Us and Technology

The Optimistic View

Futurama, as it is presented in that video, is evergreen. There will always be people thinking about what the future of our technological advancements hold, with ideas far off base and ideas that eventually come to be in one way or another. The thing that is unique about Futurama is its idealism. Nowadays there are certainly those who provide a utopia-like view of the future any time a new technology is revealed, but unlike in the sixties, the common point of view nowadays is with a heavy dose of cynicism. As a society we have seen the timeline of utopia come and go, and seen first hand that all of this progress, if it happens at all, comes at a steep cost more often than not. This is where “Are You Lost in a World Like Me” comes into play, showing the opposite side of the coin. This short provides a cold and cruel view of the present through the lens of the past. Part of the thesis of this video seems to be “If this present is the wonderful future we were promised, why does it suck so bad?”. I believe that is why the artstyle takes on the vintage look that it does. The simple existence of both of these films proves that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Both represent an extreme that is far from the whole truth.

The Pessimistic View

The most prevalent technology in my life and in the average American's life is social media. Approximately 300.86 million people (90% of the population) have some form of social media. Everyone in my family has some form of it, even my technologically challenged grandparents. I was never the most active in it growing up and it was only in the past two years that I became an active participant and poster. I became more involved in social media because I was the social media manager for my improv troupe, Charcoal Pony Improv, and because I needed some way to actively share my life with my family who was not able to be as big a part of my life. Most people utilize social media in this way. Social media allows people to passively engage with people all over the world and can foster connections in ways unseen before. It gives them a chance to market their ideas or themselves. Marketing oneself or business is another reason to use social media. Not only do I market my improv troupe, I use what I have learnt to provide an easily accessible digital footprint for prospective employers to find. I am confident in my ability to make a name for myself simply through using my own social media accounts which is a first on the global scale.

Social Media Users in the USA

Having looked myself up using both my real name and my most common username, the online picture it paints is one I’m proud to have associated with me. What pops up is a display of my artistic endeavors and the causes I believe in and stand by. However I know that if I make one mistake that will irreversibly damage my image in ways that many people have struggled through. I am lucky I have had the knowledge imparted onto me to keep most of my accounts private and therefore give me control over how my footprint is shaped. However even this tight curation can’t stop someone from using an AI training model to conjure up an image of something I never did and ruining it anyways.

Me and my improv troupe

The biggest innovation (and threat) on the horizon is the rise in generative artificial intelligence, and it is making social media nearly unusable. I participate in many artist communities online and have seen direct copies and ripoffs where generative AI art utilizes training data based on my friends' art styles to create art that looks as though it was created by a specific artist even if it depicts something that goes against their values. Programs like Elon Musk’s “Grok” take this stealing a step further as every single post is fair use for the training of this AI. Utilizing this AI and others, digital copies of these accounts can be made and interacted with as though they are clones of the main account. Dead internet theory may not be 100% true, but it is still a massive issue online as bots are getting harder and harder to block and harder and harder to stop.

Elon Musk's Twitter Ai

Overall the usage of social media has benefitted users in numerous ways, but the companies behind them create addictive environments that can allow hate to foster and grow while putting profits ahead of people. There is good to be found in what the future can bring, and there is bad. All we can do as individuals is make our voices heard and fight to live our lives the way we want to.

EOTO #1

    

     The history of cassette tapes begins with the revolution that was magnetic tape created back in 1928 by the German innovator Franz Pfleumer. an immigrant to the US he originally experimented with putting metal stripes onto cigarette papers and magnetizing them in order to create different tones and sounds, he then concluded that he could coat an entire roll of tape with metallic substances, and then record sound onto it by using a device to magnetize it in a certain way that would then be able to be decoded by a specialized player. This innovation created the reel-to-reel recording system. It was mostly utilized within companies and wasn't really convenient for commercial use. People didn't have convenient ways of recording onto it and it certainly wasn't the easiest to set up when records were far more convenient for playing music.

    This all changed in 1962 when the Phillips Company debuted the compact tape at a German electronics festival. This tape was contained within a small plastic rectangle that had both reels inside and it was also fairly easy for consumers to record over which was something that was not possible on records. It took a little bit of time for them to catch on, these cassette tapes (as they came to be known) grew in popularity, simply due to convenience. It's no doubt that they sacrificed quality for this convenience; however. Vinyl records still hold the title for having a richer and fuller sound. However, the portability and ease of play of these tapes led to the rise of an industry that realized consumers were willing to sacrifice higher quality sound if it meant they could take their songs wherever they went. This led to players being built into cars and innovations like the Sony Walkman. The ability to record over these tapes also allowed people to create mixtapes which when it came to gift giving, personal playlists, and piracy. Ease recording also allowed anyone to easily make their own tape and even mass produce if they had the right materials. For the short time they were around, cassette tapes reigned supreme when the average consumer wanted to purchase music.

    When it comes to the impact cassette tapes have had on society as a whole, it's simple to see that they were the spark that led to the revolution of audio and media compression, further leading to the creation of many of the ways that we consume media today. Everything from streaming, to CD, to VHS, and even TikTok wouldn't be possible without the initial developments and further proven commercial viability of the compressed audio that cassettes had to offer. It knocked over the first domino. While it's easy to say, people will give up quality for convenience, I choose to think of it as accepting any quality for the benefit of accessibility. Nowadays information is so accessible to anyone through TikTok or Instagram because of how accessible it is. That is what cassette tapes taught to companies and that is the lasting impact that they will always have. Nowadays, there has been a resurgence in the popularity of vintage media however, cassette tapes haven't quite hit it as big as vinyl or CDs. This is because portability is not really a huge selling point anymore. Now that everyone has music on their phones, other forms of vintage media simply just have a higher quality. However, the legacy of cassette tapes will never be what was on them, but rather how they were stepping stone to the world of media we know today.

EOTO #2 What I Learnt

     

    The first thing I learned were the different types of misinformation, or rather the differences between misinformation disinformation, and malinformation. I was always aware that there were subtleties and nuances to incorrect news and information being spread in the world, but I was never sure what the names and differences were between each variation of this practice. I learned that Misinformation was the unintentional propagation of incorrect information. It's not inherently malicious, it is just the repetition of something that was incorrectly spread and magnified through echo chambers. That way it's much like gossip in personal life and how it can spread. Disinformation is the other side of the coin and usually the start point for the previous term. This form of incorrect information is malicious and started with the intent to harm or incorrectly inform. This can be picked up and spread by people unknowingly contributing to the harmful effects that it is causing, or intentionally using it to create a false narrative. The final term learned from this presentation was malinformation, which is unique from the other terms. Malinformation utilizes real facts that are cherry picked from real events in order to cry a specific narrative around real facts. This is the most difficult to par out because the things that it talks about are real yet intentionally leaving out the full picture. This narrative warping can occur a lot through news headlines that can point to only one part of an article and people make snap judgments based upon that rather than reading the whole article. More on this particular phenomenon can be found here.

Another thing I learned about through this exercise are false flag operations. I’m not ashamed to admit I had only heard about this term thanks to a lyric in a song by the band “Rare Americans”, but I had no idea the context or the devastating implications. False flag operations simply exist for the benefit of the government and how its public perception is. Simple self-justification of invasion for the benefit of the public in order to craft a narrative explaining something that has scummy motives. After seeing how much this happens, I am now very encouraged to think more critically of any conflict the US finds itself in and ensure that I am not being taken along with the wrong narrative.

Anti-WAR and why its not profitable

    Before this blog post, I had not heard of any of these anti-war news sites. Which I found concerning because I lean in a pretty centrist and pacifist manner, yet algorithms in social media sites have still not recommended any articles, posts, or anything else associated with them. These sites are squarely independent media and clearly do not have the financial ability to advertise themselves. Neither advertisers nor parent companies that would purchase and run these sites would benefit from their anti-conflict stance. War and outrage generates clicks which generates advertising revenue which allows the news to grow as a company rather than as a platform that stands for anything aside from profit. When there is conflict it causes people to check back into these sites daily for updates, whether to keep updated on world events or to stay safe.

Despite having a similar, anti-war message, there is a clear deviation between the political beliefs in each site provided. That first website (https://www.antiwar.com) seemed to be centrist while the second one (https://www.theamericanconservative.com)  leaned very republican. This dichotomy shows that there is a universal truth to anti-war and people on all sides of the political spectrum can fight for and want peace. No one wants to go fight in a war, but the mainstream media wouldn't have you believe that. When there is an enemy there is a reason for the  consumer to consume more news so they can stay ahead of the other side and be able to argue their talking points. This gives the sites loyal customers because this is their news, the one that lets them know what they need to in order to be on the “right” side of the conflict. A good article I found delving deeper into all of this can be found here. I think that it is the job of the individual to continue sharing anti-war articles and doing what we can to stand up to the system and make our want for peace known.

Independent Media EOTO #2

     

    Alternative media (or independent media) is a term given to any source of news media that has no external influence either by government or by commercial funding. These sources are nonprofit and typically funded through donations. This funding structure gives the sources significantly more freedom to report on the stories that they truly believe in. Essentially, alternative media is in it for the love of the game, rather than to turn a profit. Because they are not beholden to any sponsors they are not afraid of reporting on any topic.

                                                       

    This freedom also means that they don't have an agenda for the most part. They will do what they can to treat the news as objectively as possible because they don't benefit financially from skewing it one way or another. Mainstream media news sites will almost always choose to lean in a certain direction due to its funding policies. They won't report on anything that could shed a negative light on their sources of income. With nonprofit, reporters don't need to worry about writing anything that will tick off potential advertisers, or even any political leaders because they have nothing to lose or gain by doing so. Nowadays, even if you take a look at the difference in advertising between mainstream media, it has created a sort of ecosystem within itself where the products being pushed are typically consumed by people who hold political views, bolstered by the news site and vice versa. Independent news doesn't have that luxury because it's meant to be for everyone; advertisements can't cater to specific people; certain people won't be pulled to it due to advertising. Despite the fact that personal ideologies will inevitably seep through, it is less frequent and not quite as icky. I mean, I know I’d rather read an opinionated article from someone based on what they believe in rather than what corporate believes in.

You can take a look at which corporations own which sites HERE

    At the dawn of widespread news, (thanks to the printing press) it was always a business to either gain funding from advertisers or from the government. When printing presses were first coming out, they were not cheap and to be blunt newspapers needed the money in order to keep their businesses running. While there was a certain integrity to the news as there always is, as the world kept growing, news distribution became more complex and expensive, leading independent publishing into a rapid decline.. until recently when the age of the Internet began. Multiple sites have been able to reinvigorate the field independently run media. Thanks to the advent of things like social media, blogs (like this one!), and other online self-publishing sites, people are able to host and share their news that they want to report without having to spend hardly any money. Funds are the source of funds needed in this age to host a website, the main and pay reporters to do research and write insightful articles. However, this doesn't stop anyone who has a firsthand counter experience from just sharing their real life online so thanks for the Internet. Independent media has seen a massive resurgence and it's hopeful that it can continue to rise and become more popular than mainstream media because of its strength, integrity, and impartiality.

Cassette Tapes through the lens of the diffusion theory

 

Diffusion Theory is a model which shows how trends and technology are adopted by the general population. In this blog post I will be describing how cassette tapes fit into this model.

 Pioneers - The first groups that pushed through and made tapes exist are Franz Pfleumer and the Phillips Company. Both of these parties innovated to create easily portable and accessible audio recordings, the Phillips Company being the ones to begin producing and selling this technology on a commercial level to lead in to the next level of the diffusion theory.

Early Adopters - It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first cassette tape was, but the top two contenders are "Love For Sale" by Eartha Kitt, and Nina Simone's "Wild is the Wind" and at this point most tape players were just found at home as companies hadn't quite elevated the technology yet.

Early Majority- This group had options like the Sony Walkman to make the purchase more worthwhile. While the Early adopters were keen to adopt the format due to how much more music they could store in one place, the portability made more and more people accept the idea of losing quality for accessibility.

Late Majority- At this point, tapes became the standard. Most car models had a built in tape deck and even innovated an auto-rewind feature for some players. However the decline of this late majority was incredibly steep as CDs came out and were objectively better. Higher quality and more storage, they became the default, leaving tapes in the dust after a little over a decade on the shelves.

Laggard- At this point the only people still using tapes were people using it for nostalgia or using it as the cheap option. There wasn't much allure save for affordability.

Long Tail- Going till this day, the only people hopping on the tape wagon are the people interested in the novelty or nostalgia of it. With streaming and digital music portability is no issue, and if people want a physical or vintage feel they can go the route of vinyl and CDs. Personally, I'm a big fan of tapes, but I feel a bit overburdened by how difficult it is to find players that are affordable and high quality. (The gap goes from $20 crappy players to THIS)

and that's tapes through the lens of Diffusion Theory.

EOTO: What I learnt.

    

    

    Something I learnt that I actually didn't know until watching my groupmates was the history and functionality of Bluetooth. I didn't know that the name originated from a king who was known for uniting or "connecting" kingdoms, but it makes a lot of sense. Tech people have always liked their clever names and it has transformed the ancient nickname into a modern phrase that the original king may have called witchcraft. Another thing I didn't know about until the presentation, was the idea that Bluetooth underwent upgrades through the years. I suppose I had always assumed that the modules would eventually become outdated, but I didn't know it was in the form of a universal upgrade. it is a very fascinating technology and I was grateful to know more about the technology I use every day!