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D'coda Dcoda

Why Twitter's Oral Culture Irritates Bill Keller (and why this is an important issue) [... - 0 views

  • Bill Keller of the New York Times has just written a provocative piece lamenting that new technologies are eroding essential human characteristics. I would certainly agree that almost all technologies, especially those with a cognitive element, transform the way we organize, value and manage our intellectual and social lives–-indeed, such complaints were raised, most famously by Plato about how writing was emptying words of their soul by disconnecting them from their living speakers. However, Keller makes not one but at least three distinct claims in his piece. I want to primarily discuss the one that he makes least explicitly and perhaps has never formulated directly himself.
  • first, let’s clarify the other two which are explicit.
  • First Keller talks about how we no longer need to remember everything and how his father used to use a slide rule and now there are calculators and who knows their multiplication table anymore… This is a familiar argument from cognitive replacement and I believe it is worth discussing not necessarily because there is something inherently wrong with machines making certain cognitive tasks easier, but I do deeply worry about what this means for valuing humans. Cheaper computers increasingly capable of taking over human tasks means that we face a profound human problem: how will we deal with the billions of people who will be potentially redundant if the only way of measuring a human’s worth is their price on the labor market? For me, this is an important political question rather than a technological lament. It’s not about what machines can do, it’s about the criteria by which we judge the worth of our fellow human beings, and how advances information technology increasingly leads us to devalue each other
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  • Second, Keller argues that “there is something decidedly faux about the camaraderie of Facebook, something illusory about the connectedness of Twitter.” This line of argument, that our social ties are being hollowed out by digital sociality, is also fairly common. I’d like to start by saying that it is not supported by empirical research.
  • Increasing numbers of people even make connections online which then they turn into offline connections (See Wang and Wellman, for example), so that even actual “virtual” connections –which I have just argued are less common—are valuable for many communities who otherwise do not have abundant peers around them, say cancer patients or gay youth in small towns.
  • here are the parts of Keller’s comments which have intrigued me
  • My mistrust of social media is intensified by the ephemeral nature of these communications. They are the epitome of in-one-ear-and-out-the-other, which was my mother’s trope for a failure to connect.
  • The shortcomings of social media would not bother me awfully if I did not suspect that Facebook friendship and Twitter chatter are displacing real rapport and real conversation, just as Gutenberg’s device displaced remembering. The things we may be unlearning, tweet by tweet — complexity, acuity, patience, wisdom, intimacy — are things that matter.
  • Then along came the Mark Zuckerberg of his day, Johannes Gutenberg.
  • But this comparison between Gutenberg and Zuckerberg makes little sense unless you realize that Keller is actually trying to complain about the reemergence of oral psychodynamics in the public sphere rather than about memory falling out of favor.
  • If the latter were the case, his ire would be more about Google; instead, most of his frustration is directed against social media, and mostly Twitter, the most conversational, and thus most oral of these mediums.
  • The key to understanding this is that while writing did displace the value of memory, the vast abundance of printed material it did something else also, something less remarked upon, both to the shape of our public sphere and also to our psychodynamics. It replaced the natural, visceral human oral psychodynamics with those of literate and written ones
D'coda Dcoda

Cell Phones, EMF Negatively Altering the Brain | New Study [28Jan12] - 0 views

  • A new Greek scientific study has demonstrated how frequency electromagnetic fields, namely cell phones, portable phones, WiFi, and wireless computer equipment, alter important protein changes in the brains of animals. Exposure to electromagnetic frequencies is the result of our advancing technologies, but it is important to study these effects so people know exactly what they’re dealing with in order to take the necessary precautionary measures.
  • The study, entitled “Brain proteome response following whole body exposure of mice to mobile phone or wireless DECT base radiation,” was published in the journal Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine. Important areas of the brain such as the hippocampus, cerebellum, and frontal lobe are regions responsible for learning, memory, and other functions. These areas are negatively impacted by microwave radiation, even at levels below the safety guidelines put in place by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation protection
  • Researchers found that 143 proteins in the brain were negatively impacted by radio frequency radiation over a period of 8 months. A total of 3 hours of cell phone exposure were simulated over the 8 month time period, and the results showed that many neural function related proteins’ functional relationship changed the for worse.
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  • It is known that short term exposure of microwaves exuded from a cell phone, depending on how far the antenna is from the head, can penetrate as much as 1 1/2 inches into the brain, but this study focuses more on the long term effects and how EMF impacts specific brain proteins. This provides new evidence of the potential relationship between EMF and health complications stemming from EMF such as headaches, dizziness, sleep disorders, and even tumors and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Another study conducted by a Russian team of researchers also showed that EMF and cell phones cause significant long-term cognitive decline in children. It may be time for parents to re-determine if young children should really be using these devices with growing bodies and developing brains.
  • A number of foreign countries are attempting to adopt precautionary protocols to limit cell phone use in an attempt to mitigate the number of adverse effects they have on human health. In 2011, the WHO/IARC released a report stating that cell phone radiation may have a carcinogenic effect on humans. In fact, the World Health Organization actually said that cell phones are in the same cancer-causing category as lead, engine exhaust, and chloroform.
D'coda Dcoda

Future of Web - Lee Rainier predicts [28Apr10] - 0 views

  • Rainier , director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, looks ahead and makes a lengthy prediction of where we’re headed via the internet. As tempting as it was to clip the whole thing, I’ve resisted which means you will want to follow the link to read the article.
  • Themes:Cognitive capacities will shift (memorization)New literacies will be required. Fourth “R” is retrieval… “extreme Googlers”Tech isn’t the problem; people’s inherent character traits is the issuePerformance of information markets is a big unknown especially in the age of social media and junk information … Google will improve.Innovation ecosystem will change so radically (bandwidth/processing) that it’s hard to forecastBasic trends are evident — “the internet of things” and “sensors” and “mobile” and “location-based services” and “3D” and “speech recognition” and “translation systems”Law/regulations to protect privacy even though more disclosure required“Workarounds” to provide a measure of anonymityConfidentiality and autonomy will replace yearning for anonymityRise of social media is as much a challenge to anonymity as authentication requirements. Reputation management and information responsibility will emerge. Significantly more responsive govt, biz, NFP (71%/72%) v (26/26) [responses - anonymous, not-anonymous] Tide too strong to resist – pressure for transparency is powerfulData wil be the platform for changeEfficiency and responsiveness aren’t the same thingWe’re reading and writing more than our parents – participation breeds engagementNature of writing has changed (public). Quality will get better due to feedback and flamersReading and writing will be different in 10 years; screen literacy will become importantRead more at wiredpen.com
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    long list of Pew research predictions for internet
Jan Wyllie

Wildcat: Of Onions and Infocologies Thriving in the age of hyperconnectivity [31Aug09] - 0 views

  • a sensation carried by many and is very difficult to articulate, for even though the scope and amount of information available to us is disturbing many cherished beliefs and long held assumptions, at base this sensation is pleasurable, hence we want more of it.
  • we are entering, and actually are already in, a deterritorialized age of transformation, an age unlike any other in that the speed and overload of information is transforming us, and yes destabilizing us, disrupting us in such a fashion as to allow a new kind of mind to emerge, the hyperconnected mind.
  • we have evolved to be a fluid intelligence, an intelligence for which disruption is not a bug but a feature.
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  • Hyperconnectivity leads to fluid intelligence.
  • Fluid intelligence is the ability to find meaning in confusion and solve new problems. It is the ability to draw inferences and understand the relationships of various concepts, independent of acquired knowledge”
  • I have become more intelligent, clearer, more focused, faster and more appreciative of others. In fact I am more than pleased with my multitasking, multithreaded polylogue on practically every level of my existence.
  • I believe that fluid intelligence is the hallmark of our present era, an intelligence that is fundamentally  autopoietic and multidimensional;
  • think that same intelligence is in the process of adaptation, adapting itself to accommodate information overload not as a negative so called ‘distraction’ but as an attention enhancer, an explorative measure of our intellects. T
  • in our hyperconnected slipstream the very transient nature of meaning is being amplified.
  • We are at present in a transitional period of rapid advancement, an era of supreme importance in the history of humanity, a phase in our concatenated evolution in which new forms of literacy are being invented, new methods of inter-subjective enhancement are at play and we evolve because of it.
  • more than that I carry the (very subjective) feeling that I have developed a new filtering system concerning relevancy and irrelevancy, I am now able to discard or admit at a glance, if something is worthy of note to me or not, if it pertains to my (very extensive) list of interests or not.
  • A connected object, one that is a node in a network that interacts in some way with other nodes, can give birth to a hundred unique relationships that it never could do while unconnected
  • Narratives is what we are made of, our states of mind are narratives, stories within stories,
  • The paradigmatic shift is disruptive because it heralds a new story, the story of superabundance, and the superabundance starts with the wealth of information at our immediate accessibility.
  • he narrative of our hyperconnected state of affairs is one of enmeshed realities
  • the dynamics of intersubjectivity allows us to flow uninterrupted into a combined interactive intelligence, a hyper-intelligence that combines autonomous critical thinking within a larger framework of co-adaptive consensual adhocracies.
  • this very variability of multiple realities enmeshed as a coherent whole that re-describes the theme of being a hyperconnected mind.
  • in direct insights that are predominantly invisible but nevertheless inform our actions and influence our understandings. Moreover, I see the modern formless hypermind evolving in front of our eyes as the precursor of a posthuman mind that is not only better at ‘everything’ but eventually will adapt old and outdated philosophical and cognitive concepts into fresh modes of being.
    • Jan Wyllie
       
      As always significant, inspiring and disturbing. 
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    Is this vision coming to pass? Or is it delayed again? Or being overtaken by events on the ground, so to speak?
D'coda Dcoda

Seduction Secrets In Video Game Design [20May11] - 0 views

  • "Drawing on cognitive science, an increasing number of game theorists and designers say that our growing love of video games has important things to tell us about our intrinsic desires and motivations. Central to it all is a simple theory – that games are fun because they teach us interesting things and they do it in a way that our brains prefer – through systems and puzzles. 'With games, learning is the drug,' writes Raph Koster, the designer of seminal multiplayer fantasy games such as Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. 'In game theory, this is often spoken of as the "magic circle": you enter into a realm where the rules of the real world don't apply – and typically being judged on success and failure is part of the real world. People need to feel free to try things and to learn without being judged or penalised.' Another important element is autonomy as games tap into our need to have control.
  • Finally another important game design facet is 'disproportionate feedback,' in which players are hugely rewarded for achieving very simple tasks. In highly successful shooters such as Call of Duty and Bulletstorm, when an enemy is shot, they don't just collapse to the floor, they explode into chunks. 'You're good, you're a success – you're powerful,' writes Stuart. 'Disproportionate feedback is an endorphin come-on.'"
Dan R.D.

How This Guy Is Making Your iPhone Virtually Human [17Sep11] - 0 views

  • Today, your iPhone is a gadget, a mere consumer appliance. But your future iPhone will become increasingly human. You’ll have conversations with it. The phone will make decisions, prioritize the information it presents to you, and take action on your behalf — rescheduling meetings, buying movie tickets, making reservations and much more.
  • In short, your iPhone is evolving into a personal assistant that thinks, learns and acts. And it’s all happening sooner than you think,
  • Ultimately, however, human beings are hard-wired to communicate with other people, not computers. And that’s why the direction of interface design is always heading for the creation of artificial humans.
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  • For speech, Apple has maintained a long-standing partnership with the leading company. A version of iOS 5 with Nuance Dictation has reportedly been sent out to carriers for testing.
  • There are four elements to a machine that can function like a person: 1) speech; 2) decision-making algorithms; 3) data; and 4) “agency,” the ability to act in the world on your behalf.
  • For decision-making algorithms, Apple can rely on the amazing technology it purchased in April, 2010, when it bought Siri, a company that created a personal-assistant application that you talk to, and it figures out what you want.
  • The most expensive, ambitious and far-reaching attempt to create a virtual human assistant was initiated in 2003 by the Pentagon’s research arm, DARPA (the organization that brought us the Internet, GPS and other deadly weapons).
  • The project was called CALO, for “Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes,” and involved some 300 of the world’s top researchers.
  • The man in charge of the whole project was a brilliant polymath who worked as senior scientist and co-director of the Computer Human Interaction Center at SRI, Adam Cheyer (pictured above).
Dan R.D.

Study confirms dangers of violent video games | Machines Like Us [02Nov11] - 0 views

  • New research by Dr Brock Bastian from UQ's School of Psychology has found evidence that playing violent video games leads players to see themselves, and their opponents, as lacking in core human qualities such as warmth, open-mindedness, and intelligence.
  • In a recently published paper in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Dr Bastian and his co-authors looked at whether the experience of cyber-violence had dehumanising consequences for the self-concept of game players and well as their opponents.
  • Dr Bastian said given his findings, it was not surprising that many people were concerned about the effects of playing violent video games, especially when they appeared to reflect changes in people's behaviour, emotions, and cognitions in ways consistent with a loss of humanity.
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  • "There are good reasons to be concerned: the negative effects of violent video games have been well documented and appear to be more significant than those associated with other forms of violent media," he said.
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