Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize has caused quite a commotion. The speech itself is worth reading - when you take out Obama's diction, it reads like a really well thought out essay on the morality of war.
The sticking point of the whole issue is that troop escalation is needed in Afghanistan to maintain peace. Already, I've heard many comparisons to 1984, and "War is Peace". Make no mistake, that is an element of "Bush Doctrine".
Although the speech is more nuanced, for example, he makes references to the need to shut down Guantanamo, Bush would have delivered a similar viewpoint. The question is, does the messenger really make a difference in how we the public perceive the war? My answer is yes.
When Bush delivered speeches, they were very much straight to the point, and blunt. There was very little room for elaboration. When he said there was an "Axis of Evil," that was it. When he said there were terrorists, he didn't go any further than, "they are bad and we need to kill them." I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to be blunt, but what he doesn't do is encourage people to think about the issue. His speeches were given from the perspective of, "These are how things are, deal with it."
Note a couple things he said that touched a raw nerve with the left wing: The infamous quote, after 9/11, telling people to go to their shopping malls, to Disney World. Or the infamous "I'm the decider".
What's significant about Obama's speeches is that while they may advocate the same position, there's real evidence that he's given serious thought to the problem at hand. In this speech, he hints at the notion that war is based in trivial human differences.
"The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God."
The issue isn't that Obama's speeches just sound prettier, it's that because these speeches show thought and reflection, he encourages that same kind of reflection in his audience. This speech wasn't, "we're America, this war is good, and that's the end of it". It was more, "This is the war you guys just paid for. If you're putting up the sacrifice, I'm going to at least do some serious thinking about it, and you should as well."
Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Digital Memory
Our society is a complex one. We are plagued by war, famine, racial disparities, and ecological problems I cannot even begin to fathom. It's easy to look at all of this and think that our world has gone to complete shit. However, if you look in the larger historical perspective, I don't think this is at all the case.
Information is being exchanged at a rapidly increasing rate. We have more media available to us than at any other time in history. While there is a lot of "junk" in our media, I don't think it's turning us into a bunch of brainless zombies. Far from it. With all of this rapid information exchange, we're entering a new Renaissance (A World of Possibilities).
When you look at a Renaissance, be it the European one in the 1500's, or The growth of ancient Greek society, the conditions were met for an advanced exchange of ideas (domestic stability and technology). It's much the same today. There's enough of a peaceful cohesion among developed nations, along with sufficient technology, to allow a huge flow of information. This is like a rennaisance on steroids.
Now I don't think that means that this is the pinnacle of human society by any means, but we do live in an era that allows for rapid growth and evolution of society. When I take a step back and look at everything that's available to us, for instance, the ruins of Pompeii in Google Maps, it absolutely blows my mind. At no other time has this much information been available to as many people.
What is interesting is that our cognitive functions are adapting to this available information. Instead of the old model where our learning process was, "cram information into your head, and try to retain it", it is now, "no need to cram", because information is directly accessible through the cloud. The current generations are doing this through transition; we all learned the old way, but are quickly getting used to Googling everything, however, the next generation will grow up entirely in a world where this is the case. The implications of this are way beyond me, but I'm really interested in one particular effect, our capacity for digital storage.
I remember hearing a few years back about the fact that digital storage (like flash memory) keeps getting cheaper and more abundant, to the point where very soon it will be possible to store terabytes and terabytes of information per person. At the same time, there's been an explosion in online video sharing, as well as online storage. The result is that eventually one would be able to record video of their entire life, store it, and be able to search through it at a moment's notice. Couldn't remember what you had for breakfast this morning? No need to, you'd be able to search it. In essence, you would have a digital memory.
This notion of "the cloud" and storing all our information in it has been around for awhile, and the argument I've been hearing is this: Socrates, I believe, was opposed to transferring our information from oral tradition to writing. He said it would ruin society, and the same applies now, so the argument goes.
I agree with this idea that the cloud isn't a bad thing; it's just the next step in our cognitive evolution, but what really interests me isn't just the transfer of our memory to a digital storage, but what we'd do with all of that extra brainpower. What would we use it for? How would creative expression change?
How would communication change? It's possible we'd even lose the need for spoken language. We could simply copy and paste thoughts from our virtual into a friend's (or many friends at the same time).
How would our physiology change? Would we become completely enmeshed in a digital world, or would we just integrate this technology into the physical world?
There are possibilities I can't even imagine just down the road from us (barring nuclear holocaust). I can't wait to see how our history unfolds.
Information is being exchanged at a rapidly increasing rate. We have more media available to us than at any other time in history. While there is a lot of "junk" in our media, I don't think it's turning us into a bunch of brainless zombies. Far from it. With all of this rapid information exchange, we're entering a new Renaissance (A World of Possibilities).
When you look at a Renaissance, be it the European one in the 1500's, or The growth of ancient Greek society, the conditions were met for an advanced exchange of ideas (domestic stability and technology). It's much the same today. There's enough of a peaceful cohesion among developed nations, along with sufficient technology, to allow a huge flow of information. This is like a rennaisance on steroids.
Now I don't think that means that this is the pinnacle of human society by any means, but we do live in an era that allows for rapid growth and evolution of society. When I take a step back and look at everything that's available to us, for instance, the ruins of Pompeii in Google Maps, it absolutely blows my mind. At no other time has this much information been available to as many people.
What is interesting is that our cognitive functions are adapting to this available information. Instead of the old model where our learning process was, "cram information into your head, and try to retain it", it is now, "no need to cram", because information is directly accessible through the cloud. The current generations are doing this through transition; we all learned the old way, but are quickly getting used to Googling everything, however, the next generation will grow up entirely in a world where this is the case. The implications of this are way beyond me, but I'm really interested in one particular effect, our capacity for digital storage.
I remember hearing a few years back about the fact that digital storage (like flash memory) keeps getting cheaper and more abundant, to the point where very soon it will be possible to store terabytes and terabytes of information per person. At the same time, there's been an explosion in online video sharing, as well as online storage. The result is that eventually one would be able to record video of their entire life, store it, and be able to search through it at a moment's notice. Couldn't remember what you had for breakfast this morning? No need to, you'd be able to search it. In essence, you would have a digital memory.
This notion of "the cloud" and storing all our information in it has been around for awhile, and the argument I've been hearing is this: Socrates, I believe, was opposed to transferring our information from oral tradition to writing. He said it would ruin society, and the same applies now, so the argument goes.
I agree with this idea that the cloud isn't a bad thing; it's just the next step in our cognitive evolution, but what really interests me isn't just the transfer of our memory to a digital storage, but what we'd do with all of that extra brainpower. What would we use it for? How would creative expression change?
How would communication change? It's possible we'd even lose the need for spoken language. We could simply copy and paste thoughts from our virtual into a friend's (or many friends at the same time).
How would our physiology change? Would we become completely enmeshed in a digital world, or would we just integrate this technology into the physical world?
There are possibilities I can't even imagine just down the road from us (barring nuclear holocaust). I can't wait to see how our history unfolds.
Intro
Note: I'm a real amateur when it comes to writing for an audience, on a computer, so if what I write comes off as a really long ramble, just bear with me. Right now, I won't be paying too much attention to sentence structure and editing; I just want to get my thoughts on the page. Please don't judge too harshly, at least not yet, but feel free to offer your criticism and opinion!
My name's Matt, and the basis of this blog is pretty much to get any ideas in my head worth sharing out there into the digital world. I can't promise anything groundbreaking, or exciting, but hopefully this will be a vehicle for getting into discussions and learning new things that I wouldn't necessarily get from day-to-day worklife.
About Me:
I'm a graphic designer, 25, in Memphis, TN. I'm married, and I've got a very cute and rambunctious dog.
My name's Matt, and the basis of this blog is pretty much to get any ideas in my head worth sharing out there into the digital world. I can't promise anything groundbreaking, or exciting, but hopefully this will be a vehicle for getting into discussions and learning new things that I wouldn't necessarily get from day-to-day worklife.
About Me:
I'm a graphic designer, 25, in Memphis, TN. I'm married, and I've got a very cute and rambunctious dog.
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