Final Response

The definition of technology is the practical application of knowledge.  Much of what we consider “technology” could be considered something else when one considers the word practical or useful.  There are many technological advancements that are applied in a non-practical fashion.  The equation, technological advancement = human progression, is an illusion.  The quest for technological development and the subjugation of Nature has done as much to stunt the growth of humanity as it has to push humanity forward.  Technology has always been a two-sided coin.  Inventions originally intended to help turn out to be immensely harmful.  Technology has made life easier and faster for people, but has also done, possibly, irreparable injury to Nature.  Perhaps humans were not meant to have so much control over our environment.  Technology has additionally stripped away, or is in the process of taking away, much of what it means to be human.  But, what is most tragic and dangerous about technology, is the increased ability of our political and economic powers to manipulate the masses, and their willingness to employ technology in progressively more destructive ways. 

            Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can, in many ways, be considered an early warning of what people were up against in the face of scientific advancement.  Shelley lived during the time just as the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take hold.  Many scientific breakthroughs were being made at this time, and human’s power to mass produce products, and subdue Nature was growing as it never had in the past.  There was a great deal of excitement and optimism about what these new discoveries would bring in the future.  However, not many people thought about the negative consequences that could come about.  Shelley lived a life full of contemplation and conversation, and undoubtedly, the Industrial Revolution was a topic or both. Through her novel, Shelley was one of the first people to explore the detrimental effects of scientific progress.

            Frankenstein is a cautionary tale illustrating the consequences of what happens when humans overstep their bounds.  The limit as to how far people should go is unclear, but death and destruction should be a sufficient sign to say we have gone too far.  Frankenstein raises questions as to how far humans should go in interrupting the processes of the natural world.  In the novel, Dr. Frankenstein steps into, arguably God’s territory or into a realm where men should not dabble, when he conceives life in an unnatural way.  His monster was not born within the womb of a mother, but pieced together from an assortment of corpses. By running away at the sight of his creation, Frankenstein showed that he was not ready to handle the responsibility of applying what he had discovered to benefit anyone.  In other words, there was nothing practical that came about after his monster was animated.

The novel also questions whether or not humanity is prepared to take responsibility for what it concocts.  Though, Dr. Frankenstein initially intended to help, his designs eventually became his downfall resulting in calamity.  Dr. Frankenstein suffered greatly for his irresponsibility, a trait he displayed throughout much of the novel.  First, he fled when he saw his work come into fruition.  Next, he did not tell anyone the identity of his brother’s killer which resulted in death of another innocent.  His silence continued and it cost him his best friend, his father, and his fiancé.  Well-meaning intentions were turned to disaster.  In the real world, human’s misuse of technology has resulted in a similar pattern.  The quintessential demonstration would be the Albert Einstein’s pioneering work that lead to the development of the atomic bomb.

One of the unexpected side effects of technological advancement is the way it de humanizes people in a number of ways.  It has taken us out of our natural state as beings living with our environment, on grass and dirt, and breathing clean air to living in an artificial environment living on concrete and breathing pollution.  We also begin to interact with machines and inanimate objects as much as we come in contact with actual people.  A lack of practice puts a strain on creating and maintaining meaningful interpersonal relationships, a task which is not easy, and makes it more difficult for us to genuinely bond with others.  This results in people being isolated from each other, when it is our authentic connections with others that make life worth living.  In many ways, technology is causing us to lose our humanity.

            The landscape of every “developed” nation has changed since the Industrial Revolution.  Now, technology is virtually everywhere.  Towering skyscrapers stretch towards the sky, advertisements are crammed into every corner of sight, and brilliant flashing lights are as common as a sunset.  Tracks of concrete span for miles, and smog spewing vehicles travel their links continuously.  Factories and manufacturing plants also spit copious amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere.  Despite these unpleasantries, citizens of these industrialized nations cannot live without the products that are created in the factories and sold to them through the ubiquitous display commercialism. 

            In the books Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (D.A.D.O.E.S.) and Neuromancer, both Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson depict cities that are overflowing with machines and technological marvels.  Technology permeates every aspect of the characters lives.  In D.A.D.O.E.S. androids are relied on to do a lot of work that humans refuse or are unable to do.  Also, mechanical animals were in relatively high demand, as owning an animal was a sign of social status.  The movie, Blade Runner, shows the cityscapes Dick envisioned in his book, which was a collage of cement and neon lights.  In the book, the majority of the action took place within such settings, with the exception of one scene where the main character, Deckard, goes out into a desert.  In Neuromancer,

the cities are described in much the same way.  Only in Gibson’s paracosm, their exists a metropolis known as the Sprawl.  It is the name of the city that stretches from Boston to Atlanta, virtually the whole of the Eastern coast of the U.S.  As time progresses, Gibson’s megalopolis becomes more and more plausible.

People soon become products of the products which we create.  Most people who live in industrialized nations cannot imagine life without the technological comforts afforded to them since birth.  This is nothing short of a technological dependency.  The question of what people did before the television is often posed.  For many people television is a daily necessity.  Other forms of technology such as cellular phones, the internet, cars, and prescription drugs are also equally indispensable for many individuals as well.

In D.A.D.O.E.S., Dick exposes this technological dependency within human beings.  People had the mood organ on hand ready and waiting for the user to dial in their desired emotion.  Through chemical manipulation, reminiscent of antidepressants and other psychoactive prescription drugs, the user is given a mood with no effort on their part beyond pressing buttons.  There was also a machine called an empathy box that connected people for something of a religious experience.  Through this machine they connected with people all over the world.  Though they were connected through the machine, once out of the program, they are back in their isolated worlds.  The society in D.A.D.O.E.S. was also subject 23-hour radio and television programming of the same show and no one seemed to be bothered by it.  Television programs in actuality appear to be heading towards this trend.  In the book, these unnatural dependencies rendered the humans less human than the androids.

            In Neuromancer, a similar reliance on technology can be observed.  Apparently, the economic system highly depends on the digital world, in the book known as the matrix.  It is in this world that the main character, Case, makes his living as hacker.  When the book opens, Case is a shell of his former self, largely because he no longer possesses the ability to enter the matrix.  The loss of this capability leaves him severely depressed to point of near suicidal tendencies.  Many times throughout the novel Case would refer distastefully to biological urges or needs as “meat things” implying that he had a preference for his existence inside the artificial world of the matrix.  Another feature of the book that demonstrated technological dependency was the drug use.  Case use techno-enhanced drugs, and at one point was forced to find a stronger form of drug to override the surgically enhanced pancreas he had which prevented him from using.

            Our technological dependency isolates humans from, the natural world, and from other people.  We begin to interact more and more with machines and drugs, and less so with people.  The dangers of isolation are highlight in Frankenstein, where the monster goes into a murderous rage because the lack of physical intimacy he received.  The more time people spend on cell phones or staring blankly into a television screen while sitting in a room full of people, the less we are nurturing each other emotionally.  The less that people are having genuine interactions, the more difficult it will become to do so and interpersonal relationships will continue to break down.  Also, our expansive metropolitan areas separate those populations from the natural world.  Most people do not feel comfortable in a forest without the numerous modern conveniences that people are surrounded with now.  In Camp Concentration, the narrator Sacchetti illustrates human’s innate need for the natural world.  At the end of the book, Sacchetti is taken outside for the first time in several months, and even though he feels his death is near, he is reduced to tears over the joy he feels to be standing on the ground in the outside air, rather than inside a prison.

            The use of technology is controlled and facilitated by large corporations and the government.  The industry of technology is a business just as any other industry is.  There is a great deal of money involved, and in many instances the government must step in to regulate the use of certain technologies.  They decide what technologies the masses can use, which one’s they can’t use, and has access to technologies in which it employs, but denies use to the public (mainly weapons).  However, both the business of technology and the decisions made by the government are extremely susceptible to corruption.  On many occasions the aims of the government are indistinguishable from the goals of corporations.  Both of their motives seem to be money, power, and prestige.  The way these entities achieve this status is through the manipulation of the populace.

            In Neuromancer, the world is dominated and controlled by corporations who create technology as much as or more so than the governments.  Not only do technological corporations have a stranglehold on the world, but many of their technologies leak down into crime filled black markets.  Also, one of the main characters in the book, Corto, was in the military and subjected to a government run test to see the effects of a new chemical weapon.  The officers involved were told that they were being experimented on and the result of the experiment killed those involved and sent the survivor absolutely insane.  In Camp Concentration, Sacchetti comments on the manipulative tendencies of the government, “…their secret masters in the Olympus of Washington mold their opinions as easily as they (admittedly) control the press, “(Disch, 17).  The “their” refers to the general population of the U.S., which is engaged in what is briefly described as a conflict of global proportions.  The narrator makes insinuations about how the government tricked people into supporting this war that the U.S. is “criminally” involved in.  Also, the government is testing a drug called Pallidine on the inmates at Camp Archimedes, many of whom do not know that they have been infected.  In D.A.D.O.E.S. the people are so dependent on technology that, not only are they out of touch with other people, but they are out of touch with themselves.  This feeling of disconnectedness stunts people’s ability to comprehend the forces at work around them.  This leaves the “Powers that Be” free to do whatever they want.  It would seem that many people in the real world today are suffering from such symptoms.

            In addition to making everyday life easier, faster, and more efficient it has also made destroying life that much easier and more efficient.  As time passes, more technology is thought up to more effectively terminate human life.  People are making bigger, more powerful, and more deadly weapons every year, for the most part, out of the awareness of the general public.  In a majority of the books read this semester, war was included in the text in some form or another.  In the Time Machine, as the Time Traveller moves into the future, he sees destruction wrought in the form of massive bombs being dropped in a war he knows nothing about.  He is only witness to the destruction that comes about because of the unknown conflict.  The world depicted in D.A.D.O.E.S. is ravaged from what is called “World War Terminus.”  The effect of the war has left the entire world covered in a blanket of dust.  The destruction is so bad that the U.N. has encouraged able bodies to migrate to space colonies.  Also, in Camp Concentration, the world in is the midst of a global conflict.

            The books we read this semester all touched on similar themes in way or another.  The most prominent idea was the danger of technology.  Each book in its own way showed a dark side to technology that is overlooked in many instances.  People ignore the damage caused to the environment through their use of chemicals and excessive waste.  People become so dependent on technology they forgot how to connect with other people and lose touch with themselves.  This leads to complacency in the face of institutions devising the end of humanity for sake of economic power.  If humanity is not terminated by the weapons of mass destruction being produced, we stand to lose our humanity through our reliance on technology.  The distant future H.G. Wells presents in the Time Machine, full of childlike Eloi and vicious Morlocks becomes more plausible with each passing gadget that allows people to think and act less. 

Philip K. Dick

William Gibson 

 

Camp Concentration Response

Camp Concentration was very difficult to read at times.  There were many passages throughout the book that I had trouble following.  The beginning of Book Two (roughly pages 111-121), shortly after the narrator, Louie Sacchetti, discovers he has been injected with the Pallidine, is extremely disorientating to read.  Despite this difficulty I liked that Sacchetti was a poet.  I also thought it was funny and interesting the way the character of Sacchetti acknowledges the fact that he is writing cryptically and that Haast wants him to write more precise.  I liked the Sacchetti’s character and I thought Thomas Disch portrayed him to be humorous and witty.  Sacchetti also seemed very believable and plausible as a person.  The other character that got a response out of me was Dr. Skilliman.  The way Sacchetti described him was very vivid and I immediately disliked him as much as Louie did.  The book was not predictable at all.  I had no idea what was going to happen next and I barely had an idea of what was going on at the moment much of the time.  Although it was a very difficult book to follow, I found it to be exceedingly thought provoking.  Disch raises numerous interesting questions.

            Throughout the semester many of the books we have read have had one thing in common.  That is a bleak and pessimistic outlook of the future.  Many of the stories are framed by a devastating world war.  Camp Concentration is no exception to this rule.  Sacchetti is in prison because he is a contentious objector and is demonstrating his opposition to what is going on in the world of politics.  He describes the leaders in Washington as secretive and manipulative.  Though the book does not focus on the war very much it is mentioned a couple of times throughout.  From what I could gather there is a war going on where either both or one of the sides is using chemical weapons or employing germ warfare.  Also, it is implied that the United States is criminally or questionably involved in the war, reminiscent of the
Vietnam conflict.  In addition to the war the world seems to be going through a problematic population explosion.  In Sacchetti’s story about Dr. Skilliman he is someone who is looking for solutions to the overpopulation.  I think it is very interesting that these science fiction writers share a similar view of the world to come and I believe it is more than a stylistic choice of a setting.           

One of the most intriguing questions Thomas Disch raises in this novel is whether or not being a genius is worth it.  While reading the book I thought of how becoming a genius isolates that individual.  The people immediately around the genius no longer understand what he/she is going through.  Also, trying to make connections with other super intelligent people can be problematic considering one spends much of their time reading and studying material from a particular or multiple fields.  The theme of isolation is resonant of Frankenstein and his monster’s ordeal.  I imagine that many geniuses have come to experience similar catastrophic or painful situations.  However, as a society it would seem that we need this extraordinary people to push humanity’s collective knowledge to the next level.  One or a small group of highly intelligent people can change the course of history with the insights and discoveries they come across.  In Camp
Concentration the people are made to become super smart through the drug Pallidine.  The side effect to this drug is death within a year.  In my opinion such a fate would not be worth the intelligence one stands to acquire.  For me, life is more than the development of the intellect.

Extra Weekly Blog #4

The technology I'm writing about this week is blogging.  I have been pretty skeptical of blogs, as I am with anything that has a sudden explosion of popularity within pop culture.  To me they seemed to be a way for people to glamorize their otherwise mundane and average lives with pictures from keggars and pictures of them looking "emo" staring off into the distance with song lyrics as a caption.  But I, Mr. Nonconformist, recently set up a myspace account.  I came to discover, just like anything else, that the user can decides the way in which to use something despite whatever stigma may come with it.  While I still don't like the pretentious social aspect to some of these blogsites, I've come to discover that many of my favourite music artists have myspace pages.  It is an easy way to keep up with artists' developments and tour dates.  It has become somewhat of an addiction hunting down exactly who has a page, but hopefully I'll be able to keep it under control.

Neuromancer Response

I thought William Gibson’s novel, Neuromancer, was extremely interesting.  I enjoyed reading it a lot.  I have always been a fan of cyberpunk, though not knowing how to label it.  It was very enlightening to learn the term and read one of the pioneering works within the genre.  The book creates a very detailed and realized world.  It is also much like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the way Gibson describes the landscapes and cities.  They seemed to be overcrowded with people and technology.  This led me to have an image of a very busy and cluttered city, much like what was depicted in the Bladerunner movie.  The many different technological advances were also very interesting.  Some of the more notable ones I remember are the genetically enhanced human beings.  Molly, Hideo, and Peter Riviera all displayed some interesting abilities due to the technology available.  Also, it was mentioned that cosmetic surgery was common place and easily affordable.  I found the simstim devices to be captivating too.  I liked the inclusion of the preserved consciousness of one of Cases’s mentors, McCoy Pauley, in helping him infiltrate the Tessier-Ashpool system.  And I thought Case being able to jack into Molly’s brain to experience her sensations was fascinating as well.

The most striking feature of this book, as is case with the cyberpunk genre, is the ubiquity of technology.  There were virtually no scenes in the book that technology was not the main focus or had a large effect on the situation.  It permeated every aspect of every characters life from the beginning of the novel to the end.  This technological saturation led to widespread dependency on technology.  The main character, Case, was dependent on the Matrix as a cyber-cowboy.  When his Net-surfing capabilities were lost he dove into a near suicidal depression until the damage done was repaired.  As soon as the Case was able to enter the Matrix again, the dependency returned.  On several occasions in the book Case refers to biological urges or phenomena pejoratively as “meat things” expressing an unnatural aversion of his own flesh.  He preferred the immaterial digital existence of the Matrix instead.  Molly is another character whose life revolves around the technological advances that have arisen in Gibson’s world.  Her livelihood throughout her adult life centered on technology.  At first she was a doll girl, a futuristic prostitute whose mind was suspended while her body was subject to any twisted pleasure her employers clients desired.  After quitting this job Molly became a bodyguard or contract killer whose body was cybernetically enhanced beyond natural human beings abilities.  She displayed feats of superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes throughout the novel.  Another character whose life depended on technology was Peter Riviera.  He was a thief and a projectionist artist.  His survival in the underworld depended greatly on his implants that allowed him to project realistic holographic images.

Something else that is interesting to note is the widespread drug use.  Many of the characters showed a strong chemical dependency on pills and other narcotics.  Though I cannot remember it being explicitly stated in the book it can be assumed that these drugs have somehow been altered with the futuristic technology this society had achieved.  One such example are the octagons that Case used at the beginning of the novel and the drugs he managed to get a hold of on the off-world colony of Freeside.  The drugs he obtained on Freeside were able to override the implants he had within him the disallowed any type of drug intoxification.

This book, like the others we’ve read, touched upon the pros and cons of technology.  Usually we think of technology as something to benefit mankind, but we quickly learn that it is not always the case.  In Neuromancer there were many technologies which could be viewed as beneficial.  For example, the Matrix itself could be seen as something progressive.  It provides an unlimited space to store mass amounts of information and helps with the quick transfer of information.  It is much like the internet we have today.  On the flipside of this advancement is that it provides another space that fosters corruption and violence.  This is evident through the line of work the Case engages in as someone who steals technology for whoever has the money to hire him regardless of their morals.  There are also the numerous cybernetic enhancements and modifications.  The streetgang, the Panther Moderns had modifications made to their body such as sharp teeth and glowing eyes.  Apparently, such modifications were popular amongst the youth.  Also, people like Hideo and Molly possessed superhuman abilities.  Along with both these changes comes the question of humanity.  Do these changes take something away from what it means to be human?  Also, this book raises the question as to whether or not the creation of artificial intelligence is a wise move for humans to make.  The A.I., Wintermute, lacked human compassion and killed many people in its attempt to achieve its goals.  The program also showed a great deal of control through manipulating numerous other technologies within the highly mechanized and digitized environments of Freeside and Straylight.

 

Extra Weekly Blog #3

This is my cellphone rant entry.  I have just recently gotten a cellphone and I have mixed filling about it.  I would say the mixture leans more towards the negative side though.  First, my phone can take pictures and record video.  Initiallly, I thought these additions to cellphone were unnecessarily superflous, but after I got my own phone (after being teased for nearly two years that I’m the only person in America without one) I thought I would give the features a chance.  I was actually genuinely excited about them for a brief period.  Now, after having the phone for a while, I view these features with the same disdain that I had before.  The quality of the pictures is pretty bad, and the videos are worse.  Investing in a separate piece of technology, like a camera would be much better and the excess circuitry and effort put into making camera phones could be used for other things to make the phone more efficient, like the phone being able to recieve a signal in my basement.

Blade Runner Response

The most prominent feature of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the way in which Dick exposes people’s dependency on machines.  This dependency leads to an unnatural existence.  In many ways the humans in the novel acted machines and the androids acted as human beings.  Throughout the book it was implied that people had become reliant on a machine called the Penfield Mood Organ.  A person could simply dial in a code and experience whatever emotion they desired.  Some of the more notable emotions were, “awareness of the manifold possibilities” and “pleased acknowledgment of husband’s superior wisdom in all matters.”  This device obscures and cheapens the human experience by providing artificial feelings.  It is like an exaggerated version of psychoactive antidepressant drugs that are prescribed to members of our society now.  Another machine use in the book is the empathy box.  This machine seemed to encompass the religious part of the society.  The problem I saw with this machine was that, though the machine put people in contact with each other, people still remained isolated, rather than communing together in person.  In essence, people are not interacting with other people; they are interacting with a machine.  In addition to the mood organ and the empathy box, people still used familiar items like the television and the radio.  The television and radio played the same program 23 hours a day, every day.  I thought the personalities depicted were interesting.  We can see many such plastic personalities on all kinds of shows today.

The androids, in many, but not all cases seemed to be more human than the people in the story.  The androids showed vigorous desire to live that is unmistakably human.  The escaped androids also had hopes for a better life on Earth.  The best example of this is Luba Luft, the opera singer.  Rather than waste her four year lifespan toiling on the desolate surface of Mars, she sought to refuge on Earth to perform art.  The main justification for “retiring” renegade androids was that androids did not possess empathy.  To be empathetic is considered to be solely a human trait.  While the standard tests, the Voigt-Kampff and the Boneli test, made it possible for the bounty hunters to determine whether or not someone was real or artificial, I do not think it totally proved the androids lacked empathy.  I thought the androids showed empathy throughout the story.  The first thing that caught my eye was when one of the escaped androids, Priss, talked about reading old pre-war stories.  In order to read and appreciate a story, empathy is absolutely necessary.  Also, at the end of the book, Rachel Rosen takes revenge on Deckard for resolving to retire the remaining androids by killing his real life goat.  She did this out in the open without going to any kind of effort to conceal what she was doing.  By disregarding her own safety to get back at Deckard clearly shows that Rosen had the ability to empathize with another being.

Though androids did show some instances of empathy, they also showed a lack thereof.  For example, the last three surviving androids treated Isidore coldly, despite the help he was providing them with.  Also, one of the androids did not think twice about tearing off the spiders legs to see if it could walk with only four.  When it did not move initially, the lead android put fire up to it in order to make it move.  There were also numerous references as to how one android would give away or sell out another android without a second thought to its own survival.  However, judging from the Rosen’s act at the end of the novel, I think it is arguable that androids being so quick to put another of their kind in harms way due to a lack of empathy can be considered an implanted sentiment.  Despite their organic components, the androids were still machines that were programmable.  Since their birth people had been telling them that they did not possess empathy, so they would not know otherwise.  I think this theme is analogous to many minorities now.  From birth they are told by the dominant culture that they are second class citizens with a limited intellect, and unfortunately many of them believe what they are told.  These minorities end up falling for the traps set out before them and abide by the implanted sentiment.

I enjoyed the book more so than the movie (which is often the case with me).  The movie suffered from the usual pitfalls that most book-movie translations endure.  That is the oversimplification of the plot and an exaggerated love or romance aspect.  For some reason, a romantic affair has to be at the center of every movie made, rather than the social commentary.  On the positive side, I thought the special effects were very good for 1982 and the imagery of the movie captured the imagery I had in my head while reading the book.  Also, seeing the movie helped to visualize the different settings in my mind as I read.

Technology Narrative

It was a night like any other, and life continued as usual.  It was just a routine trip to the store to pick up some things that were needed around the house.  Adults always leave home and bring things back to be used around the house.  Once these things are used up they leave and get more things to be used up.  It is not anything special, but to a four year old, when Mom and Dad leave the house it is an event.  And only on rare occasions is the child allowed to accompany them on their errands.  When I was four, I would always beg my parents to take me with them to the store.  Usually they would say no, but occasionally they would say yes.  I remember one particular night more clearly than others.  My father and I had gone to Wal-Mart on a routine and mundane running of errands.  But what made this trip different was when we got out to the parking lot, I turned back and looked at the building and read my first complete phrase, “We Sell For Less.”  Later on in life I have heard this story recounted and my father’s surprise and joy at his young son beginning to read.

Yes, sadly, the first words I consciously read was the advertisement for the largest corporation in the world (thus the most evil).  But it occurred to me that this must be the way many of us learn to read or it is the way in which we first contact written language.  Advertisements clutter every part of our lives.  You cannot step outside in a town or city and not see a sign trying to sell you something or indicating the location of a store, especially in the industrial areas. Before the 20^th century, the profuse of text in the form of advertisements did not exist.  These days, people are literally bombarded with text in all different shapes, colors, and fonts.  Inside the home, one has to make a conscious effort to pick up a book or newspaper, but advertisements are everywhere.  One only needs to allow their eyes to wonder.  With this in mind, it is no surprise that the first phrase I read was posted on the side of store.  Advertising was the first technology that had an impression on the way I read or write.

The next technology that had a profound impact on shaping the way I write was my introduction to computers.  In grade school, my class had started to learn to use the keyboard.  My classmates and I had to go through tutorials teaching us how to type.  We learned the basics: home row, which keys to push with what finger, and spacing.  The exercises were also pretty simple.  They usually consisted of pressing the same key over and over when prompted by the screen just to get used to moving our fingers in an efficient manner.  I remember it feeling awkward at first, but it soon became second nature.  Also, we were one of the first classes to be learning to type and everyone, including the teachers, was very excited about it.  A couple years later, my sister and I visited my cousins in North Carolina.  I always liked to write, and when we got there I could not wait to show off my new typing skills and during our visit I typed a couple stories on my cousins’ computer and printed them off (we did not have a pc of our own at home at the time).  I vividly remember my exhilaration in doing this.

After my rudimentary keyboard training in grade school and then a little more in junior high, my keyboarding ability really took off freshman year of high school when my family finally got our own pc.  With the addition of a computer in my home came America Online.  It was through this program that I really learned to type and to type quickly without looking at the keyboard.  When I first got AOL, I was on it constantly.  I would spend hours a night chatting with friends and sometimes total strangers.  The hours I spent instant messaging honed my typing skills and I became much more efficient despite adopting all the abbreviations people use while talking online.  In addition to instant messaging I sent a lot of e-mails in those first couple years having my own computer.  I found myself typing as much if not more than actually using a pen or pencil and paper.

Also, the internet provided a great deal of material to read.  I remember having a hard time reading off of screen.  Eventually, I got used to it, but I do think it may have affected my eyesight some.  In any case, since being exposed to the internet I have spent a lot of time reading articles for school and for my own personal interest.  The internet is full of useless and useful information, and I find it extremely to get lost in the, seemingly never ending amount of information one can find.

In conclusion, technology has undoubtedly had a profound impact on the way people read and write.  We are totally immersed in technology and would have to be locked away in an underground cellar to not be exposed to it.  Every aspect of our lives is saturated with advertising and “They” are only coming up with new and more obtrusive ways to sell products.  Computers, especially the personal computer have changed the way people in industrialized nations live forever.  Everyone with a computer and access to the internet is plugged into the entire world and is only a click away from reading something new, but for some people reading off of a screen for long hours can be irritating.

Extra Weekly Blog #2

This week I have decided to write about video games.  I think it is a very interesting technology.  Usually, video games are thought of as child play things, but anyone who follows the industry will realize it extends a great deal beyond children.  Video games have become a multibillion dollar industry across the world, and millions (if not billions) of people play video games everyday ranging in ages.  While the activity of playing video games has been labeled as mind-numbing entertainment, they actually have more intellectual merit than was is given to them.  Many games stimulate peoples’ minds as much or more than school.  One reason is because people willingly play video games, where as in school, kids feel as though they are being held captive.  Also, games have come a long way since Pong.  Most games these days require a manual, and a run through a tutorial to learn how to play.  Also, games require ingenuity and creativity in order to be successful in them.  This is the case with just about every game in any genre that comes out.  Like everything else that is produced, some games are of better quality than others and certain genres will demand a greater amount of mental energy to be successful.  The debate over whether or not violent games teach children to be violent is ridiculous to me.  Violence existed before video games, and it is up to parents to teach their children what is fantasy and what is reality.  If a child has to turn to video games for guidance, the fault does not lay with the inanimate product. Also, I don’t think video games should replace school, nor do I feel everyone should spend all their time indoors playing games.

Constructing Online Identities

I define an identity as what person does, what a person believes, and the things a person chooses to associate themselves with. On webpages people can exaggerate, conceal, embellish, highlight, or just plain lie about themselves. The online identities become an individuals idealized self. In other words they they can construct an identity other than who they truly are. If a person were to have regular interactions with a blogger outside of the blog they may notice other aspects of the blogger’s personality not talked about on the blogger’s page.

The blog I studied was that of Barclay Barrios. His site was very simple and straightforward. Barrios identifies himself as a teacher. On the mainpage he has three different links: to his course webpage, his dissertation, and his contact information. The site seems to be aimed other teachers and scholars looking at blogs in passing. It’s simplicity would imply that the site is informal. There are no graphics or pictures, and it lacks color. The basic design says to me that this person does not have a lot of time to dress up his site, and probably has another more personal blog.

For myself, it makes me think about how I need to take my audience into consideration. People present themselves in different ways to different people in different situations on different occassions. In a blog, the audience will determine what you put on your blog. For example, a person would not put a bunch of pictures from partying on the blog that is meant for teachers and other scholars to look at and a personal blog would not have bunch of school work for friends to look at. Also, the way the blog looks constructs part of the bloggers identity. For the blog in this class, I think a simple set up without a lot of pictures and colors would be best. The most important part of the blog is the work and other things would just be a distraction. On the other hand, if I ever make a personal blog, pictures, colors, and gifs would be more appropriate.

Frankenstein Response

The creature of Frankenstein functions as a device throughout most of the novel.  For Shelley, he is an outcast, an outsider to humanity looking in.  Frankenstein’s appearance is part of what makes him an effective observer.  Because Frankenstein’s creature has such a hideous outward appearance, he was never accepted into humanity.  He would forever be an other or an outsider, thus making him the optimal observer.  In order to observe anything, one must identify themselves as an other, and refrain from becoming immersed in whatever the object of observation is.  As a bystander the creature witnessed the high and low points of humanity.  When he was in the woods, he watched the manner in which his family of “protectors” interacted.  The creature was moved by their warmth and compassion towards each other.  He became keenly aware of the love his “protectors” shared with each other.  He learned their story, and learned what it meant to be devoted to someone else.  From afar, the creature was a perfect observer of the merits of humanity.  Through reading books, the creature first became acquainted with the faults of humans.  Then, when the creature did make attempts to become immersed in the world he had been observing he was rebuked because of his physical appearance.  Through these experiences he witnessed first hand the cruelty of the human spirit.  Though the creature did want to join humanity, he would never be accepted.  He was doomed to forever remain an outsider.  For Shelley, the creature serves a purpose as a device.  As a writer, the creature enabled Shelley to portray the polar opposites of the potential we as human beings have.

Another issue Shelley addresses in the novel is the danger of science.  As was said in class, this was the first novel to explore the possible negative consequences to scientific advancement.  One question I believe Shelley raises, perhaps intentionally or accidentally, is how far should people push the limits of scientific discovery.  The focus of science is to subdue Nature, and make it subordinate to man’s will.  Once under the control of people, people are free to manipulate it to their benefit.  But, how do we know when we have gone too far?  In Frankenstein, it appears that Victor has gone too far.  He has crossed over to God’s territory or, interrupted the Nature’s course by giving life to a body (or different parts of different bodies) which had already been rendered inanimate.  Judging from the tragic and catastrophic events that occurred throughout the novel, I think Shelley would agree with this sentiment.  Humans were not meant to have such power over Nature.  Once Frankenstein completed his creature, he was shocked at what he had created and ran away.  He left his living creation to fight for survival on his own without knowing anything or having anything as a point of reference.  Through this event, I believe Shelley is saying that men are not responsible enough to handle such profound power.  The responsibility of giving life, without going through the reproductive act (I don’t know why anyone would want to skip this step), is too great for men to possess.  Also, Victor was interrupting Nature by trying to extend life.  If his process were to applied beyond his creature and refined, there would be nothing to stop people from simply having their bodies reanimated as soon as they expired.  Death is an equally naturally phenomenon as life itself.  From the terrible events that followed the birth of Frankenstein’s creature, I think the statement Shelley is making is that humans are not meant to live forever.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  I am a big fan of the Romantic period and I have always wanted to read this book, but never got around to it.  I think the book is much better than the different movie versions that have grown out of it.  I think the version we are most familiar with now, Victor as a mad scientist and the creature as a nonverbal grunt, is dumbed down mockery that does the original a great disservice.  The more popular movie version is completely stripped of the many philosophical questions Shelley raises in her work, and reduces her accomplishment to a mere consumer item rather than art.  I thought it was interesting that Shelley initially set out to write a ghost story.  Even though it evolved into something much more than a scary story, I think she succeeded in writing something that was horrifying.  The idea of some huge creature bent on making you miserable lurking just out of your site, but always knowing his around is very scary.  I could not imagine going all those long months and years looking over my shoulder or waiting for someone I hold dear to turn up dead is very frightening.  But, at the same time, while I know it was for the purposes of making of scary story, I kept asking myself one question: Why would Frankenstein, setting out to create life, make such a monstrous and imposing person?  I would think he would try to make a person that resembled other people.  While I can understand his appearance may be gruesome, with him using pieces of different dead bodies, I cannot comprehend why he would make him eight feet tall.  Also, while reading the book, I did not think Victor was that great of a person.  I was confused as to why Walton thought so highly of him, unless he had feelings for him beyond a plutonic friendship.  I thought Victor was a terrible individual.  I admired him at first for wanting to help humanity, but when he hit paydirt after two years of neglecting his family, he ran away in fear.  Then, when his little brother turned up dead and he knew who the killer was, he kept it to himself.  I know he would have come across seemingly insane I think he could have provided sufficient evidence to have Justine acquitted.  But of course doing so would put him in jeopardy.  I was disappointed that Victor did not try to tell anyone about the creature for years, even after his best friend was murdered he remained silent.  In my opinion, Frankenstein got what he deserved for being flagrantly irresponsible.