Technology and Humanness

Technology intends to provide a more agreeable means to some end we desire. Whether it is the steam-engine, the spoon, an anti-biotic, or the iphone, I take the definition stated above to capture the general idea of what we describe as technological.

In what follows I will begin by discussing the nature of technology and some of the problems concealed within it. Then I will discuss our relation to efficiency and the erasure of our humanity, which I take to be our main concern when it comes to the technological realm. Lastly, I discuss what technology means for “choice.” Throughout this essay, I will use either personal experience or t.v. commercials to help support these perhaps abstract points. I’d love to hear feedback on this; its something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, and, after reflection, is something I’ve subconsciously been concerned with for a while now.

Technology’s goal (our goal in producing it) does not involves its own existence. When a technology is nascent, its existence is painfully obvious. The first computers were bulky, taking up entire rooms. Then, with the advent of the personal computer, they only took up half the surface-space of a typical office desk. Now, they can be hidden in our pocket. So what is created in light of a desire for some end is then discarded and replaced by something better, something less ugly, less in the way. What this shows is the obvious fact that we want the end-product, not the device itself. We want to improve our communication, not have a cumbersome phone on our person for the sake of the item.

There is an Xbox Konnect commercial that simply states: “You are the controller”. This shows that the game consol is literally destroying itself. It is also interesting that our computers, tv’s, phones, computers and gaming consols are all becoming the same thing. A corollary is that ‘technology,’ whatever it is, is not the pieces of technology, nor the aggregate of all the pieces across time; rather, it is a particular human method of achieving ends.

While technology has solved many issues, it almost never is the case that some invention does not bring other undesired aspects along with it. As a result, we have new issues, which require new means of being dealt with. An easy example for this is cords. Our devices first needed cords to stay charged and be connected. But cords are ugly and cumbersome. So now we have battery-based, wireless everything. Cordless charging now exists for cell phones and cordless power for our wall-mounted, flatscreen t.v.s is only a few years out.

There is a Microsoft commercial advertising a “simplified” touch-screen phone that won’t bog you down when trying to find a contact, phone number, or app. In an information age, we want ALL the information; thus, technology did what we asked of it and we ended up with phones/internet devices with conceivably thousands of apps (the Droid slogan is: When there’s no limit to what Droid gets, there’s no limit to what Droid does). The perceived problem is that we now don’t know what to do with all this information and all those apps! We have a new hurdle, so we invent a new device. But what is significant is that Windows suggests to us that the only way out is to buy their phone, which only uses a few, big (easy-to-press) buttons. We end up feeling like we “need” to buy more and more stuff to take care of these new problems technology always seems to bring with it, even if the new devices had little to do with the initial desired end (technology and consumerism are symbiotic to say the least). What is worth noting is that there is always a residue. A new device does not simply resolve some problem, but also exists in its own right, creating some new sort of relation. And given enough time, this technological residue clings so tightly, we think it is a part of us, a part of our being human.

A quite serious consequence which emanates from this technological residue is that it is not too difficult to prefer the technological realm to the reality. For instance, there is a Vizio t.v. commercial that has a man choosing the t.v. version of Beyonce over the real Beyonce right in front of him. Or take note of the Microsoft commercial where a woman photoshops her family portrait so that it can be “presentable,” which presumes that how her family actually looks is something to be hidden or done away with. While these are meant to be jokes, there are many instances like this that aren’t so ridiculous, nor so laughable. For instance, think about the number of people who would rather talk on-line than in person, or the person who would rather masterbate to pornography than have any sort of intimate relation with a fellow human being. What’s worse, in some cases, the person’s mind is so altered by the cyber-sex that even when they do have human contact, it isn’t enjoyable (or they can’t even do it) because they’d much prefer to do it alone, illuminated by the pornography whose reality is in their control. Technology’s residue, in this instance, turns our sexuality into something we can’t enjoy without it.

Per my definition of technology, efficiency is built in to what technology essentially is. If technology is the creation of a means to an end we can’t readily achieve on our own, then technology is our vehicle of efficiency (or method as stated earlier).

The most striking commercial that openly displays what technology implies for us is a Droid phone commercial. In the commercial, a businessman is at a meeting, seated at a conference table surrounded by a host of fellow-business-types. While a presentation is being given at the head of the table, the man is texting on his Droid phone. As he types, his fingers move at an increasing speed. Slowly, starting with his fingertips, which are rapidly tapping at the phone screen, his arms turn into what appears to be a machine-like system of metal and joints. The voice for the commercial, in a deep, assertive tone, states that, with Droid, you too can become a “model of efficiency”.

Notice what happens: the human becomes replaced. While the Droid doesn’t actually turn your arms into machine pistons, firing away as you text, the implication is very real. Prior to the conceivable reality of having our physical bodies become machines (which isn’t that unrealistic), we have a very near reality where our human-ness is destroyed; instead of a machine displacing our body, it is efficiency which displaces our humanity.

When thinking about the Droid commercial, notice the statement the voiceover pronounces as a selling-point: “a model of efficiency.” It is an assumption of the commercial that we would choose to give up our hands (not necessarily a metaphor here) in order to text more quickly. While we achieve efficiency, we revoke our humanity. Is it bad that we want to text more quickly? Not necessarily. Is it problematic when, slowly, we find ourselves more often than not, detached from our body, removed from our daily situations that help constitute our human-ness? Yes. One point I have not mentioned is that in this board meeting, he is obviously not paying attention, which is of course the purpose for his presence at the meeting in the first place. But what he chooses (and what so many of us already choose) is to digitally transport his person elsewhere. We disengage from our surroundings; we transport ourselves elsewhere. But that elsewhere isn’t quite a ‘here’ (another example of the residue). Thus, we are no longer here nor are we quite there. And through this process, we no longer can find our place (our being) in the world.

Another example of our humanness being erased is found in an Xfinity commercial which, in promotion of their On Demand catalogue of shows and movies, portrays their t.v.-viewers as becoming 2-d screens or cut-outs of the shows they’re watching. The people are erased by their shows; they “become” the endless shows they’re watching.

Keeping in mind the 2nd definition of technology, e.g. that it is a vehicle of efficiency, I continue with the theme of ‘efficiency’ and focus on the resulting problems of choice and decision (or lack thereof). Almost comically, there is now an app for Robitussen that helps you pick the right medicine for whatever ails you… because Robitussen now has so many medicines tailored to individual symptoms that you simply couldn’t know which one to pick on your own (this also relates to the “only technology can save us from technology” idea). This hopefully brings to the surface an issue that pervades our world today.

If part of getting what we want is being able to find the thing that best fits our desire, then part of technology’s task is to provide us with the most options (internet shopping is a more than sufficient example). But at some point, our world becomes saturated with choices, both in the number of possible options constantly being presented to us and in our incessant decision-making acts those options require of us. What this means in our present age then, is that our choices are everywhere. Choice used to be a privilege, or a moment of joy. Imagine the excitement when a person could first choose between his thousandth coconut and fresh fish, which he could acquire due to his invention of a spear. Fast-forward to now, and most restaurants have menus so big they cover an entire table if each person has one.

We have gotten to the point now that at almost every moment, we have a choice to make. DirecTV boasts of over 6,000 shows and movies. Rhapsody has a commercial promoting a 60-day trial use of their vast, online song collection. They point out that, if you use their product, your whole day can have a soundtrack and each moment is filled with “infinite possibilities.” Everything has become available to us. But, as technology progresses, all choices become equal in value. The ‘cons’ kind of disappear and all we see are ‘pros’. Thus, not only are we bombarded with choices, but, piled on top of them, we also have the weight of making the right choice (if I had all the options in front of me, why didn’t I pick the right one!?!?!). This leads to a disabling effect. We see here that technology no longer gets us to our end more efficiently; to the contrary, it turns our end back in on itself and blocks our access to what we really wanted in the beginning.

We end up not with an acquisition of our end, but with efficiency working only for efficiency’s sake. As an example, I once spent 30 minutes in a video store! I spent a third of the length of the movie I eventually watched, just trying to pick the movie itself! Suddenly, my goal of watching a movie becomes an obsession with picking one. What we are left with is a deep uncertainty about our choice. And when our life is filled with choice after choice, we quickly find ourselves uncertain a lot of the time. And uncertain people are anxious, full of self-doubt, and lack contentment.

What began as a desire for some end, becomes an obsession with achieving our ends more quickly. Our logic: Ok, I can get what I want, now how can I get it in the best way? But notice this conflates the end with the means; we no longer focus on the end, but on the process by which we get there. Part of our end becomes the means. Soon enough, our obsession overcomes us, and we lose our goals (not to mention ourselves) in the process. This really hits home for me. I have noticed that I’ll spend so much time planning and weighing options, that I end up wasting more time than if I just went with a plan of action and worked it out as I went along. The “model of efficiency” becomes nothing more than that; it consumes the human, just like the Droid commercial depicts it. Somewhere between having a goal and working it out, we destroy our ability to get there. Consequently, our life becomes filled with either the achievement of ends that quickly become obsolete and thus meaningless, or with a series of goals that we never reach, because we’re too “busy” figuring out how to get to them. Our human-ness is not enhanced, but replaced by this “model of efficiency”.

What I find most shocking is that the aspects of technology I find so problematic turn out to be the explicit selling-points for the various devices.

60 some years ago, Heidegger had his own issues with technology, some of which I’ve most likely restated above. The most jaw-dropping part of his work on the subject, in my opinion, is that he PREDICTED the invention of “stand-by” flying… No joke. Over 60 years ago, he pointed out that, in a world of technology, the technology will eventually lose its tool-ness for us, and the relationship of human and tool is lost. In his words, “[e]verywhere everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.” No longer are the planes existing for us to get from city to city, but now, we will fly “stand-by” and wait for when a plane next flies… all in the name of efficiency. What a brilliant, sobering prognostication.

What should we do? Good question. Heidegger suggests we focus on what Hubert Dreyfus phrases as "the saving power of insignificant things". I think this isn’t far off. Don’t treat your walk in the park as a time to make a phone call you’ve been meaning to make. Don’t use your commute as a good time to eat breakfast. Don’t read that next book just to say you’ve read it.

Life without weekends

Imagine life without weekends. Not a life where one worked 7 days a week, but where there was no identifiable distinctions between what you did on weekends and what you did during the week.

As it is, our lives are framed into 7 day segments – specifically due to the business/work week. As a result, the “main” part of our weeks are the weekdays, with the minor portion of our weeks being the week-ends. Because we spend the main part of our weeks working, we usually spend the minor part of our weeks recuperating or doing small tasks that we had put off during the energy-exhausting weekdays. Actually, colloquially, the term ‘weekdays’ can be and typically is replaced by the word ‘week’. For instance, I can say “I go to school during the week” and no one (at least in America) will take me to mean that I attend school all 7 days of the week. We turned what was once a 7-day week – it technically is still 7 days in length - into a 5-day (business) week, which contrasts the week-end.

Thus we have a week and a week-end, with the technical meaning of ‘week’ coming to only be used in reference to larger categories of time such as months and years. We still say there are 4 weeks in a month and 52 weeks in a year, but we do not (in most cases) take ourselves to mean that there are only 20 business days in a month.

Obviously, business/job realities are not the only things structuring our frames of time. Church and sporting events have found themselves to become defining aspects of our weekends. Just imagine a Friday night without high school football or basketball, or a Sunday without the NFL, or a Sunday morning without droves of cars heading for their respective sanctuaries. Just as our jobs define our weeks, so too do our expectations of weekend activities. Of course, I would not be unwarranted in positing that most weekend activities have found the sacred week-end days they have due to the Monday through Friday business-week.

What can be problematic about such a framed understanding of one’s time on earth is the fact that it allows these partitions in time to be boundaries, things to be endured or overcome. How often have you heard someone (including yourself) desperately assert that “if I just get through this week, I’ll be in the clear”? What results though, is that many of our weeks become the object of such outlooks. In fact, for those who do not particularly enjoy their job or classes, almost every set of 5 week-days become this. And not only is the main part of the 7-day week something to be endured, but that also means that your weekend becomes two days to do nothing. If you spend 5 of 7 days “surviving”, you aren’t going to want to spend the other 2 days of your life doing a whole lot. Thus, the 2 days between your 5-day weeks become determined themselves, become a time to decompress, and to prepare for the upcoming week. Thus we find ourselves spending 5 days of our lives doing something we (often) would rather not be doing, and the 2 “free” days of our lives determined, or limited, by those 5 days. So after a year of "getting through" this week and "getting through" that week, you realize you have indeed "survived" those weeks, but at the same time, you also wonder what happened to your year.

So what would life look like without this 5-day/2-day structure? What would our experience of life be if we did not segment them into 7-day spans? Sure the sun and moon would still rise and fall on the horizons, but those sunrises wouldn’t have the significance, positive or negative, that they have for us now. Without weekends, the days can no longer be distinguished as either a week-day or a weekend-day. Everyday becomes the same day. It would be much more difficult to have this structured view of time where days or weeks become things-to-be-gotten-through. So while the days lose their distinction and significance, suddenly, our human activity takes on its own significance. It now becomes our choice as to what structures our life.

What’s more, if there is no weekend, then there are no 7-day weeks, and that means the calendar year now becomes a foreign organizational system to us too. Days are still days, defined by the rotation of the earth and years are still years defined by the orbiting around the sun, but the significance of how we spend those indistinguishable moments is up to us.

I’m not sure whether such a life is possible these days, and I’m not even sure whether such a way of living is any better than the one we currently have. But I wouldn’t mind trying it some time.

Misc. Post

Well I said my next post would be light-hearted, so this will be that.

First, I'd like to point out that I just noticed how many labels (at the bottom of my posts) I put on all of the posts and that only 3 of them have been repeated. This means two things: (1) - my blogs haven't had very many related themes and (2) - the three repeats are what matter to me most. I believe (2) is exactly right. "Human beings" and their "value", and "philosophy" are the most important things in my life right now.

Second, does anyone know why we have to quotation marks outside of punctuation? (See the last sentence of the previous paragraph as well as all of the quotation uses below) I understand following the rule when it pertains to dialogue, but why should that rule follow when you're just referring to a short phrase that you want set off by quotations? It has nothing to do with the sentence as a whole, so why should the punctuation have to fit inside of the quotes?

Third, earlier I mentioned that I had 3 labels which had been tagged two times. Here's the catch, I'm going to label (appropriately so) those three things for this post considering I mentioned them in this post. So as I typed it in the 1st paragraph, was incorrect for me to say the proposition that "those labels have been tagged 2 times"? I guess as I typed it, it was not, but as you read it, it is. 

abstract form: I say, "A", followed by "this line contains one "A". 

How can I form a statement over time when the very statement I'm trying to say defeats itself? My 2nd statement is true when I form it, but after it is formed, it becomes false.

Does this have ramifications for everyday life? Maybe and maybe not. Any ideas out there? Time and knowledge is a possibility for one of my papers coming up here so that is my particular interest in this subject right now.

Almost speechless

This video is... well I can't find appropriate words for it. [original link is no longer available, try youtube. it breaks it up into 9 parts but it should still work]

I just ask that you watch at least the first 7 to 10 minutes, but I think the full time of the video is most impactful. Also, if you do only have time for the first ten minutes, you must also skip to 31 minutes in and watch the clips of the evangelism video created by an African church.

I will give a few of my reactions as best I can, while at the same time trying to not effect how you view this video. So I would suggest first watching it, to get your own views, and then read my personal thoughts below.

- I do not care what you believe, this raises problems for your belief structure. 

If you're religious (Christian especially since Jesus' name is being evoked in this video), well... I'm sure you can justify this is some off-hand way or just say that we cannot understand the ways of the spiritual, but I will NOT accept those accounts. If you take that route, you must have more meat to your argument than "the will of god is unknowable" because this horrendous experience deserves way more consideration than that. 

If you're secular, we have only ourselves to blame and this call to action is urgent. We cannot keep on mutilating our society like we do. Superstitions and myths have dominated our race for far too long. (I'm not saying Christian doctrine is useless but the Old Testament certainly discusses ostracizing wayward children and stoning delinquents, punishments not unlike some of the appalling occurrences shown in this video.) But more importantly, action is required if we have only humanity to blame. We cannot fallback on saying things will work out in the end. We have to take a stand and bring about this change  ourselves.

- This reminds me of the witch trials of Salem as well as the Dark Age period where the church had ultimate authority and could account for any aberrant behavior as evil and demon-like.

- I'm simply disgusted. 

Life Captured by Photo

The Boston Globe has a picture blog they update at least once or twice a week. I cannot get enough of it. This week revolves around Bolivia and their new constitution. I'm not sure I've seen pictures that are able to capture the moment, the scenery, and all the emotion behind the people that are photographed. Who knew one still-frame picture could say so much about the people it is capturing.

I highly recommend checking out the archives too. But beware! It's addicting and you may spend the next 5 hours going through them.

Enjoy!