Group items tagged

Initially “anyone can program reality” via written text,

invention of the printing press assigns more control to those who control the means of production/replication

In the era of mass media, there’s a sense of mainstream knowledge that’s vetted carefully by editors and publishers who share similar biases and assumptions.

In the era of computers and the Internet, we’ve seen the evolution of a more decentralized, diverse “social” media

How free are we from a the centralized set of biases associated with mass publishing?

Rushkoff argues that there are biases in the way things are programmed – programmers have biases or they’re directed according to the biases of others.

bias followed by commandment

1) Time: “Thou shalt not be always on.”

2) Distance: “Thou shalt not do from a distance what can be done better in person.”

you have to be clear whether you’re using the technology where it’s most effective, or simply conceding to its inherent bias.

3) Scale – the net is biased to scale up. “Exalt the particular.” Not everything should scale. This makes me think of E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful.”

4) Discrete: “You may always choose none of the above.”

5) Complexity. “Thou shalt never be completely right.”

Real scholarship acknowledges, embraces, and digs into that complexity.

6) Anonymity. “Thou shalt not be anonymous.”

By default, we are incomplete in an environment that is mostly textual and binary communication. In this context, it is liberating to adopt a strong sense of identity.

7) Contact. “Remember the humans.” Content is not king in a communications environment – CONTACT is king.

8) Abstraction. “As above, so below.” Text abstracted words from speech. Invention of text led to an abstract god. Also led to treating economy as if it is nature – but it’s not, it’s a game. Don’t make equivalencies between the abstracted model and the real world.

9) Openness. “Thou shalt not steal.”

We’re seeing a transitional economy where value and compensation are being redefined, and where especially the value and exchange of social capital is increasingly more relevant.

10) End users. Here the bias is toward making all or most of us end users rather than programmers. “Program or be programmed.”

The user and the coder are farther apart. He argues that we should all understand programming, be able to build our own tools or configure tools other have built so that we have more control over the digital environment.