Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Don't be evil.

Reading and rereading Deleuze left me in quite the state of confusion. I wasn't sure if he was in favor of his observed societal changes, or warning the motivated "young people" to question that which they study and pursue. Or perhaps his warning isn't a judgement of the direction modern society is heading, just an observation of inevitable changes; maybe he's merely stating 'it is what it is'.

One such change is mentioned in the first paragraph of the third section, labeled Program.   The society imagined by Felix Guattari with the control element of absolute location is almost here. Anytime digital information is used - credit card, cell phone, wireless internet - the user's position can be tracked. The idea of the 'barrier' in Guattari's exercise is the fundamental difference. Our society doesn't have this (I'm assuming physical) barrier between "one's apartment, one's street, (and) one's neighborhood". This would more likely follow the model the reformed prison system, which is described as using electronic collars to limit the convict's location. What our society does have, however, is "what counts" according to Deleuze. "What counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each person's position - licit or illicit - and effects a universal modulation" (Deleuze 7).   This new 'barrier' is a reinterpretation of our privacy. That, I believe, is one of the fundamental differences between this generation and the previous - the notion of privacy. Our willingness to sacrifice our privacy is exemplified by the ease with which we type in our credit card, social security and phone numbers to an online form. We keep journals analogous to private diaries that are made accessible to anyone with an internet connection. We even readily post our likes, dislikes, photos, videos, scholarly publications, code etc. We openly communicate and collaborate with strangers via the internet and yet we are much more hesitant to do so in real life than the previous generation. Google Maps have captured candid shots of people's (and people on) private property - and only a few are calling out against this new sharing of information. We, for the most part, embrace (or accept) this new system of control - we can take advantage of it, manipulate it, and even control it to a certain degree. The conveniences and benefits of this digital system will more often outweigh its negative effects on privacy for the younger generation because the younger generation has redefined the idea of privacy. Furthermore, the idea of ownership and copyright will also have to be redefined, as the video "The Machine is Us/ing" implies.

Another reaction I had when reading was the idea of a corporation having a soul, and this being "the most terrifying news in the world", and how it relates to contemporary corporations. One relevant example is Google, whose motto is "Don't be evil." Although this is a sort of dig at competing tech companies, who have been put on trial for being evil, this motto is also a reminder of what Google is capable of. They could most certainly "be evil" with all the information they've catalogued - all the searches saved and websites crawled. And yet, with their infinite source of fodder, my gut is telling me to trust them. 

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