Privacy

Privacy is a huge consern.  It is esspecially important within this didgital revolution.

Competition vs. Cooperation (Masculine vs. Feminine)

I found the conversation in class this past Wednesday to be very interesting.  To set the scene, we began the conversation around the topic of collaboration verses competition. this topic was initiated by the Howard Rheingold video that we all so diligently watched.  Rheingold postulates in this video that some forms of sharing can be economically benefiting to one's own self interest.  All of this; the video and our conversations about it were very intriguing, but I observed what seemed to be a much more interesting development within the classes conversational dynamics.  Within our class discussion, it seemed to me that the majority of those whose argument supported competition were more inclined towards masculinity and those whose argument favored cooperation expressed more feminine qualities.

Now let me back up a bit here to give perspective to my observation.  I am not suggesting that the  men favored competition and the women favored cooperation or that my observation is dependent upon sexual orientation.  I am suggesting that from my own perspective and judgment, the students who display masculinity predominantly within their personality seemed to favor competition and the students who display femininity predominantly were more inclined towards cooperation.  Of course I am not presenting this observation with any evidential validity.  I am only making assumptions based upon my own interpretations.  Personally, I was given the physical attributes of a man but I often exhibit many feminine characteristics within my personality. As suggested in the article  Femininity/Masculinity written by Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke from the Department of Sociology at Washington State University;

Femininity and masculinity or one's gender identity (Burke, Stets and Pirog-Good 1988; Spence 1985) refers to the degree to which persons see themselves as masculine or feminine given what it means to be a man or woman in society. Femininity and masculinity are rooted in the social (one's gender) rather than the biological (one's sex). Societal members decide what being male or female means (e.g., dominant or passive, brave or emotional), and males will generally respond by defining themselves as masculine while females will generally define themselves as feminine. Because these are social definitions, however, it is possible for one to be female and see herself as masculine or male and see himself as feminine.

 Essentially gender and sexual orientation are not at the core of this discussion.  What I am suggesting is held within personality characteristics.

Within the class debate no student proposed that competition verses cooperation was essentially a one sided argument.  This particular class is filled with intellects that tower my own but even I intuitively  understand the duality of this competition verses cooperation argument.  Of course the appropriate conclusions to this discussion involve a blending of both competitive and cooperative forces to maximise group benefit.  What I am commenting on were the dynamics of the group discussion and the polarities of the arguments dependent or perhaps more accurate influenced by personality characteristics.

I have recently within the last few weeks been recovering from illness and am still medicating my symptoms.  An unfortunate side affect of my medications are cloudy-headedness.  if I were not under such medicated influences, I would have liked to have proposed my observations within our class debate.  I find this matter interesting and wonder what response my observation would receive.   it is quite possible that my observation about our class discussion  is filled with logical fallacies.  I do have a tendency towards equivocation.  Of course this class was not designed to focus on philosophy or psychology, but I feel it is prudent to evaluate all realms of possibility within each situation.

Hive Mind

The concept  of the hive mind is new to me, but of course it has been around since before I was around.  Some of the first attempts towards hive culture "could" be traced back to religion, or totalitarianism.  In these examples group thought and action were directed and controlled by a small select few.  Often some form of punishment was the motivation of this type of hive mind.  Of course these types of hive coercion still exist, but a new dawn of hive consciousness is taking root within or culture.  this new hive mind lives, breathes, and grows exponentially on the web.

There are several examples of hive mind that reside within the confines of the net.  The most prominent example to date is the hive mentality of Wikipedia.  Wikipedia was born in 2001 and has quickly become the first stop reference for the majority of internet users.  each article within the Wikipedia hive is written and maintained by volunteers.  This is the crux of the Wikipedia hive.  In Jaron Lanier's article Digital Maoism, Lanier states:

Wikipedia is just one experiment that sill has room to change and grow.  At the very least it's a success at revealing what the online people withe the most determination and time on their hands are thinking, and that's actually interesting information.

Lanier's comment directs me back to the idea that within hive cultures of the past, only a select few are the dictators of information and the masses adhere to guidelines of the select.  This is in some relations true of Wikipedia.  For all the hundreds of times I have quickly glanced or entranced myself in the articles of Wikipedia, I have never contributed to or questioned the information that I was receiving.  Typically, I just accept that the information on Wikipedia is valid enough for my general knowledge purposes.  Of course I am not writing in depth articles solely on the text of a Wikipedia article, but I do often utilize it as a source for links to specific information found on the web.  In this sense, the hive mind does have it's advantages but this hive consciousness does create several unsavory potentials.

There is so much going on within the web.  Everyone has a blog or two, a Facebook, and or a twitter feed to maintain.  Information for these constantly updating feeds becomes regurgitation.  Very little real writing is being done.  In fact, without throwing myself to far under the bus, there is extremely little important information proposed within the blogs, Facebook persona, tumbler, and twitter accounts that I maintain.  the majority of the information that I contribute to the net is of no consequence except for personal entertainment and the entrainment of my peers; and I am not alone.  Andrew Keen in the Cult of the Amateur puts it this way:

Everyone was simultaneously broadcasting themselves, but nobody was listening.  Out of this anarchy, it suddenly became clear that what was governing the infinite monkeys now inputting away on the Internet was the law of digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated.

Keen goes on to describe hive consciousness as a minutia of amateurs where in truth, discourse, expertise, and talent have been undermined for the sake of advancing the self within the collective.  if the ideals of digital Darwinism as Keen suggests are true, then each  amateur content creator is responsible for the decline of relative substance that permeates the web.  I do feel that the Internet is altering culture and changing human consciousness. Certainly armature content creation is the wind at the Net's sail, but I do not feel that this is acting towards the detriment of culture as a whole.  The Internet is evolving.  What the Internet is most utilized for is subjective as per each member of the Net's global hive.  A balance between the collective and the individual seems to be the guiding direction towards a greater evolution of the collective.

Everyones Got to Get Paid.

There is a paradigm shift happening within every aspect of our modern lives.  This is evident in all technologies and within the content that these technologies afford the public.  No one is certain of the exact direction this shift, but it is encompassing all aspects of of our culture.  The stale worn out models of commerce and distribution of knowledge are on the way out.  Many institutions are fighting this change tooth and nail, but the wave is on its way to shore.  those without the capabilities to ride this new tide ashore are destined to become fish food.  What this really boils down to is money.  Everyone has got to get paid, but with the exponential change of the digital revolution  in regards to the dissemination of knowledge we must break free from out of date revenue streams.

Larry Lessig discusses creativity and intellectual proprietorship models both past and present in his TED Talks lecture on laws that choke creativity.

In his lecture,  Lessing describes in detail the evolution of culture and the ways in which culture is spread.  He suggests that digital technology is reviving a read/write culture and how this current movement is breaking control restrictions on content.  This new movement is is inspiring new avenues of creation through the concepts of remixing existing cultural content.  Lessing further discusses copyright laws and the movement towards Creative Commons. 

This leads to the discussion of copyright restrictions and technology suppression.  With increasing vigor organizations that control the rights to specific copyright protected content are slowing the process of the current digital revolution.  They are doing this through suppression of technologies both in software and in hardware so that they might retain revenues of existing content propagation.  Unfortunately this is not a new story.  Huge cooperate conglomerates have for a long time been suppressing advancements in technology for sole benefits of profits.  This leads one to question the possibilities and advancements that might be actively solving the problems of the world.

The existing infrastructure of content control is reaching a new horizon.  Consumers are now content creators.  Social media has instituted new methods of distribution of original content.  Artists no longer need to bow to the gods of media conglomerates.  If the content is good and promoted online it can rise to the top and become popular cultural content.  The question still remains as to where monetary supplementation will play into this new field of distribution.  Access to content will become an ever increasing importance within our culture.  No one seems to have a complete handle on the situation but it is evident that change is on the way.  

The Video Game Game

If you breathe, then you are aware of the power and importance of video games.  Even if you have never even played Froger or Excite Bike, you can see the tide of change revolving around video games.  The whole concept and understanding about what will become of video games is so far from comprehension.  Our current understanding and video game creation is mere archaic drawing s on the cave wall.

Video games are the future.  Not necessarily video games as they are today, but digital interaction and simulation is the nest altered consciousness.  Even as it stands today countless corporations and every branch of the United States military use video simulations for training.

Thinking Outside the Chinese Box

True thinking connotates understanding.  Humans understand and therefore think.  If a hardware and software integrated device can display even the highest level of intelligence; that device would still not be able to understand.  The device would be operating on a set of defined protocols.  For every associated input the device received a set of algorithmic rules define the devices response.  The device could never perceive an intended meaning, thus the device could not think.

This is the assumptions of John Searle's thought experiment entitled "The Chinese Box".  Published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980, Searle asks "if a machine can simulate an intelligent conversation, is the machine understanding thought?"  According to Searle, the machine could present the highest level of intelligence but the machine would still understand nothing.  It's intelligence would strictly be bound to the program operating the machine- a set of defined parameters of responses.  There would be no comprehension and thus no understanding.  The machine would be nothing more than a machine.

Treading down this line of thought tends to get a bit like science fiction, but these sorts of philosophical thought experiments are becoming testable.  It is obvious that technology evolves exponentially.  There is now more space and speed within our machines than ever before.  Artificial Intelligence is right around the corner.  The important thing to remember is that this new intelligence that we as a species are creating is artificial.  It will never be able to understand, comprehend, feel, or empathize.  This new intelligence, regardless of its packaging, will always taste artificial.

Now certainly no one has the psychic insight to divine our future evolutionary relationships with the machines that we create, but there is high  probability that our future machines will be biologically integrated within the human body; it is inevitable.  Though some may fear this type of transition, it will eventually be common place.  As homoseipiens, it has been our tools and technology that have spurred our evolution.  Our modern situation is no different.  We are changing what it means to be human with the tools and technologies that we create and develop.  Only when we have fully incorporated biologic machines and the human mind will the delineation between man and machine be forever blurred beyond distinction.

Cloud Computing

 

According to Wikinvest, "Cloud computing is a technology that uses the internet and central remote servers to maintain data and applications.  Cloud computing allows consumers and businesses to use applications without installation and access their personal files at any computer with internet access.  This technology allows for efficient computing by centralizing storage, memory, processing and bandwidth."