Thougts on Vinge's Rainbows End

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, I want to say that I have adored this book so far (currently only half-way through, but will hopefully finish by class on Monday). I've always been a sucker for near-future Sci-Fi novels and short stories because it's so much easier for me to imagine the changes they envision taking place, and that makes it possible to view modern society through the lens of the authors and hypothesize about the effects such technology would have.

Before I even started reading Rainbows End, what I knew of the story made me think of Neal Stephenson's Sci-Fi masterpiece (in my opinion, at least), Snow Crash. Like Vinge, Stephenson uses his novel to imagine how technology will shape early 21st century America, and there are great differences between the two worlds the authors create.

The most significant technology in Stephenson's future America is the Metaverse, a virtual successor to the internet and paramount to social interactions in the 21st century. The Metaverse is a collective online virtual reality that can be accessed by everyone, through either public terminals or personal goggle displays and terminals. Users implement virtual models (avatars) to represent themselves in this 3D world, and it is nearly infinitely moddable by users. In Snow Crash, the Metaverse is used to communicate with  friends, attend business meetings, and duel warriors from the other side of the world. Second Life was released seven years after the publication of Snow Crash and is the best modern-day analogy to Stephenson's Metaverse.

Vinge has the benefit of writing his novel fourteen years after the first publication of Snow Crash (2006 and 1992, respectively). Not surprisingly, his vision of the future incorporates augmented reality over virtual reality, which seems to correspond with the declining interest in augmented reality through the 2000's. (http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/06/augmented-reality-vs-virtual-reality/). Augmented reality is much more practical (in that it primarily serves as a means to transfer information) and relevant to human experience (in that it incorporates the context of the user's environment) than virtual reality. Similar to the VR goggles worn by some of Stephenson's characters, the characters in Rainbows End 'wear' smart clothing and contact lenses that allow them to always be connected to the rest of the world. Again, Vinge's vision of the future is more practical than Stephenson's because of the relative innocuous nature of clothing, compared to the heavy goggles and terminals that the 'Gargoyles' (so named for their grotesque appearance) of Snow Crash must wear to maintain that persistent connection.

The technology in Vinge's Rainbows End also carries with it a burden of learning. This learning barrier is one of the main ways that the younger generation in the novel is separate from the older generation. The younger generation (mainly Juan and Miri) have grown up using augmented reality and are much more proficient at it than the older generation (Robert and Xiu), but the older generation has skills that seem to be virtually nonexistent in the youth, such as writing. Robert refers to Juan as being 'paraliterate' because of his finesse with Epiphany (AR) technology and his ignorance of the art of writing

The near-disappearance of books in Rainbows End suggests a generation that is largely illiterate in the traditional sense, though after wondering how AR data is relayed to users, text still seems to be the fastest and most convenient form for information to take, so this generation must still be capable of reading. Additionally, information still requires a certain level of understanding to make use of it, so its not fair or accurate to say that the younger generation in Rainbows End is comprised of stupid literates. They are merely the products of having grown up in a world of digital, AR literacy, and unsurprisingly, their text literacy has probably suffered to a degree.

Responding to Responses to 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?'

Of the many blog posts and articles I read over the weekend that examined, analyzed, and otherwise responded to the Carr-Shirkey "debate" on the effects digital media has and will have on nature of thought (though Carr's article was meant as a standalone piece, it's hard for me to disassociate Shirkey's response to it) , the most convincing comments on the issue came from W. Daniel Hillis on The Edge.

In the post, Hillis tackles some of the same points that Shirkey made in his original response, but he elucidates some of Shirkey's more contentious statements and does so in a way that makes it difficult to disagree with him. In his response to Carr, Shirkey uses the the example of the novel War and Peace to question the value of the kind of thinking Carr is worried will soon be lost. He uses an assumed low perception of the novel among modern-day readers — "It's too long, and not so interesting" — to challenge the idea that lengthy written works (which makes sustained critical reading necessary) are intrinsically more valuable to society, which Carr seems to promote.

Hillis aptly reworks this argument by saying that it is not the value of the novel's content which should be questioned, but the medium through which the novel is delivered. A self-proclaimed bibliophile and fan of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Hillis wonders if the novel's themes of "power, fate, and personal responsibility" are more valid than "a season of The Wire", a television drama that is likely much more familiar to most people than War and Peace. War and Peace may be well-known as a very long Russian novel by Leo Tolstoy, but what more does the average person know about it? That's assuming that a majority of literate people know of the book's existence, which may be a bit generous on my part.

An important question to ask is whether long, sustained concentration is superior to short-term, dynamic thinking. Do we get a better return on long pieces of work for our investment? Shirkey says no, that reading War and Peace is ultimately a waste of time. Hillis, though, only says maybe. While not outright decrying the novel as Shirkey does, he admits that "as much as I liked War and Peace, I probably got more out of The Wire." Though it may seem odd to focus so much on a novel when Carr's article claims to be about more than reading, about the ability for modern humans to think critically, his article only approaches it from a literary standpoint. Shirkey seems to rightly point out that Carr appears more worried about the death of the hyper-literate intellectual than anything else.

Carr says that he sees an intellectual change among many of his friends and colleagues, but he also says that they are mostly "literary types". But just because they are suffering under new changes doesn't mean everyone is; new platforms for knowledge like Wikipedia (which embodies the hyper-linking style that promotes what Carr might call "shallow reading") have been a boon to scientists, programmers, and various other technical thinkers. And as a commenter (whose name I can't seem to find) said, new tools like Google are the product of considerable amounts of concentration and critical thinking. The book and lengthy response may lose their place in modern society, but that doesn't mean they won't continue to exist in other forms.

I think Carr's piece suffers because of the assumption it makes in the title: divergent thinking is not the same thing as being 'stoopid'. It's (relatively) new, yes, but change always accompanies the adoption of new technology.

Finally, it's hard for me to get away from one question that has nagged me since my first reading of Is Google Making Us Stoopid?; what if Carr and co. are having difficulty staying focused because they're getting older?

Journalism and the Internet

Many of the effects that the advent of the internet has had on journalism are relatively easy to identify, as evidenced by the many points brought up by Jay Rosen and Nicholas Carr. Indeed, many of the arguments they bring up are ideas that have likely occurred to people who have only thought briefly on the subject, such as  more widespread access to materials and the ability for people who were once only consumers of news to contribute to the creation and discussion of it. Of the many arguments presented by these two debaters, the one that stood out the most to me was actually touched on by both debaters and the moderator as well. The question of 'Which stories are we missing?' seems to me to be the most important one to ask, because journalism is chiefly about delivering information.

The moderator, Tom Standage, touches on this briefly when he states that "measuring the impact of [less reporting] is almost impossible . . . you cannot know when a story is not being covered". I believe that one of the perpetual struggles of humankind is not knowing what we don't know, and I like that the moderator is working in the same idea space. While I did say that many of the effects of the internet on journalism are easy to identify, it is important to accept that there are effects we will probably never realize.

Moving away from the abstract to focus on a specific topic, both Rosen and Carr address the decreasing amount of coverage that news organizations are dedication to local governments, such as state capitols. (http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4721). This is a result of cuts in staffing, and the implications are rather frightening. To some,  this may seem like an acceptable sacrifice (if one has to be made), because of the lack of attention that consumers usually give to local government news. To me, though, it is a frightening proposition, because while consumers may be more drawn to the sweeping and scathing rhetoric that makes federal government so interesting to watch, it is often the decisions made at the local level that has the most significant impact on people's lives. Regardless of whether they choose to reach out for it, the information must be there for them to find.

Weinberger and Shirky on Ontology

Knowledge has, for many generations, been represented as a hierarchy. There are categories (Math, Science, Humanities) and sub-categories (Algebra, Chemistry, Literature), and, theoretically, they encompass all human knowledge. Whether this is true or not is not an important question in Weinberger's "Taxonomies and Tags" and Shirky's "Ontology is overrated". Instead, both authors focus on new perspectives of knowledge brought about by the advent of the read/write web. Specifically, they focus on mass user-generated organization of information in the form of tags.

Research Ideas

Creating or choosing a topic on my own to write about has always been something I've struggled with. Is this a valid topic? Is there enough material for me to examine? Does the material have enough depth for me to analyze it? Am I intelligent enough to handle the topic properly? Needless to say, I've got a lot of hangups when it comes to writing papers, but I've also got a few ideas this time around:

1) Social Identity

I'll let two ladies more knowledgeable than myself pose the questions and ideas I'd like to address:
— Lene Arentsen: "The question is whether these media create new people or just new ways of expressing identity? Can you talk about online identity exclusively or is your virtual identity walking hand in hand with real-world identity?" http://lenearentsen.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/identity-and-digital-media/

— danah boyd: "I investigated how American teenagers socialize in networked publics . . . in how the architectural differences between unmediated and mediated publics affect sociality, identity and culture."
http://www.danah.org/

How are online identities created? What strategies are used to present an identity online? Does a person create a single identity across all online communities/networks, or does either the medium itself/the people who use it encourage a person to create different identities? Does the medium have an affect on what type of identity is created? Are these questions redundant, or nuanced?

2) Online Education

The effects of the internet on education are more than I could ever hope to sum up. I find it interesting, though, that in an age where institutionalized education has lost a lot of its value (the internet offers many opportunities to become "successful" on its own), we see the beginnings of what is essentially a scam education, aimed at people who can't see that the value of a degree is largely subjective. Do I have any real direction with this? Not yet, but it is a topic I find difficult to ignore.

Postman's "The Judgement of Thamus"

In the chapter "The Judgement of Thamus" from Neil Postman's Techopoly, the author uses the tale of King Thamus found in Plato's Phaedrus to frame his arguments about the effects of technology on people. While he says that Thamus is in error when he finds only fault with the technology of writing, and that he would be remiss if he only considered the negative effects of technology without the positive, the author's tone in this reading reveals that he has a very pessimistic view of the impact technology has on mankind.

One of the main claims that Postman makes in this piece is that technology is not inherently good or bad. Instead, he claims that the impact of technologies depends on how they are used, and that the "uses made of any technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself" (32). I mostly agree with this claim, because all technologies have limitations that will ultimately influence how they are used, and technologies that offer specific improvements over previous iterations can encourage users to focus on those areas. The clearest example of this for me is with weapons. Weapons are a technology that are designed to hurt people, but whether they are used for defending oneself or attacking another is entirely up to the user. Postman believes that we should strive to understand the potential effects of new technology before embracing them.

Another main theme of Postman's writing is that new technologies subvert old knowledge, often by changing who has access to it. He gives an example of how Gutenberg's invention of the printing press made it possible for families to own their own Bible (as opposed to hearing it at church), and that this made "each Christian his own theologian" (37), meaning they could interpret the Bible in their own way, in ways that could be in opposition to the official interpretation given by the Church. He states that "new technologies compete with old ones—for time, for attention, for money, for prestige, but mostly for dominance of their world-view" (37), and while I do agree that there is conflict inherent in technological advances, I also believe that technologies can give new insights into older ones. Following what Postman has said about technology being a blessing and a burden, we can say that new interpretations of the Bible would introduce critical analysis of it, which is a fundamental human skill.

There are a lot of things that Postman says that I disagree with, though I do so with a bit of reservation, not knowing when this was published. Easily the most disagreeable thing in this piece is his mockery of teachers that support new technologies, calling it "perverse" that they would celebrate something that "may bring a gradual end to [their] careers" (34). According to Postman, teachers are heavily invested in the printed material as the source for learning, and to support anything else is foolish, but I have to challenge this idea. Teachers have been around since long before the invention of writing, and I believe that many teachers will be able to adapt to new technologies and find new ways to use them, so the idea that teachers will lose jobs with the advent of the television and computer seems unrealistic.

Postman also states that while computer technology has benefited large organizations "like the armed forces or airline companies or banks" (34), he also believes that it has been a burden to the masses, claiming that "they are more easily tracked and controlled" and that "they are inundated by junk mail" (34). This is where the piece really shows its age, because the benefits of computer technology to the masses are more than he could have ever imagined, and many of the complains he brings up (such as the one about junk mail) have largely been solved. However, computer technology has made the private information of people easier to access, but that is more the result of harmless negligence on there part.

Sundiata and Ong's "The Psychodynamics of Orality"

Read the Sundiata excerpt handed out in class today. Focus on the transcription of the poem produced by John William Williamson, which retains elements of oral composition. Use Ong's "The Psychodynamics of Orality" to identify features of the text that Ong claims are characteristic of oral composition. How well does the text fit the categories provided by Ong?

The most noticeable feature of the John William Johnson version of Sundiata that identifies it as an oral composition is the heavy use of repetition. This ties into Ong's statements about "thinking memorable thoughts" and the idea that orally composed works are often "heavily rhythmic" with "repetitions . . . and alliterations". There are many examples of repetition, with the mother asking two neighbors for ingredients in nearly identical conversations, and her having a staff crafted for her son twice in very similar ways, who also exhibits extremely repetitious behavior by attempting to rise many times throughout the story.

Another unique aspect of this version of the story is the parts that are written in parentheses. Oral composers lack a way to recall what they have already said, and this results in a dependence on dialogue and communication to sustain thought, according to Ong. These parenthetical asides are the voice of someone who is listening to the narrator and is aiding them in composing or remembering this tale.

The part of the story that best matches Ong's model of oral thought and expression is when the mother beseeches God to give her son the ability to walk. She goes into a long monologue that exhibits the redundancy common in oral compositions, stating that if her son is meant to rule, let him rise, and that if he is not meant to rule, let him not rise, and that if she was faithful to her husband, let him rise, and that if she was not faithful, let him not rise. The monologue is also an example of additive oral style, in that each part builds on the last.

Finally, the story's subject matches what Ong says we should expect from an oral tale. Though it lacks the "enthusiastic description of physical violence [that] often marks oral narrative", the story has historical significance to the descendents of the Manding empire because it is about the founder of that empire. Without writing, important tales such as this one can only be preserved orally.

Response #1: Havelock

Havelock's "The Coming of Literate Communication to Western Culture"


In this essay, Havelock examines the creation of written language in Ancient Greece. He does so by first examining the oral communication that came before literacy and how it shaped the first uses of written communication. Specifically, he states that the first written works were composed orally before being transcribed to writing, and that it took many centuries for the Greek public to become literate. This is the result of a dearth of literature to be read and to practice reading with, and a pervading view that the study of letters should at most support an oral education, rather than replace it.

I enjoyed this reading greatly, in part because it discusses a very significant event in the history of human communication, and in part because of the many controversial statements made by the author. My favorite is at the top of the second page: "Biologically we are all oralists, who have become literate only through cultural conditioning". I somewhat agree with this statement, because Havelock makes a convincing argument that literacy is a very fabricated thing rather than something that comes naturally to people, and that reading and writing are both things that must be taught, rather than things that can be understood through abstract thinking.

While this reading was enjoyable, there were parts of it that I didn't understand, not initially, at least. When Havelock begins discussing the alphabet, and how characters were borrowed from the Phoenicians, he mentions that the systems of writing that already existed had "problems", that "the possible total of syllables in any tongue is too large, and their exhaustive definition too difficult, to be manageable except in some approximate and incomplete fashion". According to Havelock, the Greeks solved this problem by "invent[ing]  the five vowel sounds" and separating them from consonants. It took me a while to understand how this reduced the number of needed characters, but some collaboration made it somewhat clear that rather than having a system of characters that represented syllables, syllables (unique sounds) were created by combining characters, and the "invention" of vowels was what made this possible. Though, after typing this, I'm still not entirely sure I understand, but I'm glad that our writing system has only 26 characters, compared to the hundreds of characters in languages like Japanese.