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from the bleeding-hearts-and-artists-making-a-stand dept.
Silicon Valley is dictating the way we live through design. From smartphones to dating websites, we increasingly experience the world and basic human connection through platforms and devices Silicon Valley created for us. It is the artist’s job to turn a critical eye on the world we live in. At the Rhizome event, it seemed like the artists were deeply troubled by the ways in which technology is limiting our ability to see that world.
There is the common refrain that everyone’s eyeballs are glued to their smartphones, even while walking into traffic, but this is a deeper concern, that the way we are designing technology is taking away the best parts of our humanity. On Facebook, you must “like” everything. On Vine, things must be interesting in 7 seconds or less. On Google, you must optimize or you will disappear.
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Technologists tend to think about their creations in terms of code and efficiency, whereas artists excel at helping us see the humanity in the machine, pinpointing moments of beauty, ugliness and truth in the way we live. We need artists to help save us from the ‘fitter, happier, more productive’ world that Silicon Valley is creating, a world that doesn’t seem to be making us all as happy as it promised. The Rhizome experiment is just the start of getting technologists to think more deliberately about the world they are making the rest of us live in.
Are technologists dehumanizing the world?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 03 2015, @07:10AM
I look at the world around me - and yes, people are far to engrossed in their electronic toys. They have been "dehumanized" to some extent, because they prefer to play with their toys, than to interact with the people around them.
But, good things come from all this tech. The single best thing I can think of right now, are the police and racial issues. I've always known that black males are targeted by the cops - but how in hell do you prove something like that? Well - tech is giving us the means to prove the issue exists, to document it, to define it - and possibly to do something about it. Most recently, a cop opened a motorist's door, attempted to pull that motorist out of his car, and when that motorists resisted, the cop shot him dead. The FACTS documented by the body camera only vaguely resemble the story told by the cop and his partner. In this and similar cases, tech helps to bring out our humanity and/or inhumanity.
As has always been true, each of us must find our own pathway to hell. Each of us has to decide whether we will use technology, or we permit technoloty to use us. The herd won't resist, but individual members can and will resist being dehumanized. Individual members are exposing the inherent evil of the establishment, almost daily.
What of those who are part of the establishment? Well - the herd seems to be using tech to further dehumanize us. They see tech as a tool to control the masses. The individual steps up, now and then, to use that tech for the betterment of the masses, instead of controlling the masses. To wit - the prosecutor who charged the previously mentioned cop with murder.
The prosecutor stated that this was the worst case of police work he had seen in thirty years on the job. The fact is - he has never seen such a piss-poor example of police work, because the videos have never been available before. The "hero" prosecutor has probably unwittingly assisted dozens of cover ups in the past thirty years. THIS TIME, he has documentation to work with, and decided not to assist in yet another cover up.
Dehumanizing? It's your call. Each and every day, it's your call. Are you another mindless drone, responding to stimuli from your environment?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.