Hi all,
As we come near the end of 2020, it might be worth reflecting on the fact we are 20 years into the 21st century. Here are two short excerpts from where we were to where we are:
1994
“The marvel of 'hive mind' is that no one is in control, and yet an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from very dumb members"
"Wheeler saw 'emergent properties' within the superorganism superseding the resident properties of the collective ants. Wheeler said that the superorganism of the hive 'emerges' from the mass of ordinary insect organisms."
"Life is a networked thing-a distributed being. It is one organism extended in space and time. There is no individual life. Nowhere do we find a solo organism living. Life is always plural.”
Kevin Kelley. 1994. Out Of Control: The New Biology
¶
2020
Technology at the end of the twentieth century seemed to hold considerable promise for humankind. The launch of the world wide web allowed people around the globe to access an unprecedented amount of information on every possible subject. The web should have allowed for the democratization of information, but instead, the format increased addictive and performative behaviors, consumerism, echo chambers, and, ironically, loneliness and isolation.
Tech writer Nicholas Carr argued that over-reliance on web searches diminished human ability to research properly and read deeply. “Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today,” Carr stated, “Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us.”
... or, as Henry David Thoreau famously put it: “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”
Shalon van Tine. February 18, 2020
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