Technology and Us: Ups and Downs of Our Relationship

 As technology continues its progress, we need to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate our relationship with it. From just browsing the internet to scrolling through social media platforms, we are constantly working on a relationship that can, and many times does, impact our other relationships. What we search, post, read, and even see on the web influences our perceptions of ourselves and others, and this doesn't just occur on a personal level. Anything a person puts on the internet, from emails to text messages to Instagram posts, is there permanently in one form or another. Employers, schools, and our families all can see our posts and, with enough effort, all of our other data. 

Beyond that, seeing other people's posts have been shown to cause mental health issues and body dysphoria in the youth of our society, making people think they have to look a certain way, buy certain brands or products and believe that if they don't they aren't considered hip or cool or interesting. It can accentuate a person's anxiety or depressive thoughts by making them feel like they don't fit in.

That's not to say that the internet is all bad though. It grants us the ability to find information more rapidly. It helps us stay in touch with old friends after they move away or after schooling. It can even be used to raise awareness for social issues or raise funds for those in need. In some cases, it can build new friendships that wouldn't be possible otherwise. It has even provided entertainment for many in the form of video games, it was only a short time ago that many online multiplayer games could be played in a web browser. The Internet has its shortcomings, as do most things, however, the internet is a tool, and just like every other tool to be developed, the way it is used determines both its safety and its effectiveness.

EOTO #2: Transhumanism

 Transhumanism is an interesting, modern philosophic view. Transhumanists are those who believe that the advancement of technology should be focused on enhancing the human condition. They push for the development of technologies such as LASIK Eye Surgery, hearing aids, or vaccines. Because of how new the transhumanist movement is, negative impacts are yet to be seen but there are many who see potential downfalls such as cost inequality, stagnation after rapid growth, and even dehumanization.

Transhumanism has found ways to appear in pop culture as well, through characters such as Iron Man, Terminator, and Robocop. They are used to demonstrate the potential that transhumanism provides, soldiers in powerful and extremely protective armor, drones keeping military loss of life low, and devices that can help a person breathe, walk, run, or even just live. It sounds like it is entirely fictional but it is entirely feasible and even occurs in the world today. Exoskeletons are being developed to enhance people's mobility, pacemakers help keep a person's heart beating, and even the human brain is being researched for the possibility of moving the consciousness onto a mechanized brain are things that are occurring in our society. 

Many transhumanists would say that the possibilities are endless, but there are many skeptics that see the potential for an end in the progression of technology. If humanity reached a point where our technology was too advanced to reasonably progress any further with the resources we had, where would we go, would we get so advanced that we trade our souls and our freedoms in exchange for some sort of automated immortality, or would we end up losing thousands of years of advancement to greed.

Online Privacy

 Within our modern age of technology and social media, the ability to find privacy is disappearing at an alarming rate. Many even are attempting to bring the knowledge of the surveillance technology that is built into smartphones and computers today. One such individual bringing attention to this issue is Christopher Soghoian, who has done multiple TED Talks within the past few years regarding the issue and how people can be more protected over their phone calls and texts. Government listening to phone calls has been an occurrence for more than a century and used to be done through connecting wires. Now, with satellite communication, it has become far easier for third-person parties to intercept and access personal information.

Beyond phone calls, typically when you access a website for the first time, a message will come up and it will ask you to "Accept cookies". Cookies are block text files that include passwords, usernames, and data on what you seem to be interested in searching for. These files can be used with the intent of showing ads that are better targeted to a person, or they could be stolen and used maliciously to access personal information and access credit card information.

Furthermore, many people share personal information with people they are romantically involved with. If that relationship ends, especially if it ends poorly, then that information may get released publicly. Before the internet, things like revenge porn did not exist and it was much more difficult to spread information, whether true or false; or spread photos. Now though, it only takes a click or a tap, and information and images are available internationally. With social media, 10 second to full minute-long videos are easily shared as well as photos. It is possible to completely ruin someone's life and career with just a few clicks and the person would not even know it occurred.

Diffusion Theory: GPUs

 Diffusion is considered to be the process by which the value (based on trends in the market) of new technology changes over time. This allows companies to make informed decisions about their product and how their product should be produced. 

An excellent example of this, in my mind at least, is computer graphics cards. Just as some people thought console-based gaming would finally have a leg up on personal computer-based gaming with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, the company NVIDIA released the newest in their line of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs): the GeForce RTX 3080. GPUs are typically among the most expensive parts of a PC, without them, nothing will appear on your computer's monitor.

The demand for the newest GPU when it came out was so high that it was near impossible to get, between scalpers and bots it sold out quickly, just the same as with the consoles that were released around the same time. Talk has now started though, of the next generation of graphics cards, the 4000 series showing that the continued support and interest, and spread of the previous generation is able to push the innovation of the technology to new limits.

Anti-war

I know many people in our society today, and even fifty to sixty years ago, do not have much love for war. During President Trump's time in office, there were calls for reforming and shrinking the budget for the military. Very few of our senators and representatives would stand against going to war or getting involved in foreign conflicts though. Recently, Madison Cawthorn, a Representative from North Carolina, spoke before other representatives about minimalizing support for Ukraine due to the country's current issues with sex trafficking.

This does not entirely mean that all people are against war, as many people were outraged at President Biden for pulling troops from Afghanistan. Compared to the Vietnam era, in which civilians took to the streets, protesting for the United States to pull our troops from the war, the contrast is stark and almost unbelievable. Many of the same people who protested to end the war in Vietnam would now support the efforts in Ukraine.

Also, many people around the world support the idea of globalization and believe that there will be a day soon where all countries are open and support each other, not necessarily that they are all under one banner but that people may move freely between the nations without need for passports or visas. While that sounds ideal and proponents of the idea cite organizations such as NATO or the United Nations as evidence of this, other signs point to the world pulling away from this ideal. The bill dubbed "Brexit" was a major sign of this and of course now having the war occurring in Ukraine is another major sign. Rising nationalism and tensions between nations are pushing us further from that ideal, so fewer people are seeing news against war, and more news pushing us towards being fiscally and militarily independent is being published.

Post #4 EOTO - History of Video Games

While being a relatively new development, the history of video games is already rich and interesting. From MIT students challenging the limitations of computers in the early 1960s to the near-collapse of the industry in the early-mid 1980s to major modern titles such as Halo, Call of Duty, and Star Wars, the industry has grown so much and continues to grow in the modern world.

The first video game was not what many would think of as a video game today. Many associate video games with teenagers and kids sitting close to the TV with a remote control in their hands. The first video game, however, was nothing like that. In the early 1960s, there were no computers that were small enough, or cheap enough, to have at home. The only places that had computers were big businesses and universities. At MIT, Steve Russell and his friends were granted access to the school's new PDP-1 computer on the expectation that they would create a interactive program that taxed the computer and its resources to the limits. The program they came up with was called Space War! and it quickly spread across the country as the first video game.

As the industry quickly developed from there, releasing arcade games and even in-home consoles within 10-15 years of the creation of Space War!, many people began creating games for different purposes and of different qualities. By 1983-84, the market was so full of games that were of low quality that, with no way for the major companies to just pull them from shelves, people stopped buying games and consoles. This crash in popularity nearly destroyed the industry, but in 1985, one company managed to bring the industry back. That company was Nintendo, one of what I would call today's big three of Video Games beside Microsoft with Xbox and Sony with PlayStation, and the product they released that saved the industry was the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). What was different about the NES though, that managed to bring the industry back from near death, was how it was marketed. It was not shown as a game console but as a toy, which made parents view it as a potential holiday or birthday gift and eventually led to games being considered as being "for children" for a handful of years. 

Now, we are starting to see video games less and less as being for children, but as potentially viable career fields or as forms of sports to watch. The industry produces more quality titles and continues to grow as the quality of technology that can be put into consoles and computers and even into TVs continues to expand and develop.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the highest federal court in the United States' judicial system. The Supreme Court has nine Justices who, when appointed, serve for the rest of their life. When a Justice dies, the President chooses a new Justice to take their place. This is all common knowledge about the Supreme Court. Having taken several social studies and American history courses throughout grade school and high school, I thought I had a fairly decent understanding of how the Supreme Court actually worked.

One thing that I did not know was when and how the Supreme Court was really started. John Marshall was made the first Cheif Justice in 1801. He was the first person to have the power to determine an act of congress unconstitutional. Another interesting tidbit that I did not know was that the justices do not get to pick which cases they hear. They also must try and make sure that everyone talks at least once before allowing anyone to speak a second time. 

I feel the most important thing I recently learned was that the court bases its decisions entirely on the power of the constitution. This is because a case that gets to the Supreme Court has already passed through the various levels of the judiciary system and therefore an issue of national concern. 

Among the things that took me by surprise was that it can take 4 weeks to write just the first draft of the report citing the Justices' legal reasoning behind the decision they came to. Despite its importance, it just seems like a very large waste of time that could be allocated elsewhere. 

Although it is a key piece in a complex system of checks and balances, the Supreme Court is still driven by people. Just because the Justices are hand-picked by the president and confirmed by Congress, they are still just normal people who have personal feelings and opinions as well.