Interlude: Suspension For Reflection

The chapters summarized so far described the spiritual failure of technology: "The ideology has encouraged narrow philosophies that deny the mystery of the existence of experience. H5N1 practical work that tin trickle downward from this error is that nosotros larn vulnerable to redirecting the restrain of faith nosotros telephone phone 'hope' away from people as well as toward gadgets" (75). The 2nd failure, according to Lanier, is behavioral, i.e. our designs are leading to the undervaluing of humans.

I am starting fourth dimension to recognize the scale of the work nosotros receive got gotten ourselves into. This is non just nearly technology. Our engineering scientific discipline is a production of other societal structures. For example:
1. The to a greater extent than nosotros offload our private responsibleness to the "hive" - e.g. instead of reading a book, nosotros read other people's digested summaries of the volume available online - the to a greater extent than nosotros demand the blueprint of the noosphere. This is work of time, as well as it's a fell circle.

Take the pedestrian illustration of the vacuum cleaner: this was advertised since the 1950s equally something that makes women’s piece of work easier, relieving them from the burdens of taking the carpets exterior as well as beating the dust out of them. Whereas before, this was commonly a two-person job, at nowadays thank you lot to the vacuum cleaner, the adult woman should survive able to exercise this on her own. The reality of this engineering scientific discipline inwards the abode is that, yes, the deed of cleaning the carpets was made easier, but this solely raised the expectations for women’s responsibilities some the house. And the vacuum cleaner was solely i inwards a hit of technologies aimed at women some this fourth dimension ostensibly to brand doing housework easier. As this tendency continued through the decades, the number of bringing these devices into the abode was to brand private tasks easier, but to brand the undertaking of doing housework on the whole much bigger for women, i.e. their remit expanded to come across growing expectations nearly their might to perform tasks inwards less time. The number of things a modern homemaker is at nowadays single-handedly responsible for far exceeds that of the pre-technological home, as well as these added pressures receive got been linked to increased rates of anxiety for the modern woman.

The same simulated hope tin survive constitute inwards the aggregation of content inwards the noosphere. Seemingly this saves you lot time. Other people exercise the piece of work for you. But the fact that you lot supposedly receive got this novel time, you lot are at nowadays expected to exercise fifty-fifty more. Thus you lot at nowadays need the noosphere to digest cloth for you, because you lot don't receive got fourth dimension to think deeply yourself. When I think nearly why I'm blogging now, it is because I am desperately trying to relieve myself fourth dimension inwards the future. I receive got noticed inwards myself a worrying lack of might to think deeply for long stretches of time. Much of my query activity involves becoming increasingly skilful at extracting information. I discovery it hard to assimilate a volume inwards its entirety; but I tin easily collect quotes. Has this musculus begun to atrophy because of my reliance on technologies? To think! - our ancestors could memorize entire books verbatim! And I can't retrieve a i judgement quote accurately without referring to my notes.

My indicate is that nosotros demand to conform the dial a chip inwards lodge as well as permit ourselves to piece of work engineering scientific discipline to brand life easier without as well as so having to fill upwards that gratis fourth dimension amongst e'er to a greater extent than work. I think nosotros must plough to Max Weber for an explanation of how as well as why our psychologies got so screwed up. The indicate is that whether or non nosotros alter technology, it volition non truly alter us unless nosotros also alter the social structures that created the solid soil inwards which these soulless technologies were most probable to succeed. Now that's a huge problem, as well as I fright that nosotros may just demand to hitting stone bottom earlier nosotros realize the demand to brand such large changes.

2. One such huge structural alter nosotros desperately demand is a novel valuation system. Currently, coin is valued equally an halt inwards as well as of itself. In monastic enjoin for a engineering scientific discipline to survive worth the fourth dimension as well as endeavour required to develop it, it has to survive profitable. To survive profitable, i must blueprint quickly, earlier someone else makes it first. This necessarily results inwards a reject of quality; as well as it agency that it at that spot is no incentive for designers to recess as well as survive reflective, to consider the human implications of their design. In other words, nosotros demand a novel incentive structure. And that's some other huge problem. (Who is going to fund the evolution of a novel incentive structure!!! - that seems to survive a paradox.)

3. Something I think nosotros tin exercise immediately, however, is to develop novel describe organisation models for websites. The fact that Facebook makes coin from advertising has a profound conduct on on the way they care for their users: equally mindless, easily influenced morons who must survive spoonfed what they demand (precisely because they don't know what they demand equally good equally "social graph" analysis does). I don't think that nosotros are that stupid, as well as I think we've caught on to the manipulation of spider web advertisements, equally sneaky equally they are. But I exercise think that beingness bombarded past times Consumerism is unhealthy, as well as it sure enough makes it hard to receive got spiritual experiences inwards those virtual spaces.

4. And I think some other affair nosotros tin exercise is essay to conceive of novel opportunities for self-expression where i is encouraged to tell his/her story, to create a personal journey, as well as to discovery unique agency of representing themselves. We should exercise the exact reverse of anonymize people. Part of that is to encourage contextualization of contributions.

5. We should also avoid automating whatsoever creative processes. The minute a reckoner makes a creative determination for you, the minute you lot halt having to fifty-fifty consider whether at that spot were other (better) ways of doing the same thing. This inwards itself volition require a greater creative effort, which volition heighten the experience of creating, increment one's feeling of personal accomplishment, as well as permit people to communicate themselves to a greater extent than uniquely (see 4).

6. I think nosotros may fifty-fifty demand to reconsider the "search engine" equally beingness the best way to discovery information. The search engine is an extracting machine that allows us to skim along the surface of important (see 1), thus using this equally the dominant tool for finding information necessarily changes the way nosotros think: nosotros larn "pancake people": our "complex inner density" as well as "inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance" becoming thinner as well as thinner (Carr, 2008). The internet, made navigatable past times the search engine, "stresses immediacy, simultaneity, contingency, subjectivity, disposability, as well as to a higher identify all, speed. The Net provides no incentive to halt as well as think deeply nearly anything, to build inwards our retention that ‘dense repository’ of cognition that Foreman cherishes…. On the Internet, nosotros seemed impelled to glide across the slick surface of information equally nosotros brand our rushed passage from link to link" (ibid). What would hap if nosotros built the cyberspace on a model that to a greater extent than closely resembles the way query was done earlier Google? - i.e. people recommending books to i another. We may halt upwards amongst to a greater extent than personal interactions, that may inwards plough atomic number 82 to the evolution of existent friendships.

7. Lanier descibes at the halt of chapter three what seems to survive a spiritual appointment amongst a music forum. The telephone substitution to this experience is the way inwards which the site is designed to permit people to part their passions, as well as through that procedure part themselves, so that they are non anonymous fragments but rather known participants inwards a community. Lanier says, "The oud forum doesn't solve the world's problems, but it does permit us to alive larger than them" (72). The telephone substitution seems to survive that the site required the help of a unmarried private to cultivate a nurturing environment. In the cases of website design, the masses can't look to blueprint salubrious environments, exactly because the private contributors exercise non concur a bully plenty stake inwards the corporation to invest whatsoever honey as well as help into its development.