networked communities and the collective Internet mind

"In the absence of states or markets to mediate social bonds, network communities are instead formed through he mutual obligations created by gifts of time and ideas." (Terranova 36) 

The specter of networked communities however above the rest of Terranova's article, with some interesting implications. In the next sections titled Collective Minds, Terranova cites Pierre Levy's theory that because of the Internet, we are moving the from Cartesian singular "I think" to the plural "we think." 

This argument goes nicely with Jenkin's idea of a convergence culture, but still I find this an interesting hypothesis to put forth in a post structuralist society, when theorists like Jameson and Appardurai are telling us how fragmented, isolated, and schizophrenic today's society is. Look at Apple's whole advertisement campaign! Every product they make is prefaced by an "I." We have iPods and iPhones, not wePods, and wePhones. 

Anyway, back to networked communities. The other thing that caught my eye was a statement Terranova made about the implications of this flourishing productivity. 

"It is undermined for various commentators by the minoritarian, gendered and race character of the internet population." (42) 

I think this is right on the mark. What are the consequences of this phenomenon? Basically what Terranova is saying is that all Internet users are not created equal. 

As Srinivasan observes in his essays about ethnic new media spaces, all of us bring out histories, biases, habitudes, and beliefs to the table. And because this is true, I think the next question that someone needs to look into is exactly who is contributing to this collective Internet mind and how their backgrounds are shaping this networked communities, which are becoming increasingly important in the world today.  

Blogging as an Open Source Community

Eric Raymond’s article discusses the perks of the Linux community as an open-source triumph. His description of Linux programmers seems remarkably similar to a description of dedicated Bloggers, like ourselves. A blogger must release early and often, even if the topic is not fully developed or else he or she loses readers. The best Bloggers are the ones who read and take in their user comments, altering and revising their blogs to those responses. Such appreciation of usership is key to assuring good readership. As a filmmaker should never speak down to his or her audience, a blogger can never speak down or disregard readership, especially because of instantaneous feedback. The best blogs are developed around ideas and topics that are compelling to the blogger. This personal passion drives the blog to be interesting and intriguing, often pushing the limits of a blog, like a good Linux programmer.  In the world of blogs, there are many opinions and views on the same topic, but it is the blogs with multiple contributors and commenting readers that are the Linux, bazaar model.  Terranova makes a similar point in her essay: “the best Web site, the best way to stay visible and thriving on the Web, is to turn your site into a space that is not only accessed, but somehow built bye its users” (49). Our blog, since it is a collaborative effort, is an example of such productive open-source communities. 

IP-Relay Systems Paper

IP-Relay Systems - Marisa Loo, Zachary Smith, and Dylan Treleven

Telecommunications relay services allow users to make calls from computers or other assistive telephone devices to standard telephones via an operator. There are several forms of relay services, but here we will focus on Internet Protocol Relay (IP-Relay) systems, as they are the currently the most common. Intended merely as a mode of private communication between users, internet relay services have, however, opened a window of vulnerability into both the public and private spheres. Through their inherent features and the laws which govern their use, IP-Relay systems demonstrate loopholes in government surveillance, limitations toward systems of power and discipline in which they might be used, and the deterioration of their potential for operation in real-time.

Relay services were established in the 1970s with the purpose of aiding those who are Deaf, hard of hearing, speech disabled, or Deaf and blind to make calls to the hearing. The first primitive machines were bulky and expensive and generally only accessible to the few who could afford them. The most common current manifestations of this technology, IP-Relay systems, use an internet window interface with two text boxes. The first user enters text into one of the boxes and a third party human operator connects to the second user and vocally interprets the first user's written text to the second. The second user then speaks to the operator who, in turn, types out the second user's words in the second text box for the first user to read. These services have also been subsidized by the government in the United States (the second country after Sweden to do so) and are now free and accessible to the general public.

This technological progression from a direct link between two users to a mediated link with a third-party operator highlights a correlation between new technology and a breach of private space. According to Keenan, “the erosion of the security of the private sphere figured by the opening of the window forces us to reconsider the space and time…in terms that can no longer be content to accept the restrictions imposed by the thought of publicity as presence.”[1] Greater accessibility has therefore created, through the presence of the operator, just such a window between public and private spaces of the users involved. This accessibility also allows the service to be used, and taken advantage of, by anyone with an internet connection.

Both relay service companies and members of the Deaf community accept this breach of private space as a kind of necessary evil. The mechanics of the relay service as well as the operator must function with the principle of transparency in order to make the call as "normal" as possible. A standard phone call does not require any sort of verification of the user and it is believed that there need not be any sort of verification for relay service calls either.

According to an MSNBC article[2], relay operators report that eighty to ninety percent of the phone calls relayed are scams or prank calls, with very little of the calls being made by legitimate users. Many of the calls are pranks, with the purpose of seeing how much of a message an operator will relay before they determine that the service is being abused. More significantly though, many overseas thieves use IP-Relay services to easily con U.S. merchants under the guise of being deaf.

This flagrant exploitation of IP-Relay services presents a noteworthy loophole in the surveillance systems of our society. Although we are not controlled by a constant panoptic presence, our government depends upon a degree of surveillence in order to establish a sense of order, power, and discipline. This shortcoming in the relay service also opens a window of vulnerability, allowing thieves to take advantage of the general public. When defining windows, Keenan actually uses thieves and open windows in the same sentence, as in "a thief…in at a window climbs.”[3]

The ability of anyone to make calls via IP-Relay can result in certain breakdowns of power and discipline. Without the exercise of power and surveillance that is relevant in Foucault's Panopticon, there is no "automatic functioning of power” despite the transparency of the operator.[4]

Legitimate users of relay services, to the same extent as everyone else, should be afforded the right to private conversation. The possible consequences of allowing such easy abuse of these systems, however, seem to question the cost of an individual's right to privacy, both in terms of its financial cost to tax-payers and even of national security.

The window opened between the public and private may only be the result of a transitional phase in the development of telecommunications relay services. Earlier relay devices offered a direct connection between users, while text-to-voice and voice-to-text technologies, as they become more accurate and efficient, will likely replace the operator in current systems while retaining wide accessibility. At present then, the operator seems to be a necessary, though temporary, drawback to relay systems technologies.

As well as being the key feature of IP-Relay systems in relation to the public/private paradigm, the function of the operator also creates a delay in relayed messages that calls into question the notion of the operation of IP-Relay systems in real-time. With instant messaging services the illusion of real-time usually correlates directly with each user's internet connection speed. With IP-Relay services, it is the speed and attentiveness of the operator that effects the feeling of communication in real-time.

In the Visual Crash, Paul Virilio states that real-time "...is less an analogical re-presentation than a pure and simple numerical pre-sentation of the places, objects, or persons in question. Such direct live coverage does away with interpreter and commentator to bring the interlocutors together face-to-face."[5] According to Virilio then, with the delay in the operator's relay of a message, sometimes as long as a minute, and with the indirect channel of communication created simply by the presence of the operator, IP-Relay systems do not work in real-time.

A measure of error also accompanies the operator's relay of messages as well as the delay at which it occurs. Some services, such that provided by Sprint Nextel, allow the typing user to insert "emoticons" into his or her message to direct the operator's tone of voice. If carried out at all however, this part of the service varies widely depending upon the operator. While the "instant" actions and reactions allowed by instant messaging can imply a fairly strong sense of emotion and various subtleties of meaning, the delay in IP relayed messages significantly mutes these. In general, these messages are distorted or have lost some of their initially intended meaning.

In regards to IP-Relay’s initial purpose, the system fulfills its goals of communication among the deaf community. However, the presence of the operator in an IP-Relay conversation complicates the entire system. The private is leaked into the pubic, errors are made, and operations cannot function in real-time. The state of telecommunications relay technologies, though it is likely temporary, therefore serves to illustrate an expansion of the public sphere into the private in return for greater convenience and access to communication technologies for those who legitimately utilize them as well as those who wish to exploit them.


[1] Keenan, Thomas. “Windows of Vulnerability.” 1993. The Phantom Public Sphere. Page 135.
[2] Myers, Lisa and Sandler, Tim. “Thieves Exploit Phone System for the Deaf.” 5 December 2006. NBC News.
[3] Keenan, Thomas. “Windows of Vulnerability.” 1993. The Phantom Public Sphere. Page 125.
[4] Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism.” 1979. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Page 201.
[5] Virilio, Paul. “The Visual Crash.” 2002. CTRL [Space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother. Page 111.

anticipation

So, we know you were all waiting, all of you present in the 2pm section presentations... We teased you with our content, alluded to this "website" full of "anonymous art" and now, it's finally here*:

http://artistsanonymous.weebly.com/

hope you enjoy!




*ArtistsAnonymous is not responsible for the inaccessibility of its content due to virtual, informational, or visual or other crashes of any kind.

Shoulder Pads, Punk Rock, and an 80's Pastiche

Here's the link to our project for assignment 3, please use it and comment on it as participation is a key part of the media object!:

Digital Landfill

thanks,

-Allie, Sean, and Adrik 

Is Plurality Really All That Modern?

In Ang’s essay, the Realm of Uncertainty, she seems to believe that the ability to get a message across clearly has been greatly reduced within recent history. “…the hegemony of such clear and transparent conceptions of communication has been severely eroded in the past few decades.” I wonder if this clarity ever truly existed. Even Shakespeare wrote his plays knowing that a large portion of his audience would not understand them. His plays were written with the concept of plurality in mind. Sword fights and other exciting events were written into the plays to entertain the less educated members of the crowd. It is very clear that the plays operate on numerous levels for the numerous different interpretations and levels of understanding that each audience member would have. This is not to say that pluralism has not been further developed, expanded, and accepted in modern culture. This is nearly undeniable. Our modern society is certainly more accepting of different points of view or at least of the idea that they do exist and must exist. This phenomenon can be seen in modern theories and trends such as political liberalism, which hinges on the idea that any reasonable view should be presented and evaluated in society. Arguments have arisen about what exactly constitutes “reasonable” and whether or not this is merely a self-serving and dogmatic set of principles. Nonetheless an attempt at embracing pluralism is apparent. In the past it is more likely that different views and different interpretations of meaning would be dismissed in favor in one accepted meaning or view, but this does not imply that other views and interpretations did not exist. Words can never achieve their purpose perfectly. It is certain that plurality has existed since the dawn of language. Misunderstanding and difference of perspective are nothing particularly new or modern. Every text has multiple readings. Every person has an individual perspective. Every word has multiple connotations and usages. Plurality permeates all, past and present.

technological convergence

Sorry this post is so late.

I'm going to focus on the Jenkins article. I found it interesting to think about the ideas of cultural convergence and technological convergence. He talks about technological convergence and what he calls The Black Box Fallacy: how many people claim that "all media content is going to flow through a single black box into our living rooms." (14) He says that there never will be a single black box like this and that there are increasing numbers of black boxes: people carry around tons of different devices that they use for many different functions and to channel different media. I think I see his point but I don't agree with it completely. It seems to me that we are getting closer to a single black box in some ways. Obviously there are all these different technologies out there but I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of many of them combining and combining until there is one (or at least less than there are now). Jenkins uses his living room as an example of the ever increasing variety of black boxes: "There are my VCR, my digital cable box, my DVD player, my digital recorder, my sound system, and my two game systems, not to mention a huge mound of videotapes, DVDs and CDs, game cartridges and controllers, sitting a top, laying alongside, toppling over the edge of my television system." (15) He says American homes will see more and more of these devices. I think it's going the other direction. Many of these technologies are already being combined, such as game systems that also play DVDs and have internet access. Additionally, some of the older technologies he names, such as videotapes and CDs, are being phased out. He also uses the example of seeing MIT students with their various portable black boxes: "their laptops, their cells, their ipods, their Game Boys, their BlackBerrys...." (15) Again, these devices seem to already be combining into newer technologies like the iphone. I think the article is definitely interesting and I thought it was good that he distinguishes technological convergence from cultural convergence in such a clear way, but I don't think he has to say one is happening and the other is not. I think they're both happening to some extent.

Convergence, Agency

In "Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media," Srinivasan quotes Virilio to exemplify the dangers of “global real time” in disorienting and disturbing local times and geographies: “…Globalization and virtualization are inaugurating a global time that prefigures a new form of tyranny” (Srinivasan 498). The way to save community sustenance and enhance social capital for Srinivasan is to generate positive “social uses of information systems… through the sharing of information resources and creation of common spaces for socializing” (499). These common spaces “can be used to achieve locally and culturally specific visions” (Srinivasan 499) in an overall framework of “new interpretations and alternative paradigms” (Srinivasan 499). Appropriation of technologies is crucial for cultural/community preservation (he sites the Inuit as an example); likewise, convergence of technologies can be, according to Srinivasan, utilized as a vector for positive change. As I read the article, I kept ruminating on the status of convergence in Srinivasan, which seems to me to be almost socio-utopist, and the status of convergence and its appropriation in Jenkins, which is rather murky and entangled with corporate strategies: “…Media transition [is] marked by tactical decisions and unintended consequences, mixed signals and competing interests, and most of all, unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes” (11). Jenkins admits that “there is no vantage point that takes me above the fray” (12) but for Srinivasan this doesn’t seem to be an issue; the latter purports that convergence can increasingly be appropriated for the preservation of the local and the culturally sacred and that in spite of “disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy” (Appadurai 1) or Virilio’s warnings, convergence will save the day in some kind of new, heightened social paradigm.

I feel that what is at stake here is the locus of agency in the use of converging technologies-- Srinivasan assumes that marginalized communities can, are, and should be using them progressively, while Jenkins focuses on the totalizing experience of pop culture violently transmitted on multiple media platforms. There is a disparity in how convergence is utilized (producing various ideological disputes about it); there is also the problem of who has more agency in appropriating it to transmit information. I guess my (really broad) questions are: if convergence is inevitable, will its intensity force some to be swallowed up by pop culture and others by their niche communities? Or, will there be a transformation in how we perceive information so that a more intense, multi-sensory experience will not threaten to be ideologically invasive? Or, will there be an amalgamation of different cultures with high consumer participation, as Jenkins suggests in the beginning of his article ("...old and new media collide... grassroots and corporate media intersect" [2])? Will convergence spread misinformation? And of course: how will politics respond to all of this?

Convergence

I feel like there is a need for all upcoming media objects to do everything now. An iPod can't just play music anymore, it has to have video and pictures. Facebook and MySpace are competing to have more features. Phones do nearly everything possible. I just want to know where this leaves specialized products anymore. The goal for businesses is to have every function, and no one wants things anymore that don't have every single available feature.

This is ultimately what convergence is all about. Everything becoming one. But whether does that leave diversity? Won't it come to a point where no one needs cameras anymore because their phone can do a better job? Will we be able to tell the difference? Won't businesses have to produce everything in order to compete in this market? I just feel that convergence is fighting specialization, and I don't know how I feel about everything becoming one thing.

On Ang

My post will be on "Audiences and Global Culture" because I feel it was the most difficult reading and I have the most open questions with it.

While I struggled for a long time with this article, Ang describes an elegant framework for understanding the uncertainty of the 'capitalist postmodernity' that we live in. This sentence itself is quite loaded-- what exactly is capitalist postmodernity? I may be wrong, but it seems to be a really convoluted way of saying 'globalization'. Anyway, Ang shows that what is at stake is understanding who has power. She argues that we must move away from thinking about traditional communication models where there exists a 'closed feedback loop', free of external influences, and towards a model where there are essentially unbounded external variables. Thus it makes more sense to talk not about the mistakes made during perfect communication, but rather the successful communications in a (what might as well be) a sea of noise. It is inverting the typical communications model to talk about what actually gets communicated rather than what doesn't. This makes sense in the 'capitalist postmodernity' because there is so much noise and so much information that so few communications make it compared to the number that fail. So far, this is all quite theoretical, but Ang gives the example of the 'passive people meter' and how it will fail because it "is based on the implicit assumption that there is such a thing as an 'audience' as a finite totality..." (p173).

Ang had so few concrete examples of her lofty ideas, and this crucial one didn't quite sit right with me. I agree that it is quite difficult to actually measure an entire audience -- in fact, given our current technology, it is probably impossible, but I don't agree with the statement that an audience doesn't exist as a finite totality. Sure, there are incredible complications which must be taken into consideration when understanding an audience, but how can it be infinite? It seems that so much of her argument rests on the idea that the audience is an infinite, or at least an unbounded group. Additionally, are the systems that she is describing simply chaotic because we don't yet have the technology to properly model them? Will we ever have the technology? Lastly, as a mathematician I have to take argument with her statement that "in the postmodern episteme 'there is no fixed site of truth, no absolute presence; there are just multiple representations, an infinite number of rewritings." It seems to me that this applies to mathematics as well, as mathematics exists within our episteme. Does she argue that math is not a truth, or am I not understanding her?

This article was really hard to get through, I'm probably just mistaken.

Global Web Intelligence --> Global Intelligence

Goertzel's concept of the "Global Webmind" is nothing new. The speed with which information crosses the globe has markedly expanded over the past ten years - not surprising. Every ethernet cable is a dendrite, every modem an axon... but is it really just the web?

Going back a bit, Appadurai talks about many issues of cultures crossing & heterogenization - "Japanization... for Koreans, Indianization for Sri Lankans, Vietnamization for Cambodians..." Do you really think that this is happening through just the web? The "imagined communities" he talks about are more than just that - they truly are a unifying force.

How many countries have heard of American Idol? The Eurovision song contest? How many have rushed to the support of those victimized by natural disasters? Where in the world won't people recognize a Coke bottle? Television, print media, music - these all play a part as well.

Different areas of the world, different imagined communities, different cultures, different subsets of information. The brain has a similar pattern of information retention - within the gyri & sulci lie many discrete packets of information, accessible at the slightest electrical impulse. There are also many types of nerves, many types of axons... not every cable is a DSL line.

A Global Mind may not be far away - but right before it hits, we'll all know.

I thought ben's comment on the idea of camp as resistance was really interesting. But I was wondering if it isn't problematic to say so unanimously that 'camp itself has become mainstream.' I think it's true that, like Ien Ang notes, that "it would be mistaken to see the acting out of difference unambiguously as an act of resistance," but that it's important to reserve the place of camp's ambiguity, its important uncertainty, instead of necessarily implying a point of transformation where camp stopped being camp and became mainstream camp. You could also say that camp was never really so much a subversion of dominant idealogies, as it was a reinforcement of them, if you consider resistance as complicit in capitalist postmodernity, a necessary and built-in, "programmed feature of capitalist culture."

Dealing with convergence

Jenkins writes in his introduction, "Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social interactions with others. Each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information extracted from the media flow and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives." (3-4) Is this basically the same idea as Jameson's cognitive mapping, in that people place themselves within their own minds? And if, as Ithiel de Sola Pool noted, convergence has elements of both fragmentation and consolidation, does it help or hinder peoples' ability to "find themselves"?

Also, though Jenkins notes that convergence is a process and not an endpoint, he seems to treat it, in the introduction at least, as the latter. He seems to say that it's something that happens every few years. But as many futurists are telling us and a little observation can show us as well, the rate of technological change and other forms of change is increasing, and progress is exponential (leading to the Coming Singularity). With that in mind, if people are having such a hard time dealing with convergence now, how will we deal with it as things happen faster and faster?

World Wide Brain Defect

Ben Goertzel's "World Wide Brain" alternates between reeking of singularity theory and reminding me of technological determinism, and simply making me think of Google.

There's no date on Goertzel's piece, though it proves its obsolescence with invitations for one to "[view] the whole WWW as a network of applets, able to be interconnected in various ways," (a common way of thinking by now) in order to see that "the WWW itself is an outstanding AI supercomputer," (3). I think most people would stop short of that last point. He warns us that "the neuron-and-synapse metaphor need not be taken too literally," but expects us to go along with his own convoluted metaphor of magicians who recognize, alter, and create patterns which can themselves be seen as magicians...and these magicians are analogous to the "abstract patterns" that make up thought in the mind.

From here, it sounds like Goertzel cherry-picks his way through physics, mathematics, and psychology to find marketably useful connections to his WW-Brain theory. He begins to hint at singularity on page 7, where he discusses "force of consciousness" and the idea of selves. I was surprised not to find a reference to Ray Kurzweil, though I guess this is from before his prime. He is not shy about singularity--he looks forward to a time when "the boundary between ourselves and our creation will be crossed," (10).

As Goertzel eases off the strict brain metaphor, his analysis of the future structure of the Web as it would construct a WebMind reminded me a lot of Google and its system of measuring relevance and providing "smart" accurate search results. A few people have suggested that Google's keeping track of the way webpages link to each other resembles the way our brains link concepts and memories. He appropriately and presciently points out that the "structure must not be static, like a Yaho category tree, but dynamic" (like Google's index) (10).

One glaring vulnerability in Goertzel's fantasy is in his conception of a "global Web operating system," which he sees as an infallible step toward the Web's evolution toward intelligence (again, singularity). Although the Web "is not under anyone's control," (8), it is totally open to power outage, sabotage, and quick disabling. Amazon and many of its customers can tell you what happens when such a high-profile pseudoneural network goes down. Even without such catastrophic crashes, accessibility on the web is not so open that any magician can really affect any other magician it likes. Wouldn't chmod permissions, among myriad other restrictions, keep a real, rhizomatic neural network from forming?

---

In other news, check out this brain growing on a tree.

Camp It Up

Ien Ang’s “In the realm of uncertainty: the global village and capitalist postmodernity” eviscerates “liberal pluralist” notions that the infinite possibilities presented by semiotic decoding represent a kind of freedom. Divergence, she suggests, has become just another market strategy.

In processing this, I began to think about the idea of “camp.” It’s been a long time since I’ve read Sontag’s text on this issue, so I can’t claim to be some kind of camp scholar, but this concept has always seemed to me to be a kind of resistance. Camp, as I would define it, is the ironic appreciation of failed art, the “so bad, it’s good” paradox. On its surface, camp (sometimes conflated with “kitsch”) seems to subvert dominant ideologies in its fetishization of media that fall outside the mainstream of acceptability, and was therefore adopted as a kind of subtle cultural activism, particular by marginalized queer groups.

As Ang would doubtless point out, camp itself has become mainstream. Think of William Shatner camping himself in all of those commercials for Priceline.com, or the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which makes camp homey and domestic, rather than radical and vicious. Meanwhile, the queer culture that advocated camp has dried up and assimilated. The acceptance (generally) of gay identity is certainly a positive thing, but camp itself no longer references the culture that produced it.

THE WORLD WIDE BRAIN!

Goertzel so forcefully pushes his idea as inevitable fact that it sounded almost like a movie. So I made a movie poster. His ideas are credible, and, in fact, his comparison of web pages to neurons is fairly persuasive (one could even substitute computer users for forms of neurons, i.e., an event occurs on the web causing numerous users to react in a certain way, much like and neuron firing). His method of discussion, though, sounds more like science fiction and consists of examples made to fit the theory rather than the other way around.

Fractal background image from http://flowtv.org/?p=850.

The Convergence dude is pretty cool

I like the part in the Jenkins where he talks about getting people to buy Grandpa a console, especially in the context of the Srinivasan and Goertzel. Srinivasan sounds like the kind of guy who will keep bothering Grandpa about using consoles that will just get stored in the garage unopened, and Grandpa will lie to him about it because he always liked the boy. Goertzel, now, spends all his money on overclocking his supercomputer or something and will have forgotten to call Grandpa for the last few years by the time he's informed that the old man is on his deathbed, but that's all right because they were never really able to connect in the first place, they're just about different things.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that Jenkins seems to be friendliest to the individual viewpoint, or maybe I'm just saying that because I agree with him. Srinivasan and Goertzel are each frantically trying to pile stuff together, and I guess each of them has a reason, but neither is really what's going on. Ang cuts to the heart of the matter, which is that we really have no idea what the hell is going on. Like, none whatsoever. Of course, if we invert my argument Srinivasan and Goertzel are both trying to make themselves useful and actually get something done, while Jenkins and Ang are staying out of the water and arguing about politics, although neither has voted since 1988.

So yeah, that's how you mix metaphors. I do like the Convergence essay the best, because it seems the most useful, and it gets to the point quickly (Srinivisan takes as long as possible to say everything) and doesn't get ahead of itself (you can almost see Goertzel leaning too far forward, correcting himself, almost falling over backwards, and basically stumbling around). You can only progress through the convergence when it converges upon you--for example, I don't see Srinivisan's efforts making much of a difference in the end, and I don't know if Goertzel (or I) will actually live to see a global supermind. Technology does curve upwards exponentially, but we're so close to the asymptote that we think we've already touched it, and it doesn't really work that way. I'd better stop being vague and misusing terminology though (is that what an asymptote is?), I guess I'm done.

Geoff Ryman's Air

In Srinivasan's article "Return to Babel: Emergent diversity, digital resources, and local knowledge", Srinivasan mentions the use of the internet to connect people of the diaspora and reconnect them with their history and culture even without an actual place to connect to. This reminded me a lot of Geoff Ryman's novel "Air: Or, Have Not Have". In this novel, the protagonist tries to get a rural town to catch up with technology before the world-wide release of new information technology called Air which is automatically connected to everyone's brain. The technology is in the air itself, like having the internet in one's brain all the time. It automatically connects to everyone. The problem is getting accustomed to such technology when one has not been exposed to even the internet. Therefore the results of a trial test of Air are devastating, resulting in a death in the village. The protagonist then makes it her mission to bring her village back up to date with the rest of the world. One way she does this is by selling homemade goods on the internet, connecting the rest of the world with the authentic, culturally important craftswork that her area is known for. Another way is recording history through the internet, getting the word out to even people who are not connected to that area and do not have that history but by learning about it, will help those in need. Srinivasan actually mentions this several times in his articles with the studies on bringing people on the Native American reservations together through technology, using technology to bring back the past and bring back culture.

On Remote Obsolescence

Professor Chun stated that the primary question of the week was: “does global new media make everything the same, or does it (can it) foster difference?” This directly relates to (among everything else,) this question about the validity of Ramesh’s notions of technology as an opportunity for cultures to self-represent in the face of concerns like that presented by Alice’s question to Ramesh on Skype, which I paraphrase and expand to the following:
In an effort to combat an impositional outside appraisal and designation of a culture through the format of cooperative, participatory archiving process, is there a potentially out of place, subjective privileging of westernized standards of archival history and documentary records? Can it not be seen as technological imperialism? I know Ramesh responded by saying that technology transcended Western culture and has the potential to empower all users equally, but continually neglected is the fact that it costs money to own a computer and maintain an internet connection and have hard drives and servers and networks. That said, I am aware of much philanthropic work devoted to wiring the masses.

On a recent stop in a hippy-dippy restaurant in some unofficial town/artist-collective amongst Native American reservations in the desert of New Mexico, my grandpa (a playwright, actor, director, and producer) thought of starting a touring production so as to bring the theater to these small, likely interested communities (cultural imperialism?) In search of contact information he asked for a phone number, stating “I don’t suppose you folks get much email access around these parts,” to which the friendly waitress replied, “we get free broadband wi-fi all over,” thankyouverymuch.

Is this the mark of the homogenization of even the most obscure, untouched subcultures and geographically removed groups? Well, no. They can access the breaking news about starlet car wrecks as I can, but they’re still in the realm of the US. And how drastically do you think these previously un-wired folks’ exposure to commercialization and ads exploded? Whether this is beneficial or not, it’s fitting because they live within the territory of a capitalist system, (though I suppose I don’t officially know how Reservations operate within/apart from the US government.) All of these arguments and dialogues going on are directly relevant to people within our technological arm's reach, but how about those even more disconnected from our present condition.

There still exist cultures that occupy territories too treacherous to suit access by plane, car, or even helicopter, and must be accessed by foot. They speak languages acknowledged as existent by only a few linguistic experts (and bible translators.) They may somehow know who Rambo is, but they don’t know a thing about Eliot Spitzer, UGG boots or iPhones, and are arguably extremely far from adopting personal computers as a replacement for oral history. And to the extent that oral history can be considered a primary media for these cultures, it's hard to imagine it becoming obsolete.

Maybe it’s better that way? Global immediacy (access to media, etc.) may hold the potential for sameness, but probably doesn’t necessitate it. It can foster difference, too, but probably no better than it already exists.

A WebMind® is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Goertzel, circa "World Wide Brain":

"The design and implementation details of WebMind are obviously complex, and I will avoid most of them here. A prototype WebMind will be available for public viewing on my Website in mid-1997."

Goertzel, circa 2001:

"My former AI project, Webmind, ended with the dissolution of Webmind Inc. in early April 2, 2001. The legal process of bankruptcy is not done yet."

The company, vanished. The only existing online demonstration of their technology is now a spam-site for investing information. Like so many AI companies, WebMind's fabulous promises never came close to being realized.

What is there to learn from Goertzel's hubris? Should we view him as a modern proto-Prometheus, trying to bring the fire of strong AI to humankind, years ahead of the computational power that will be needed to make it happen? Or should we see him as a cautionary tale, a message that demonstrates the kind of misguided thinking that we should never base our ideas on.

As much as I'd like to give techno-utopians the benefit of the doubt, so much time and energy, so many billions of dollars and hopes and dreams, have already been wasted on them. I guess that people who need to be on the cutting edge will always push, whether there's anything solid in front of them, or not.