[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[music]
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So yeah, being one of the first net culture or computers in society writers was strategically a poor move for me
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I'm living proof, though, you can still survive it, if you can get through it somehow, by answering e-mail more slowly
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's funny, I wrote some notes because I thought I should be responsible, because you guys are real computer studies
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,computer science people, as opposed to just, you know, your average, digitally illiterate audience.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So I don't really need to make the case - I probably don't - on why learning something about digital technology is a smart thing
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because you guys have already made that choice.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But something that occurred to me on the way here, actually, that you might not realize as young people
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,if you don't mind being called that
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,...is that it's very hard to get a very accurate sense of the biases of the digital media environment...
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,...when you've been raised inside it.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In other words, what I want to suggest to you is that those of us who are old enough to have experienced and consciously experienced
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,the shift from a pre-digital media environment to a digital media environment actually understand something
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or sense something or experience something about the biases of digital technology that is relatively difficult for those of you who have been raised
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,with digital technology to get.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Right now this is the opposite argument I made through most of my career.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In 1995, I wrote a book called, Playing the Future, where I argued that,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"Don't worry, you grown ups, digital technology is coming and you feel overwhelmed.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But you guys are digital immigrants whereas kids are digital natives.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So you're going to speak the language like an immigrant, they're going to speak like a native.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You're always going to feel slightly out of place and unsure, and everytime you have a hypertext link, you're gonna be a disoriented
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because we're not used to that, whereas kids are going to experience that very naturally.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That what looks disjointed to us, will be a natural terrain for them.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And they will have command, don't worry, the kids are alright."
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But as I've grown older, and as I've watched where cyberspace has gone,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and where our culture has gone, or hasn't, I realize that some of my elders were actually more right about this than I was
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And in reading all the - finally catching up with who I was supposed to read,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when I was younger, you know, McCluen and Ong, and all the great media theorists, you know,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I would read about the digital environ- or the media environments, and this notion that McCluen had,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that, you know, if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because the fish is swimming in the water. He's not aware of the water.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, so if you ask someone who is raised in a television environment, "Oh, what about the impact television on you?"
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You can't say it because you're living in it. You're living in that media environment.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Likewise, those of us living in a digital media environment, it's very difficult for us to parse it's effect
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For us to feel what it is
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,For us to understand the difference between what it is to be a human being
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and what it is to be a digital being
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And, being able to parse it, though, being able to begin to look at that
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What Norbert Weinert used to call, "the human use of human beings." He was one of the first people to talk about cybernetics
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think he invented the word, actually, back when, cybernetics. Even though it got stolen.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,He was really looking at as we develop a computer environment, how will we recognize what is the difference between humans and the machines that we're in?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,How will we understand how to create a human, or a humanity-encouraging, digital media environment?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Now the reason why I think this is important is because most of my peers strongly disagree with this sentiment
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Most of my peers, and call them the sort of, the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley, Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,all the way to Ray Kurzwhile on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey - there's this sense, this sort of letter ripped sense about technology
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's uncomfortably consonant with corporate capitalism, but that's another story
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That human beings are merely one stage in information's inevitable evolution towards greater states of complexity, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And they tell this very compelling story about the beginning of time all the way through now.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That matter has been groping toward greater states of complexity, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That we had atoms became molecules, and molecules became, you know, sort of these weird pre-proto-life things which became cells
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And now we have this whole life thing that happened
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And life got very complex through evolution
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And we had people
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And people built machines, and machines are just sort of in that big, blue, overtake humanity moment,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and when they do, then machines, our computers, our networks will be the real host for the evolution of information
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and we human beings can tend to those machines, or, at best, upload our consciousness
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and then they will continue that journey for us
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, and each one has a different metaphor for explaining it
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, whether it's Kevin talking about what technology wants, right? What technology wants, like it really wants.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Not, it's not bias towards something, but it wants something, we've made this thing.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Just as God made people, people made technology, and this child will go on wanting something.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk about the singularity, which I'm sure you've all read or heard about, even on, you know,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you can find out about it in Vice Magazine or anything, at this point
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, the idea that technology reaches this point of, not self-consciousness or self-awareness necessarily, but it just surpasses us
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It becomes this thing and can keep going.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's a... I don't know... for me it's a discomforting view of humanity
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but it's also, I would argue, an incorrect one, you know?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's one that is - it's one that is a result of living unconsciously in a digital media environment
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's one where you let the digital media environment dictate what you are and how you think about the world
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,rather than maintaining some sense of humanity in that.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Alright? So, what's interesting to me as I look at the history of computing, which now we have
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and as we look at computers in society, which is a real thing.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when we taught courses like this, it was futurism.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Computers in Society was a course was a course in, "What's it gonna be like someday when people have e-mail?"
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I mean, there were times, and I'm sure you were in those conversations
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when people like me used to go to a cocktail party or go to a publisher, or explain to a magazine editor.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Someday people are going to have their own computers
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They are gonna send messages to eachother using little text editors
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,using, you know, word processors,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they would literally laugh us out of the room.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They did not - they - it seemed so outrageous, that - Or they'd walk around
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No, you're not gonna have to implant chips in people, they're gonna walk around with phones that are gonna track them everywhere they go
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and they're gonna do this voluntarily
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,They're gonna give all their information - it's all just - and no one believed us. But, of course that happened.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But, the thing that's interesting to me about computer history, if we're gonna follow it from the history of humanity
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,rather than the history of technology, right? Let's not worry about paper tape to punch cards to tape to discs to hard drives to RAM.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Let's not worry about machine evolution. But you look at the difference in people, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,If we look at history as the human story rather than the story of stuff
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,then the interesting thing becomes - the big switch, I think, is the shift from a pre-literate to a literate society, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When we look at the impact of the printing press.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Do we talk about it in terms of, "Oh, look! These rooms filled up with books!"
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,No, that's not the part that's interesting.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The part that is interesting is people learned to read
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and then when they learned to read, they had personal interpretations of the Bible, right?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we had a Protestant Reformation, with people rebelling against the Church,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So we had the idea of "one man, one vote," because everyone has their own perspective.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It coincided with prospective painting.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It coincided with central banking.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And all of these other, very, analagous human inventions that were all about people having individual perspectives,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"One man, one vote," it led to the Enlightenment, and all this other stuff.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Consumerism, Industrial Era and everything else.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,When we look at digital technology I think we have to look at it that way.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In other words, what is the difference between a pre-literate digital society and a post-literate digital society?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, I'm over arguing for digital literacy. I think digital literacy is inevitable, you know?
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I feel like I'm making that - when I, and I, it's my main talk that I do.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's like, you know, "Programmer be programmed!" And I wrote this book, Programmer Be Programmed.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We have to learn to program. If you don't learn how to program, you're just swimming blindly in a sea of information.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Kids don't understand the biases of the technologies they use.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know, if you ask a kid what Facebook is for, he'll say Facebook is here to help him make friends.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But we all know Facebook is really not here - it's really here to monetize the social graft and all that.