We desperately need to invest in the study of how technology is influencing our modern world...

[Locut0s]

I was just thinking the other day about how much of our world is now influenced by algorithms that few if any of us know the details of, but which could topple countries and start wars. Said algorithms were not designed with any malicious intent in mind of course, but simply to maximize profit for the company designing them while at the same time also maximizing utility and enjoyment for their customers. Sounds harmless enough on the surface. Until you realize that in this day and age we live as much online as offline, perhaps more so. Which means that the information that is presented to us has to be filtered through some form of algorithm or another, there is simply far too much data to present everything. And of course those algorithms were also designed to maximize profit for the companies that developed them. To some extend this has always been the case, but in our online world it has become such an extreme case of the "tail wagging the dog" that it's critical that we address it IMHO. All the more so because it's invisible to most of us. Every time you log into FB, perform a search on Google or indeed visit ANY site, most of what is presented to you is a very very small subset of the whole picture, cut down of necessity so that you can consume it, but also cut according to whatever "secret sauce" said company wants to use. The problem is that what these algorithms deliver increasingly is the very definition of our world view. Who our friends are, what news we see, even who our potential partners are. Some of this has come to light this US election with talks of social media echo chambers and how that may have helped get Trump elected. We are now starting to see really important unintended and terrifying real world outcomes of said algorithms. A public is only as informed as the resources made available to it. I think it's LONG past due that governments invested very heavily in the sociological study of, for lack of a better term, the "chaos theory of modern digital life". Because like in chaos theory the smallest changes in the various weightings of Google's search algorithms for example could indeed very much lead to WWIII some years down the line.

[HoneyBadger]

1. Technology is the enemy of climate change

Cooling all those servers is destroying the world.

While you can minimize short term energy consumption through green practices, ultimately you are still heating up,the world.



https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/new-cooling-strategies-for-greater-data-center-energy-efficiency/448717123919/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. One way to figure this out is to separate yourself from technology.

It's quite revealing.

I have a basic cell phone, not a smart phone. While that means I can't do so many of the things a smart phone enables, it also means I can see how a smart phone defines what can be done.

I don't have a TV. I watch plenty of shows on the internet, and any time there's any sort of breaking news the local stations usually go to live streaming, so I don't miss most news.

What I do miss, as in I never see, are commercials. Which means I'm not sucked into the hype of buy! buy! buy! and the messages that tell me I'm not a fully functioning human being without whatever.

I've been without a TV this time (this is the fourth time in my adult life without TV, and I honestly don't think I'll ever go back) for some eight and a half years, and the very best thing is no commercials. As I said above, I'm not sucked into the consumer culture that assures me I'm only a valid human being if I purchase whatever is being offered. Not to mention I don't waste 30 percent or so of each hour watching such blandishments. Oh, I do get to watch plenty of commercial television, just without the commercials. It's especially sweet during election season.

Other aspects of technology: I know people with GPS, an essentially useful tool, who have nonetheless completely forgotten how to use a map, and use it to go to places they already know how to get to. Why? Why give up your ability to navigate? Why become so dependent on that particular technology? It makes sense in a strange place, but not in your own neighborhood. So chalk this up to learned helplessness.

General knowledge. The internet is highly useful, and I take advantage of it on a daily basis, but it does not give you in depth information. For that you must dig deeper and read at greater length. Books. What a novel concept! Back in the early 70s, during my first bout of extended no TV, a coworker was convinced that I couldn't possibly have a clue about what was going on in the world because I didn't have a TV. So he'd quiz me about current events, and was astonished when I knew what was going on. I listened to the radio. I subscribed to Time (which back then was a very useful source of information), but more to the point I read books. Lots of books. Fiction and non fiction. I usually knew not only what was going on in the world but knew a lot of background information. And when the PBS series about the six wives of Henry VIII was on, a different co-worker was very astonished when I filled her in an what had happened before, during, and after the episode we'd just watched.

Technology is wonderful and has its place. I don't want to give any of it up. But I also don't want anyone out there to think that the surface information you get is all there is to know. And that's an enormous problem.

[KT2000]

3. could not agree with you more

the levels of manipulation are many. Developing algorithms enabled Wall Street to bankrupt the economy. There are no standards or it may be that it is entirely free from ethical considerations. We have been trusting.


We seem to have stepped into a new reality without realizing it. We assume that everyone is reading the same newspapers and watching the same news and just coming to different conclusions based on the same information. But of course we are all getting more information on the internet than TV news and local newspapers - in our own echo chambers.

[Nay]

4. If you haven't read "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry

Mander, get it and read it. It's over 40 years old and still is totally relevant to this discussion. It talks about the change in consciousness caused by TV, and of course now it's many electronic devices -- and neuroscience has pretty much confirmed every point Mander makes.

The inability to concentrate for extended periods; lack of interest in play and being outside; etc. It's a very illuminating read.