the world’s information.’ It’s to a greater extent than than what tin dismiss hold out reduced to binary code together with uploaded onto the Net. To rest vital, civilization must hold out renewed inward the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, together with civilization withers” (197). He quotes Richard Foreman, who argues that offloading retention threatens both the depth of civilization together with the depth of self: “‘I come upwards from a tradition of Western culture,’ he wrote, ‘in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense together with ‘cathedral-like’ construction of the highly educated together with articulate personality – a adult man or adult woman who carried within themselves a personally constructed together with unique version of the entire heritage of the West.’ But now, he continued, ‘I encounter within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density amongst a novel variety of self – evolving nether the pressure level of information overload together with the applied scientific discipline of the ‘instantly available.’ As nosotros are drained of our ‘inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,’ Foreman concluded, nosotros jeopardy turning into ‘pancake people – spread broad together with sparse every bit nosotros connect amongst that vast network of information accessed past times the mere touching of a button’” (196).
The finally way that applied scientific discipline changes us is that nosotros blueprint our societies to component around its capabilities; or every bit Weizenbaum says, “Such technologies boot the bucket component of ‘the real materials out of which adult man builds his world” (206). Carr quotes Weizenbaum futher: “‘The estimator was non a prerequisite to the survival of modern social club inward the post-war catamenia together with beyond,’ Weizenbaum argued; ‘its enthusiastic, uncritical encompass past times the most “progressive” elements of American government, business, together with manufacture made it a resources essential to society’s survival in the form that the estimator itself had been instrumental inward shaping’” (207). Carr explains further: “Comptuers would come upwards to mediate the activities that define people’s everyday lies – how they learn, how they think, how they socialize. What the history of intellectual technologies shows us, he warned, is that ‘the introduction of computers into some complex human activities may found an irreversible commitment.’ Our intellectual together with social lives may, similar our industrial routines, come upwards to reverberate the cast that the estimator imposes on them” (207). Just every bit Carr warned from the beginning: “The estimator concealment bulldozes our doubts amongst its bounties together with conveniences. It is so much our retainer that it would appear churlish to notice that it is besides our master” (4). This is because, “Once (206) adopted , they tin dismiss never hold out abandoned, at to the lowest degree non without plunging social club into ‘great confusion together with mayhap talk chaos.’ An intellectual technology, he wrote, ‘becomes an indispensible constituent of whatsoever construction 1 time it is to thoroughly integrated amongst the structure, so enmeshed inward diverse vital substructures, that it tin dismiss no longer hold out factored out without fatally impairing the whole structure’” (207).
My concern is this: Everything nosotros know every bit humans (from our spiritual traditions, social taboos, etc.) should enjoin us that nosotros should resist the mesmerizing effect of these intellectual technologies, together with withal nosotros sacrifice these values because adopting them is easier to do. But similar every empire, the Age of the Computer volition 1 solar daytime autumn (just every bit cars volition every bit fossil fuels dry out upwards together with nuclear ability cannot provide plenty unloosen energy to the grid to provide for an electrical auto society), together with when that comes, I’m afraid we’ll hold out real ashamed of having eschewed our human values for technological ones.
I desire to terminate on a to a greater extent than positive note. The existent query most the ability of applied scientific discipline should hold out this: How exercise nosotros purpose it to our advantage? Can nosotros encounter promise inward the transformative affects of media? Firstly, every bit Langdon Winner pointed out, “technologies are non exactly aids to human activity, but besides powerful forces acting to reshape that activity together with its meaning” (47). To us, this should cry for that if nosotros blueprint responsibly, nosotros tin dismiss own got a huge impact on our real worldview. So exactly every bit the mechanical clock “helped select into beingness the scientific hear together with the scientific man” (44), it is possible that a spiritualized cyberspace powerfulness create an altogether dissimilar man, perhaps an incarnation that’s to a greater extent than sensitive to issues of human/nature harmony. And secondly, if nosotros recognize that the add-on of a medium affects all other media – inward McLuhan’s words, ‘It never ceases to oppress the older media until it finds novel shapes together with positions for them’ (89) – together with then if nosotros create a novel Internet, it has the ability to send upon the Internet nosotros own got now. In other words, nosotros are non inward contest amongst previous, highly pop incarnations of the Web. By innovating cyberspace creatively, nosotros may ameliorate the negative impacts of the Web (as nosotros know it today) past times exactly opening eyes to an alternative.
0 comments
Post a Comment