Relationship with technology

 Technology: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

I have been exposed to technology since the day I gained consciousness, and in turn I feel I have had a grasp on it for as long as I can remember. Technology has continually evolved society, in fact it has advanced more in the past 100 years than it has in the last million. It has improved science and medicine drastically, furthering our understandings and increasing life expectancy, I'm sure soon it will jump another 50 years (I'm good at 80). 

My relationship with technology has definitely had its ups and downs, as with technology there is always good and bad. Currently, absolutely. My relationship with technology is stellar, my phone screen time is roughly three and a half hours a day, and I use it to help my studies and own personal endeavors. I honestly find myself sometimes wishing smart phones did not exist, so people would communicate more and be with each other more. For example, I was watching "Stand By Me" the other day, and a lot of the movie I felt myself jealous of the boys just outside exploring and adventuring, their parents having no clue where they truly are, they were utterly free.

However, back in the day, absolutely not. I spent hours and hours and hours playing video games, and/or sitting at a desk on a computer and it had some effects on my body, such as eye strain and overall poor posture. I spent more time mindlessly scrolling and thrashing my attention span then I did putting my time towards something that could better me or that I actually care about. Sometimes today, when I'm reading on my phone, my head is down and my phone is by my lap, further worsening my posture, something I am currently working on, but overall my habits are much better. 

Technology is very powerful and allows us instant access to information, resources, and expertise. However, being able to access that information at any time does not mean that we understand the information. We are not really learning it, we are just seeing it and potentially reciprocating it. A huge drawback with this is misinformation, whether it be intentional or not. The beauty, and downside, of the internet is that anyone can upload their opinion or information about a topic. This can lead to people making stuff up, fake news, or slander against a person or topic. Which leads to a misinformed public and the spread of that false information to the masses. Honestly, when I perceive information, and this is something I have been trying to work on, I tend to immediately believe what is said without considering the idea that it could be false or spun.  I feel that a lot of people consume information today, and especially at such a fast rate, that people do not tend to stop and take the time to analyze what they are consuming. Creating a nation of false information spread that people will believe in no questions asked and cause the masses to potentially panic.

I think for most people, technology has improved their lives in the aspect of saving time and information access. It has also exponentially imrpoved things such as science and medicine. There is also the dark side to technology such as cyberbullying which has increased the suicide rates, especially in the youth. It allows anyone to see your posts (if you let them) and comment whatever they want to or about you. Technology also connects people in ways that weren't so easily accessible back then, for example: instant messaging, social media, etc. These allow friends and families to stay connected even if they are thousands of miles apart. It allows you to keep up with what they are doing and could even allow you to become friends with total strangers. However, with every good there is bad, like the ability to prey on children through social medias or traffic people for example. 

The online footprint is something that stays with everyone, and I could not even fully tell you what would be on mine. There would be both good and bad things, with the bad things being something I definitely do not want a potential employer to see. The posts I interact with are both good and somewhat bad, but anyone could take anything the wrong way, especially today, and blow you out of the water. Luckily, and maybe also not, my online presence is very little, with only my linked in being available when you google me. However, there is also nothing that stands out about me, something employers may also look at with displeasure.

All in all, I think the good that technology brought the world far outweighs the bad. However, as humans do, people tend to forget about the good and solely focus on the bad. While the bad can be very bad, I still believe the good is greater. Technology will only continue to evolve, soon we may even enter a trans-humanism era in which part of us is machine. Something that I think could either utterly profit the human race or plummet it into darkness and control.

Privacy in the Digital Age

Privacy: How Private Are You Really?

There were a lot of issues raised in the ted talks delving into our privacy and how private we really are. The first ted talker discussed the ideas that companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. are just electronic tattoos that keep information on you, that they can say a lot of things without words. The idea that electronic tattoos can also be a shadow of immortality, as the data it collects will far outlast our physical bodies in this digital world. He also discussed facial recognition being able to identify people in a photo simply based off their face. 

It has become so advanced that people are able to take a picture, get a name, and download all information available on that person without speaking a single word. Companies like face.com, which I never heard of, is a company that does exactly that. In 2012 they sold to Facebook, allowing them to have all that data. Companies also used face.com tech to find out someones shopping preferences, like if the camera in the store tells the sales associates that their customer likes black dresses, they can go out and say we have x amount of black dresses we think would look great on you.

The government uses the police to track what is called location information, which means they can see things such as where you travel, if you go to a therapist, AA meetings, or if you do or do not go church, etc. The Police use this information to make decisions about who you are and essentially how they will treat you. They have automatic license plate readers, mounted on roads, police cars, everywhere and the police keep records of every plate that passes them by. 

Our phones are wired for surveillance first and foremost, and essentially anyone could be listening to us, not just our government, it could be a third party person stealing your info or hackers attempting to hack you, anyone. This can lead to things such as revenge porn, or as the ted talker called it, "digital domestic violence." Where the offender uses cell phones and laptops, armed with photos and videos instead of physical harm. 

These are all things that have the ability to affect both myself and my family in today's digital world. These things are very prominent in my life, as I use Face ID every day to login to my iPhone and I use google everyday to look things up or access the sites that I want to. The government should respect the privacy of the people and put in safeguards to protect people from their privacy. However, there is always the chance of hackers and those who just want to hurt, but they should be able to regulate themselves and corporations to respect the privacy of its people. For now however, our best strategy is to be aware of what we are talking about around our tech and be aware that things such as targeted marketing exist. 

Learning from the class 2

Cutting the Cord

Cutting the cord, a term some have heard others probably not, and when I first heard this term for some reason I envisioned the umbilical one. When you understand what this is referring to however, it makes much more sense.

 Cutting the cord refers to the canceling of cable television by families in favor of wireless methods of receiving programs. These programs include internet protocol television, digital terrestrial television and satellite television. Internet protocol refers to TV programming available over an internet stream. Digital terrestrial refers to TV transmitted from radio frequencies. Satellite refers to TV received through a satellite, typically through a paid subscription. 

Usually, however, cutting the cord refers to free to air satellite televisions. This is due to the expense of cable compared to other more affordable, better mediums. This is very common in the majority of American homes, as most people use things like Roku, to give them access to the streaming sites such as Netflix and HBO. For news, the satellite is your friend, however in our current society a lot of people use the internet or apps for their news.

What has this done for us as a society and how has it impacted our daily way of viewing entertainment, news, etc. It allowed entertainment to transition to different kind of commercial content, that of shorter ads with less ad time. It created a new form of news, as I stated earlier, it say television news get less popular. As seen throughout history it affects the old and the young quite differently. While the young seem to be born with a grasp of technology, it seems to slip the grasp of the old. Meaning, the old will probably stick to what they are used to as if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is also the rich vs. the poor, as the rich are able to pay for the better subscriptions, having them view less ads, while the poor can only get the basic, if any, subscriptions. This has lead to an increase in piracy, which is the downloading of paid content illegally for free, to which I am a modern day Blackbeard. It has effected me, and I'm sure all reading this, as we use streaming sites and satellite to view our entertainment or information, and there is not shot in hell I'm going back.

Net Neutrality

    Net neutrality. A term I'm sure everyone has at least heard of before. If you are around my age, you remember being in high school or middle school, terrified at the idea that the freedom of the internet could be taken away from you, and even worse you could be charged to access it at high speeds. The idea of this was expressed to you before the you arrived at the realization the internet could even be marketable. You also remember the former chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai, or as I liked to call him, stupid idiot. 

So what is net neutrality? Net neutrality is essentially a principle, it holds that an entrepreneur's novice company should be given the same opportunity to succeed as established corporations, and the ability to access a blog from a high school student should not be infringed upon by making way for advertisers who are more affluent. Like former President Barack Obama said, this allows for the opportunity for the next Google or Amazon and essentially the betterment of society and innovation. 

It is important. Net neutrality is important not only on an economic level, it is also important on an educational level. Defined as by Loyola U., digital equity is "the concept that all students should have access to technology, such as devices, software, and the internet, and trained educators to help them navigate these tools." This principle is immensely important in this age of technology as the internet has profited teachers and students by allowing first-rate information, resources, and expertise to be instantly accessible. Something our country has a history of not having available for its citizens.

TIMELINE 

OCT. 29 2007 - Then senator Obama pledges support for net neutrality if elected president. His position being "I am a strong supporter of net neutrality... [there has been] lobbying that says the [internet] servers through which you're getting information should be able to [gate keep] and charge different rates to different websites... I think it destroys one of the best things about the internet--which is that there is incredible equality there." 

MAY 2010 - Strong net neutrality safeguards are introduced by the FCC, stating internet service providers have no right to put restrictions on users or block websites. Later, the FCC would approve a final version in December, enacting the first internet access regulations in history.

JAN. 2011 - Very shortly after the adoption of these rules by the FCC, a lawsuit filed by Verizon Communications would eventually nullify the order.

JAN. 14 2014 - A federal appeals court negates the 2010 rule issued by the FCC.

JAN. 15 2014 - Signed by 105,572, a user created petition on the White House's We The People platform is born asking the Obama administration to "Restore Net Neutrality By Directing The FCC to Classify Internet Providers as 'Common Carriers'."

FEB. 18 2014 - In response to the petition, the White House reiterates its support for an open and unrestricted internet, but clearly maintains that it is unable to control the rule-making process for an independent organization.

MAY 16 2014 - For a period of time, the public is invited to comment on the rule after the FCC issues a notice of proposed rule-making on internet regulatory structure. 

AUG. 5 2014 - President Obama on net neutrality: "I personally, the position of my administration, as well as a lot of the companies here, is that you don't want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users. You want to leave it open so the next Goole and the next Facebook can succeed."

SEP. 15 2014 - The comment session with the FCC comes to an end, seeing nearly four million public comments by the people about net neutrality, more than the FCC has received on any other issue. 

NOV. 10 2014 - In order to preserve net neutrality, President Obama calls on the FCC to adopt the strictest regulations available. 

FEB. 26 2015 - To maintain an open and free internet, the FCC votes in favor of strict net neutrality regulations.

JUNE 14 2016 - A federal court of appeals recognizes that economic growth and innovation depends on an open internet, fully supporting the FCC's strict net neutrality rule.

    So yeah, net neutrality is something that is very important, and must be maintained if we are to continue the ideals this great country was founded upon. In a world where technology is king, net neutrality must remain in place. As shown by the timeline, the power of the people to give their opinion on issues such as this remains of the utmost importance to keep the benefit of the people first.

 The Age of AI

    In the time of the present, AI is being talked about by everyone and their mother, and is being used by people all over the world. The video "In The Age of AI", a very well done documentary, divulges into the history, dangers, and implications for the future with the rapid growth of AI. The new, rapidly growing technology has been considered as the "new oil" of the world, meaning everyone wants to capitalize on it use it for profits. In this scenario of "new oil", China fills the role of Saudi Arabia, as it is on the way to becoming a total surveillance state. Essentially this could/would create a technology war because the more data there is, the better the AI will perform. Potentially creating a world of two AI super powers, which is cool to an extent, but very terrifying.

    AI began as a thing known as "deep learning" when a team called AlphaGo created a program that used thousands of recorded games of Go, learned the game, and taught itself to play and adapt. A notable cool mention is that his technology was created based off the human brain and its neural pathways. After some time, AlphaGo took on the world's greatest Go player, Lee Chang-Ho, and revolutionized the world in a single move, "move 37". Move 37, a move that was unfathomable by the human intellect, yet when it was produced by AlphaGo it was considered brilliant. This matchup consisted of five games, AlphaGo took four and Lee took one. 

    As remarkable as it is, AI spells danger for essentially everyone except the 1%. Every industry is looking at ways to utilize this disruptive technology and use everything new available to try and become more efficient. "In The Age of AI," the produce an inequality graph which showed that in the 1980's the working class (a blue line) started up high on the graph compared to the upper class (a red line). As time marched on the blue line crossed with the red line around late 90s-00s and has only continued to separate. AI will only exacerbate this and be very harmful for society, as the rich will get richer, and the middle class and poor will struggle harder. It is essentially the ultimate tool of wealth creation, as it is able to track user presences and conduct ad targeting. Companies like Google and Amazon utilize these because they are simply the best and this will allow them to make more money. 

    The video discusses shortly of the evolution of nature during industrial capitalism, turning land into real estate, creating labor and jobs which allowed the country to flourish. The parallel being the potential change to surveillance capitalism which would eliminate private human experience as businesses want to know what we will do now, soon, and later. The only difference being the latter having bad implications for the future of society. For example, a man shares his story of a dinner with his friend who works with Google; long story short he asks what's all this fuss about Google data tracking, expecting a "don't worry about it it's nothing." To which his friend replies "you'd be horrified how much we knew about you." It really makes you wonder how much Google and these other companies know about you, especially down to the minute details. 

    It is later stated that Googles business is learning everything about you that they can, what you like, who your friends are, your private thoughts, all for the purpose of turning the maximum profit. This is shown in-between 2000 and 2004, when Google's revenue line increased by 3,590% after they figured out they could see everyone's data allowing them to exploit it. Even scarier, little things, such as typing a paragraph versus typing bullet points in a message to a friend, are huge in predictive value, for example, companies can force you to see that is similar to something you have already bought or something you've expressly liked, so you are more likely to buy it.

    

    While it is very terrifying, there are definitely some positives to this new technology. I have exploited some of it myself, for example I have used ChatGPT to help guide some of my work and it allowed me to provide a better outcome. There will definitely be a lot of advancements in technology and medicine with AI, but the importance is to utilize it the right way and not allow companies that only see $$$ to get their grime filled hands on it. It is important to keep the middle class and the poor class protected, and not allow the rich to simply get richer at the expense of the prior.

Antiwar Blog

 Why Stop War When it Brings Home The $$$

    It seems like a no brainer when you think countries and nations should not go to war, so why is it that people who are "antiwar" are rarely heard in the media, even today. The two sites, "antiwar.com" and "The American Conservative", are sites I can definitely say I have never heard of, or hear about in news or media. Yet these sites are packed full with protests against the war, supported with lots of articles and videos as evidence for their position. The reason news media does not cover these types of opinions and there is a necessary search for views such as these is because war allows for the government to make money and infringe upon our rights and civil liberties. 

Governments like to hide behind the term "necessary evil" when justifying wars and/or proposing to go to war. While to some it may seem for the betterment of the country or even make the world a better place, to others it is a waste of human lives, money, and resources. Like CCR said, "I ain't no fortunate born", the ones who profit most from war are the elite and the government. Like System of the Down said, "why do they always send the poor?", in reference to the people who actually have to go out and sacrifice in times of war. Song could be considered the best way to put an opinion out there against the war, so long as it is catchy, because it is the one way to get that viewpoint out to the masses without, in a sense, being censored.

As long as the government and elite can profit off the war, the voices against will continue to be suppressed and not put at the forefront of news and media. While the government and its officials may pretend to be against the war and hurt by the number of casualties arising, I'm sure there are some who actually are, as long as they are sitting pretty not having to go to war and turning some profit, they honestly do not give a rats ass and war is that necessary evil they love so much. 

Learning From the Class

    The Homing Pigeon 

  

    There were a lot of great presentations on Thursday, the first of February, and everyone seemed well prepared if at least not slightly. The one that I felt peaked my interest the most, and probably others as well, was the history of the homing pigeon. The presentation was filled with both logos and pathos and was really well done, with no note cards, straight from the memory, it was very impressive.

What I learned

    First I learned about the timeline of carrier pigeons, when they were used and how they were used. Recording as being used as early as 3000 BCE in Ancient Egypt to send messages. As they evolved the next notable spot on the timeline was in 1167 when they were used to send messages along the Baghdad/Syria Route. In 1860 they are used by Paul Reuters as a way to bring messages between Brussels and Aachen, faster than the railroad. In 1897 they are used for the Great Barrier Pigeon-gram Service. I also learned about some pigeons and their use in major events such as both World Wars. Also their use in Indias Police forces and some even being used today to smuggle things into prison. There was also the story of Cher Ami, who was one of many pigeons deployed in WWI, who was able to save men who were being fired upon by their own brothers unknowingly. Cher Ami was able to take a hit, and with his carrier leg dangling, delivered the news to cease fire and that they were firing upon their own men. He saved the lives of many men and was rightfully honored. 

   It was fascinating to learn about this mode of media and how important they were, especially back then. It's ashame to see the way they have fallen from grace, now only serving the government for espionage.