Weeks 3/4 Assignments

As we all enjoy/endure the 4th polar vortex day off from school, here are the assignments for the next two week cycle. The first two weeks have been intended to problematize your assumptions about the meanings of the terms 'human' 'culture' and 'nature'.  Now, we're going to launch into the book Ishmael which will also begin with lots of terms, although Quinn usually offers definitions instead of confusing the issues.  Here are the assignments:

• Transhumanism project due Monday February 3rd.  See details and eval criteria on assignment page.
• Bring any magazines you can to class January 30th for some cutting and pasting!
• Read Ishmael to page 46 for Wednesday  2/5 and page 148 for Tuesday  2/11.  I'd be looking for a couple of discussion leaders for 2/11 in each class, and then a couple more for a final discussion.Volunteers?

In addition to this, we'll be reading a few short readings in class which I'll post here when I get access to a scanner.  In the meantime, here's a short one about machine/human mind meld. 

Transhumanism

To follow up on today's classes discussing "Is Google Making Us Stupid," here are the links to the Google ads- Parisian Love and Indian Partition, Jonathon Safran Foer's memory Ted Talk, and to the Transhumanist Declaration. This is also a question the SPA faculty has discussed.  Do cell phones diminish your ability to focus, to talk to each other, to read deeply?  We all acknowledge that the distractions Carr mentions have affected us.  Finally, Roy sent along this great video about how attached we are to our phones. Think about focused questions or projects that you might be interested in pursuing based on these questions.  I'll ask for project ideas Friday, and I'll be formally framing the assignment over the weekend.

Also- please bring a copy (physical or virtual) of The Circle to class on Friday and be prepared w/ one question to put on the board.

 danacenter.org.uk

The Singularity

This weekend is a good time to start thinking about your blogpost. You can dig into anything we've discussed so far. For example you might more closely compare "Sight" to the Googleglass promo video, or think about how we workship/fetishize technology as "Bendito" suggests, or look at your own relationship w/ your phone or your gaming experiences.How do game landscapes compare to 'World Builder'?  Watch and compare "The Story of Stuff" to Wall-E. There are many options. Here's a model.
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I've been seduced.  After resisting smart phones for a long time, I got an iphone a few weeks ago.  But it's not the phone I'm enamored with, but rather that little 'ping' sound that tells me I have an imessage. You know the feeling, the pull of the ping, that sweet iphone sound (why are their sounds so good?), and the urge to drop whatever you're doing and see who sent you something, who wants to see you, really, who loves you. The little endorphin rush.  Here's where those commercials promising love w/ every device (like the BT landline commercial we watched) feel briefly, potentially, true.

The 1998 movie "You've Got Mail" uses the AOL (America on Line- ask your parents) mail greeting to emphasize the thrill of email. The original audio file (here) is now available as a Chrome extension for nostalgic boomers.That all seems particularly dated now, but even going to the physical mailbox had a similar power. You've probably felt it opening the mailbox, looking inside, sorting through the envelopes for something from a college. Then, why do I feel guilty about my response to the imessage 'ping'? Perhaps it's because I've always felt unmoved the lure of technology, (ok, I have always wanted a Macbook, true) and now, I'm not.

That's the story of the movie 'Her' as well, albeit in a more literal seduction. And while a rom-com movie explores the romantic aspects of technophilia, it also returns to a standard sci-fi question- What happens when our technology escapes our control?  What happens when we become tools of our tools? The insult 'tool' seems particularly apt here.

Adam Gopnik suggests in a great New Yorker article that responses to technology fall into three predictable categories- The Cassandras who cry 'the end is near', the utopians who see a technological nirvana, and those who claim humans never change. Our videos tend to fall into the first two categories.  A strong point of view makes for a better story, certainly. In this video Ray Kurzweil seems to avoid these oversimplifications noting instead that the 'Singularity', the moment when humanity and technology merge, is an event horizon beyond which we can't see. His 2012 movie, Singularity- The Movie however, seems like cheesy pandering to our fears. Time magazine did the same when his book The Singularity is Near came out in 2011. Yet just as this technological revolution seems as important as the revolutions of the printing press or the steam engine, so too does the pending creation of artificial intelligences that surpass our own.
While I don't think my sudden fondness for my iphone's ping sound means I'll be jacking into the Matrix any time soon, the larger movement blurring the boundaries between humanity and technology seem inescapable.  And I do believe, like Socrates, that our tools change who we are.  For the moment, having a world of information in our hands feels powerful, and my immediate question is- how to best understand and use this in our classroom. 

Special added bonus-  Check out this great TedTalk about computers w/ personality.

Week 1/2 Assignments

For the next two weeks we will consider the ways we construct and engage with 'virtual' places and consider how technology challenges what it means to be human.  In part, this is the world of screens that started with movies and TV but has now includes social media, ubiquitous video, gaming, and online places like Second Life.  Certainly it includes the junior benches with everyone side by side but face to screen.  To frame this as a few questions- What attracts us to these worlds? How do they change us as individuals or a society? Do they make us more or less 'human'?  Are we inventing a new virtual world and will you want to live there?  ALL of this is due January 24th.  On that date, I'll assign the inquiry paper which will be available on the assignment tab soon. The discussion leader expectations are under the assignment tab.

Note!!  While I'm giving you two week windows, you DO need to be prepared for conversations on the following texts on these dates.  Videos for #1- 1/15, Wall-E screening/discussion 1/17, David Carr article 1/22,  The Circle 1/24 

(Wall-E discussion leaders-Mary/Jared 7th & Mick/Chloe 8th)

1. We'll start with a more videos.  Be prepared to discuss these on Wednesday. (discussion leaders are   Jacob/Yusra 7th & Chris/Charlie 8th)

• How does each represent daily life?    
• How does each represent technology?
• What is the role/purpose of romance/attraction?

"Bendito Machine III"
"Sight"   Compare that to the Googleglass promotional video Yusra & Jacob found!
"They're made out of meat"
"World Builder"
 And here's one more called "Robbie" that parallels the movie Wall-E.

2.Create a blog w/ a gmail account (You can't use the SPA account- sorry) on blogger and send me the url to I can link it to this blog. Please use part of your name in the title so it's vaguely identifiable.

3. Read the David Carr article "Is Google Making Us Stupid" (Sela/Charlie 7th & Alex & Tyler 8th)

4. Read these excerpts  Part 1 & 2  Part 3 from The Circle by David Eggers. This brand new novel imagines a near future world in a place much like the Googleplex where Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have merged into one all encompassing tech/social media monopoly.  Mae is a new employee who learns her way around this brave new world.  

5. Write a blog post responding to the videos and our conversation about them.  Focus on any idea or image that appeals to you, then develop and compare/contrast it to outside examples. All blog posts should include an effective title, at least one image (screen capture works well), thoughtful, edited, personal writing, and often links/connections to outside information. They should be about 400-600 words You may also write about one or more of these other videos if you choose.  
“Thursday”  “Inbox” "Gumdrop" or "Trueskin"

Welcome!

"The world is made of stories, not of atoms."  Muriel Rukeyser.  

Reading Place will consider how we construct the 'places' we live with words and images. First we'll consider virtual places and then natural ones.  While I don't intend to deny science here, I'd argue that a hypothesis is a sort of story that we believe until evidence challenges the story and then we tell a new one.  Consider the plum pudding model of the atom or even string theory which is undergoing some revision. Science is a form of story, too. 

Before we consider the worlds outside of us, however, we'll take a moment to consider ourselves.  What does it mean to be human?  Building on today's activity, watch this TedTalks video by Steve Fuller and review the powerpoint slides from his talk as needed.

Then write out three responses w/ paraphrases of the talk.  You can respond w/ disagreement, question, connection to something else, personal anecdote. AND make your personal, revised version of the human/culture/nature venn diagram.  Print your responses and bring them to class to guide our conversation and to turn in for credit.

Toyota commercial 

British Telecom commercial

World Builder short video