Post #12

 Technology has given us many advantages but has also come with many disadvantages. On one hand you can talk with almost anyone across the world but you can also be bullied just as easy. It has given us access to almost limitless information on anything. 

My relationship with technology is a positive one. My use of technology is playing video games and doing school work. Sometimes I worry if I’m spending too much time. I think that my time using the internet has made me a at least a little bit smarter. 

There are negatives of technology on our lives. Cyber bullying has become a problem since the rise of the internet. Misinformation has become a big problem in recent years. It’s up to use to figure out what is and isn’t misinformation.

Maintaining a positive online presence is important. My online presence is minimal. If someone were to search my name all they would find is my LinkedIn. 

Age of AI (blog post #10)

 

As A.I becomes more advanced some people wonder when does it stop. After watching the documentary I saw that A.I is going to make some jobs obsolete. Many jobs have already been lost to automation such as assembly line jobs. A.I could cause fifteen percent of workers to be displaced. That number is going to rise as A.I becomes more and more advanced. 

Writers jobs could be at risk now that we have chat bots that can write whole essays for you with just a few key words. Truck drivers jobs are at risk as seen in the documentary. Automation is killing trucking jobs by having self driving trucks. Truck drivers are required to rest after a certain amount of hours but with self driving trucks they don’t have to stop and they don’t have to be paid. Artists could also be affected by the new A.I art craze. There are A.I programs on the internet that can make high quality drawings of pretty much anything you tell it. 

Some jobs may not be affected by A.I. Lawyers may be safe from A.I taking their jobs. A.I might not be able to handle the nuances of court cases so they wouldn’t be a good replacement. Human Resources could also be a job safe from A.I as some problems can only be solved by a human. 

A.I could cause a huge privacy issue. A.I could be used to instantly identify a person just through a single picture. It can also watch your search history and learn what you like and don’t like. It could potentially know more about you than you. A.I can be used in some dangerous ways like making deepfakes of people. Making it seem like that person said something terrible but it’s just a A.I imitation. A.I generated voices are becoming very advanced, being able to sound almost identical to the real person. 

https://youtu.be/5dZ_lvDgevk

https://www.zippia.com/advice/ai-job-loss-statistics/

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/ai-coming-job-chatgpt-renews-fears/story?id=97079982

Transhumanism (blog post #9)

Transhumanism is a philosophical and scientific movement that wants to use technology to improve the human condition and increase human capabilities. Transhumanists want a future where humans use technology to reverse or even eliminate the aging process. Transhumanism proposes the concept of the “post human” when humans evolve past humanity via technology and augmentation. It would blur the line between humans and machines. Some Transhumanists advocate for space colonization due to climate change. Another interesting concept is “mind uploading”. Transhumanists argue that this could be used to eliminate neurological diseases and possibly achieve immortality.

If Transhumanist augmentation were to take effect I think it would create a new class of people, people who have been augmented and those who haven’t. I also think it create a further divide between the rich and the poor due to the rich being able to afford all the augmentations while the poor could not. It could also give the people who augmentations a feeling of superiority over people who don’t have them. Even if augmentation would become available to everyone regardless of economic status the. Overpopulation would become a problem due to people becoming immune to the effects of aging and disease. There also may be compatibility issues between humans and post humans meaning they might not be able to reproduce with one another. Sports would be complicated due to post humans. A separate bracket would have to be created for post humans to only play against other post humans as a post human would have way too big of a advantage against a human. 

A positive of Transhumanism is increasing the quality of life via providing resistance to disease or prolonging your life span. Another positive would be to eliminate the visual effects of aging. Being able to plan the process of human evolution and eliminating the randomness of mutations Transhumanists could streamline the evolution process. Improving human capabilities by increasing intelligence and strength via augmentation. 

The downside to all of this is that the technology required to do this is very far away. Some people such as  inventor and entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil have supported the idea of being cryogenically frozen and thawed out in the future where the technology exists. 

Overall Transhumanists see a day where humans overcome the limitations of their own bodies and become something greater but the technology is so far off from being realized we will probably never see it become a reality. 

https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/06/no-death-and-an-enhanced-life-is-the-future-transhuman

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563415/#:~:text=One%20possible%20consequence%20feared%20by,a%20much%20lower%20moral%20standing.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumanism

Diffusion of Innovations: Reddit (Blog #8)

Reddit's mascot Snoo

    

    Reddit was launched in 2005 by two University of Virginia graduates Steve Huffan and Alexis Ohanian. Before reddit had it's massive user base of 55 million daily users, most of the sites posts were from fake accounts made by Steve and Alexis to give off the appearance that the site was popular. Late 2005 was the early adopters stage. A year later in 2006 Conde Nast Publications bought Reddit for 20 million dollars. Another website called "Digg" was Reddit's major competitor at the time. In 2011 Reddit outranked Digg in numbers. Digg eventually died which Reddit is credited with the killing.

    Reddit when it first launched was just a place to share news. In fact the very first reddit post is still visible to this day. A few months after launch the ability to comment on posts was added. Probably the most recognizable thing about Reddit is the "Sub-reddits" but these weren't added until 2008. Sub-reddits are smaller forums that focus on a single topic and all begin with "r/". Examples would be r/politics focuses on US politics, r/science focuses on science topics, and r/technology focus on technological discussion. 

    Reddit's user base kept going up in the coming years. In 2012 Reddit had 46 million monthly users but that number climbed all the way to 430 million over the next seven years. I believe 2012 to be the point when Reddit reached the early majority status. 2015 being the late majority stage and 2016 being the laggard stage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 https://backlinko.com/reddit-users

https://www.honorsociety.org/articles/history-reddit 

Smartphones (Blog #7)

 Smartphones

    I thought the smartphone was the most interesting innovation of technology. They have made almost every aspect of our lives easier. From using the Maps feature instead of a actual physical map and looking up anything on the internet at anytime the smartphone has made many great quality of life improvements. 

    On January 9th, 2007 Steve Jobs announced the very first generation of Iphone. The Iphone was a revolutionary piece of technology. It seemed like it could do everything a computer could do. For the first time we had a computer in our pocket. The touch screen was probably the biggest feature of the phone. While not the first phone to feature a camera, you could then send the pictures you took to other people via messenger. You could watch videos on the built in web browser or on Youtube. You could also browse the internet, check your email, send text messages, and make phone calls. With all these features this made the Iphone a very versatile piece of technology. 

HTC Dream

    Now lets look at a non Apple smartphone. The HTC Dream was released on September 23, 2008 by the Taiwanese company HTC. The HTC Dream was the first smartphone to use the Android operating system. Unlike the Iphone the Dream lacks a touchscreen but has a physical keyboard. It also featured physical buttons and a trackball for scrolling. It required a extension that plugged into the charging port to use headphones much like modern Iphones. It had a camera like the iphone but could also record video which was added with Android 1.5. It also had a basic web browser. It came with most google features such as maps, gmail, and youtube preinstalled. While lacking in appearance the HTC Dream could do almost everything the Iphone could. 

    The smartphone market would look a lot different if android hadn't come on the scene. When it first released android held six percent of the market share. Today android holds over seventy percent of the market share.

https://www.androidauthority.com/first-android-phone-t-mobile-g1-htc-dream-906362/

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/can-firstgeneration-iphone-26793.html

https://mashable.com/article/first-iphone-keynote-15-year-anniversary

Free Expression (Blog #4)

 

Free Expression

Free expression is one of the most important aspects of democracy. Look at non democratic nations like Myanmar, where the military has been cracking down on protests following the 2021 coup where the military removed their democratically elected leader. Another example is China where the citizens cannot criticize the government at all without fear of oppression. Countries like Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow criticism of government officials or allow freedom of religion. They also don’t allow criticism of certain religious figures. Marketplace of ideas, participation in self-governance, stable change, individual self-fulfillment, check on governmental power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, protect dissent are the eight values of free expression. Individual self-fulfillment and protection of dissent are my most important values because people need to express their opinions for democracy to thrive. 

As video games have played a big part in my life and will play a big part in my career after college, I believe that this value can be connected to video games. People use the medium of video games to express themselves and put their voices out there. Video games can have commentary on various social and political subjects. The game “Papers Please” has commentary on how immigration affects people. Social media is a good example of individualism and dissent. I see individualism and dissent everyday on social media. Social media gives the average person a voice to give their opinion. People on social media can share their values and beliefs as they see fit. If someone doesn’t like what the government is doing then they can say that on social media without fear of being silenced or censored. Video games are sometimes used to voice dissent as well. Games such as “This War of Mine” have a very anti war message and themes. Protestors in Hong Kong used the video game “Animal Crossing” to create signs for a free Hong Kong and hold rallies in the game. 

 

https://www.theringer.com/2017/2/9/16045604/papers-please-is-a-disturbingly-relevant-video-game-about-immigration-96cda43156af

https://www.eurogamer.net/how-animal-crossing-became-a-place-of-protest-in-china-and-hong-kong

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55902070

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1561/social-media

https://freedomhouse.org/country/saudi-arabia/freedom-world/2022

Anti-War (Blog #6)

 

Not many sources are anti-war these days. Ever since the war in Ukraine started major mainstream news sources have been very pro-war and ever since we have been sending billions of dollars to Ukrainian oligarchs. So where are the sources standing in opposition to all this? They’re in the corners of the internet where not as many people look. 

There could be many reasons why anti war voices are being sidelined by the mainstream media. One reason could be that they aren't the mainstream opinion. The mainstream news is biased. The mainstream media will only report on mainstream news and mainstream opinions based on their political beliefs. In order to find non mainstream opinions you have to look harder and in different places. You aren’t gonna find anti-war sentiment on CNN or MSNBC. To find an anti-war opinion you have to find more obscure or less mainstream sources. 

The obscure websites provide more non mainstream opinions because they have less restrictions on what they can say. Social media has helped with allowing people to hear different opinions other than the main news sources. Mainstream social media usually has non mainstream opinions. Reddit is a social news site that has a large community so it is likely to find more non mainstream opinions on certain topics. Other social media websites like twitter offer a large variety of opinions. Sites like Antiwar and The American Conservative need more attention.

https://www.antiwar.com/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/