"Corporations are people my friends"...

The way Jaron Lanier's You are not a Gadget: A Manifesto began reminded me of the now infamous phrase by Mitt Romney that "corporations are people my friends", but more in the way of, Lanier would be saying "stop giving money to the corporations" - in which Mittwitt would reply "corporations are people my friends" way.

The idea that culture has changed in order to fit technology into it is an interesting point. As a society, we automatically adapt to what is in front of us, so it would make sense if we are adapting to the environment technology is creating for us (in one example, MIDI).

I can't say that Lanier's fear of people losing their humanness and becoming part of the gadget world is necessarily really all that valid. The fact that "trains, files, and musical notes" have all been changed through the world of technology does not give any clues to the fact that human beings, in turn, are changing as well. We are all still the same exact form of a human being as we were 200 years ago. These web 2.0 people, or the wonderful group of artificial intelligence workers do not have any greater grasp on what makes up a human being than anybody else... I mean, hasn't everybody seen Surrogates by now? That didn't end well. The human brain is what makes a person. The ability to judge instinct, reason, express emotions in unconventional ways, etc. is what makes us human. If human beings have really changed that much since the good old cave days, why do we still create paintings? I mean, I understand that some people do enjoy working digitally for their artwork, but there is something about paint on a canvas that still excites me beyond belief. You can't feel digital artwork, I can feel paintings, literally. I enjoy touching oil paintings. Why? Because I can feel the work involved, I can feel what the artist was creating, the ridges in the paint, the brush strokes, everything that one human being created to be viewed by another.

"Emphasizing the crowd means deemphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad moblike behaviors. This leads not only to empowered trolls, but to a generally unfriendly and unconstructive online world."

A scientific view of the world isn't bad - but it isn't all that needs to be accounted for. I agree with Lanier completely that we are technically losing the individual human through the use of technology; hoewever, some of us are still holding on to that feeling. Social media has corrupted our way of communicating with each other and has seperated us from actual reality. Actually living is being out in the world, interacting with people, living beings, communicating face to face... Once again, the movie Surrogates gives us a great idea of what life would be like if Lanier's fears actually came true. We would literally just be drones, locked in our houses, walking around as artificial beings doing whatever we wanted without any consequences... and we don't have Bruce Willis to save the day.

iDoctor

This is by far the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I think there is little to say about this video other than the fact that I am completely and utterly over-excited for medicine to go in this direction. As someone who spends a lot of time in doctors' offices and hospitals, I cannot wait to be able to monitor my own results and see exactly what my doctor is seeing.

My health is consistently one of the things I am most paranoid about in my life, so to have something at the palm of my hand that allows me to control it and have constant contact with my doctor is one form of technology I cannot wait for.

L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.

From Gladwell's article "Small Change" to Zeinobia's blog on her own personal journey living in Egypt, the internet has taken up activism as another part of the mainstream media. Is this surprising? Of course not. Human curiosity is what drives this planet, so of course we all want to know what is going on around the world at any given moment (big or small) and thanks to the internet, we now have that.

Is Zeinobia doing something ground-breaking or surprising with her blog? I don't think so. Maybe my view of what is usually posted online has been tainted - I don't think there's a single thing I haven't seen through blogs or websites these days. She is simply writing and posting about what she sees, what her views are, and standing for what she believes in. Most people, I feel, have moved towards this on the internet these days. As far as what I have seen from her site, she does not go out and shoot the videos herself - she is merely a reporter, collecting the images, videos, and her personal experience on particular situations and expressing them through her blog. I found her writings interesting and to be very eye-opening, since the world news we get here is still generally specified to "Western" culture and the American way of editing everything. However, as someone who watched the uprising in Egypt on youtube, I can't really say she is doing much different than other people around the world who are in the same state of turmoil - all wanting to achieve the goal of a better community to live in.

The internet should be used for activism, as Gladwell even stated, but it is still just a way of interacting indirectly with a situation. True activism is still achieved when the opinions are expressed to the direct source, face to face. I can write all I want online about how I disapprove of the way mentally ill people are treated, how I am all for the banning of assault weapons, and on and on I can go, but unless I actually carry out an action in the real world, all I'm really talking to is a computer screen (plus possibly a select few out in the interweb). The computer screen creates a safety net that allows the usual laid back inactive type to rant and rave all they want, without actually voicing their opinion where it matters.

I'm not saying that Zeinobia's blog is not doing some good. These days, having a basic online journal is pretty normal, but I agree with Gladwell.. unless you're up and partaking it what you stand for, being only in front of a computer screen doesn't really cut it.

The Greater Good

Facebook... does Facebook actually create a sense of the greater good?

In my own arguments. I think it depends on what each person's perspective is on "the greater good" of all people. Bella argued that once you have a sense of community you will ultimately work for the good of that community as a whole. But what if your sense of doing good is not mine?

Facebook does create a sense of community, and there are plenty of organizations that have sites and connect with people around the world to help fight poverty, injustice, animal abuse, etc. These sites usually have a strong following and have created events that people around the world can take part in. What I have noticed is that people generally mean well, but attention spans seem to have gotten smaller in the digital world. Take for instance, the whole movement of stopping Kony. A huge movement over the internet that seemed to fizzle and burn once the event actually took place - at least in the smaller cities. There is still a fight to stop Kony, but I feel like the popularity of the events have dropped dramatically.



Perspective of "the greater good" of the community still depends on what people believe is the greater good. I have the perspective that assault weapons should be banned, but the NRA and the heavily pro-gun activists believe the opposite. I don't understand why they need them, they say they need them for protection. As a daughter of a police officer, the use of protection doesn't make any sense to me. But that's their opinion. So, who's right? Who's idea of creating a safer environment is correct?

There's too many questions for me to try to answer, since it's all going to be a matter of my own opinon. So, does Facebook create a sense of community that will work for the good of all people? That, I think, is still just a sense of perspective.

The Social Network

I saw The Social Network originally in 2010 when it was released. Mostly because I was curious as to who Mark Zuckerberg was and am a fan of the off-beat films that Jesse Eisenberg has been a member of. Although I am assuming that the real Mark Zuckerberg is a little bit more charismatic than the Zuckerberg that was portrayed in the film (since most articles or interviews of Zuckerberg have portrayed him as just a "normal guy"), I still find a connection between him and Steve Jobs.

The whole idea of both of them being geniuses is just the tip of the iceberg. First off, the idea of bringing people together, technology being for the masses. Jobs saw Apple as a way to connect people to the digital world and expanding his inventions to massive amounts of people. Zuckerberg really ended up doing the same thing, just with social networking... Technically, they both feed into each other. Jobs gave us the facility to connect and Zuckerberg gave us the ability. I feel like Zuckerberg is also just as cut-throat as Jobs is, just maybe in a more charismatic way, which almost makes it worse. He did, after all, technically steal the idea of Facebook from "The Facebook" and has had quite a few lawsuits against him and his business tactics (maybe it's all just a learning curve). Jobs did run a more mature company, but that could also be attributed to his anal personality and OCD.

I understand that Hollywood probably made the movie a bit more dramatic than Zuckerberg's life actually was when he was in college and creating Facebook, but from what I understand, Zuckerberg did enjoy the movie and the portrayal of himself as an extremely focused and driven young man. After all, the movie did fit an entire six years into a two hour movie. So, possibly, the next genius that Hollywood should take on and make into a blockbuster would be a movie about Steve Jobs... oh wait, isn't that already in the works? I believe Ashton Kutcher has been cast... which doesn't make any sense to me, after reading the biography of Jobs.. but that, I'm afraid, is for another post.

The Information

Shannon's model for communication is not only a good model for the Mathematical Theory of Communication, but can also be seen as a model for religion itself. My experience with religion is limited to Christianity, specifically Lutheranism; however, in order to keep this relevant and a little less monotonous, I'm going to take on Christianity as a whole, and how it is, I think, changing.

 

Shannon's model spoke of the information source being the person/machine generating the message. In the case of Christianity, I will say the information source is God, Jesus, Holy Spirit... Triune Self.

The transmitter in this model is the encoder of the message.. let's say for religion it would be the individuals who wrote the Bible - the prophets, deciples, etc.

The channel is the way the signal is transmitted: religiously - by the Bible.

The receiver decodes the message from the original signal. In this instance, the receiver would be the religious leaders - pastors, fathers, pope, etc.

And finally, the destination is the person or thing at the other end: us.

With this series of information, the concept seems pretty straight forward, with little room for error (besides the fact that human beings tend to misinterpret and confuse actual meanings of Biblical teachings). But for this case - we're going to pretend that what God means when he spoke the words of the Bible are actually what are being told through this pathway. The problem occurs with the noise source. This noise source as seen as a signal interference, which can actually be considered the incapability of man to understand the Biblical teachings, inaccurate translations, as well as the complete lack of understanding for what the Bible is actually teaching.

For example. The biggest deal in the news these days with the "crazy right-winged Christians" is not only the fact that clearly because I'm a democrat and believe all people were created equal am going to Hell, but also that the Boyscouts CANNOT have gay boys and men involved in their program. Apparently, the Bible talks somewhere about the Boyscouts of America and gay people being an abomination so tisk tsk no can do. Well, I can't tell you this for sure, but I'm pretty positive that the Bible does not say anything about the Boyscouts OR gay people being an abomination to God's earth. Now, before I go on a complete tangent about where Christianity has been going in this country, I would like to request that people stop using these "noise sources" as truth. If we're all sticking to the New Testament here, and I'm pretty sure in this blog we are, since I'm talking about Christianity, all of this hate, maltreatment, judgements, and bigotry (ehem Fox News) should actually be absolete, yes? I mean, my goodness, didn't Jesus feed the poor, heal the sick, disapprove of the rich tax collectors, and actually have all of the basic attributes of a liberal?  

 

What really brought up this analogy of the noise source for me is that as I was watching the news about the boyscouts story, a woman came on the screen and stated "I speak for all Christians in saying that no gay people should be allowed in the boyscouts". I was not only horrified by lack of acknowledgement to the basic human principle of everybody being created equal, but also to the fact that my religion is now being seen as a negative term. Do I even want to tell people I'm a Christian anymore? I don't want to be seen as a crazy lady that wants to picket clean air or stop the poorer individuals in my community from having a place to live.

 

The idea of Christianity seems to be known now as more of an intollerant group of people than what it originally was suppose to be about... Maybe it's good that I'm going into the field of psychology.. a lot of people these days seem to need a good psychiatrist or heavy dose of meds to regain a goodness of heart.