TONY ON E-MAIL AND OTHER NEWS

THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: Do e-mails drive you mad? … PLUS … China Toys, they’re so toxic; but at least they don’t complain – like students!
POSTED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY … a real voice of Britain and the world.

SWAMPED BY THE E-MAIL

Workers have now realized the one truth of technology, which is: that which is designed to make work easier makes it harder. And as they are swamped by constant e-mails, it is getting out of hand.
The survey comes from Paisley University, and concerns mainly academics and creative types. But even the majority here claim to check their e-mails at least every hour. So what must it be like for commerce?
The sad truth is that, unless we employ commonsense, technology always makes life harder rather than easier. The day we finally realize this, technology may be of great benefit to mankind. But until then, it is our jailer as much as a friend.

© Anthony North, August 2007

CHINA TOYS

There’s been another scare over China’s exports. In the UK toys by their million are being withdrawn because they contain toxic materials. The latest in a long line of inferior quality goods, blame is being placed squarely on Chinese practices …
… read more …

COMPLAINING STUDENTS

Since the introduction of student top-up fees in UK universities, student’s complaints have shot up 44%. This is being put down to ‘consumer culture.’ Which is hardly surprising - after all, if you pay, you want service, don’t you? …
… read more …

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Inde-Pol

TONY ON E-VOTING AND OTHER NEWS

THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: Will technology be the end for minorities? … PLUS … Jade strikes back; what ever happened to the important news?
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E-VOTING

The Electoral Commission in the UK has advised e-voting should be suspended until elections have been modernized. This follows pilots of the system in the May local elections. Their main fear concerns security of voting.
My fears range much wider. First of all, what do they mean by ‘until elections have been modernised’? Who, in government, has suggested such a thing? Surely that’s up to the British public to decide. But no, the language suggests inevitability.

Problems all the way

So, folks, an election coming soon, decided by the click of the computer. Wouldn’t it be easy? Everyone could vote – no problem. Except … problem number one: If something becomes too easy, you do it without thinking. And hey presto, if you can’t get rid of elections to stay in power, turn the electorate into unthinking sheep instead.
And then we have problem number two. When something becomes so easy, don’t you just want to do it again and again? Afraid so. The time will be here when direct democracy could become a reality – the time when everyone votes on everything.

Bye bye minorities

Hope you’re not gay in such a world – or an ethnic minority; or too fat; or just someone who thinks different. Direct democracy, you see, always confirms the absolute choice of the majority.
Think deeply about e-voting before you go down that slippery road. Hitler is reborn in the microchip. And it’s us.

© Anthony North, August 2007

THE GOODY AND MORGAN SHOW

If you want to know what’s wrong with modern culture, you couldn’t have done better than watching ‘You Can’t fire Me, I’m Famous’ on BBC1, 31 July 2007. Watching Piers Morgan interview Jade Goody was quite nauseating …
… read more …

AN IMPORTANT FEW DAYS

It has been a vitally important couple of days for the UK and the world. First of all, the 38 year mission of the British Army in Northern Ireland has come to an end. A conflict that split so much of the UK, it is testament to how the world has changed …
… read more …

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Inde-Pol

THE CYBER-STORY

The story has been the most potent force in society and culture, defining who we are and how we should act and think. But could it be that modern technologies have eroded the power of the story, taking away its ability to form us?
A typical example is modern media. Images come to us from around the globe, appearing on our television in the corner. To meet this rush of information, 24 hour news channels constantly bombard us with the ‘facts’ of what is going on.

CAN WE BELIEVE WHAT WE’RE TOLD?

Yet you do not have to watch such a channel for long before a realization dawns. Rather than offering us news, such channels speculate as to what is happening, thus being nothing more than gossip channels. In such a media world, we do not get news, but constantly developing stories, with reality some obscure, ethereal quality which is hard to grasp.
The situation is made worse by the modern political need for spin. Politicians now tell tales to substantiate their positions. This is a further area of fiction, with new stories every day. But as is always the case, this may be simply the story continuing to express the world to which we belong.
As to that world, it is postmodern, with image more important than substance, with high and low culture mingling into one, with information being neither fact nor fiction, but a state which the sociologist Jean Baudrillard called ‘Infotainment.’ Reality has become relative to the storyteller’s skill.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Into this world we must add technologies such as the internet. Once upon a time, a machine was an appendage of man. Increasingly, interaction between computer and mind has formed a new form of consciousness where people can concentrate on more than one piece of information at a time, but also have a shorter overall attention span.
Such a new consciousness is technological in that we are developing a data-processing mind. Now, the mind is becoming the appendage of the machine. The only problem is, with such a small attention span, information is not turned into wisdom, and moral dilemmas are no longer properly understood. The mind is no longer the arbiter of the story, but its passive receptor.

IT’S GLOBALISATION, STUPID

This is an ideal situation for a globalised world, where local cultures are diluted to produce a worldwide sense of sameness. It is a world where the majority do not question the world into which capitalism has taken us. But there is a sting in the tale of every good story, and the sting here could work to the advantage of society in the end.
There is a growing tradition on the internet of the conspiracy theory. In essence, this is nothing more than another form of storytelling. If we analyse what is going on in the conspiracy theory, we realize a strong sense of paranoia and a return to the idea that there are forces out to get us. This new superstition is reinforced by the idea that nothing can be trusted. Even the story itself has become interactive, where the reader can change the story to his own design.

A NEW ANIMISM

It is technology that has allowed this – the interaction of the internet. But what medium is really being manipulated here? It is, of course, that ethereal concept of Cyberspace. But what, in essence, is Cyberspace? It is a new, undefined world parallel to the physical world – a form of techno-supernatural. A new animism.
With the internet, storytelling has come full circle, back to the beginning. We have returned to the anarchy of the camp fire tale. We have subverted history and produced a medium where new stories, new cultures, are being etched. Chaos rules and everyone is on a level playing field. And out of this cauldron of imagination, a new culture will eventually form.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

Personally, I hope this new culture grasps the importance of local identity, for a new world must be better than the last, and vital to our success is meaning and diversity. If people are all the same, they are nothing. Only with meaning and direction can we go on and advance.
But in formulating the new story from a globalised Cyberspace, maybe a secondary quality will be placed on who we are. Today, we live on a shrinking planet where the entire world is at our fingertips. Issues such as the environment and human rights are on the agenda, and I am sure that, as the new story forms, it will include elements of a globalised brotherhood and sisterhood, where we can live together with our differences.
At least, this is my hope. But regardless of how the new world formulates from this ‘supernatural’ Cyberspace, one thing is certain. At the base of it all will be the story.

© Anthony North, July 2007

For more posts in this series, see Story of the Story on the History Page.
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TONY ON NIGHTMARE TECH AND OTHER NEWS

THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: What our mania for gadgets is doing to us … PLUS … Solar effects on Global Warming? The reality of big business take-overs …
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NIGHTMARE TECH

The MSN Tech and Gadgets website has undergone a survey regarding what we think of modern gadgets. Whilst most people seem to love them, they have identified a ‘dark side of technology.’
They didn’t need a survey to realize that. All technology has a flip side of irritation. Sometimes the irritation is worthwhile, but as we now live in a gadget obsessed society, we will fight the irritation regardless, even if it is far greater than the benefit.

Extensions of Man

From speed cameras to novelty doorbells, from car alarms to security lights, tech is taking over our lives. One major factor in this is marketing. After all, if you’re told often enough that something is good, you’ll believe it – and ignore the pain.
But maybe the problem is more fundamental than this. From the birth of history, technology has been our saviour, making life better and protecting us from danger. Over millennia, tech has been the right thing to do.
Now that we live in a society where tech can be cheap and easy, history demands that we use it. But what has really happened is that tech has increasingly become the purpose for life, rather than being simply a form of assistance.

Machine Society

In effect, technology is increasingly taking over the human, and this can be seen in many areas of life. On any street, cameras have replaced the policeman; in any office, computers do the work of the clerk.
The gadgets we produce today are simply the trivial part of a much deeper problem – the mechanization of society. And as society becomes more and more mechanized, the more society will ape the machine.
This is because a machine can only do what it is designed to do. It allows no variation, no alternative. And as society becomes more automated, society, too, will allow no variation and no alternative.
Enjoy your gadgets while you can, for soon they may be enjoying you.

© Anthony North, July 2007

IS THE SUN IN THE CLEAR?

A report by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire seems to put the sun in the clear regarding global warming. Solar trends since the 1980s, they say, should have left to a cooling, not a warming …
… read more …

THE TAKE-OVER TAKE OVER

At last, even some people in business are beginning to understand that big-business stinks. Richard Lambert, DG of the CBI, has warned that UK businesses are being taken over by an elite band of financiers …
… read more …

Click Tony On for more current affairs.
While you’re here, why not have a look around? Check out the pages - you’ll also find sub-domains on the Blogroll. Beyond the Blog is the site that has everything.
Inde-Pol

WIRED UP

Techie Without a Clue here. I’m honoured. Anthony has allowed me two posts this week. He’s submerged me for so long behind the rubbish he writes on the paranormal, conspiracies and the meaning of life.
But now he’s letting me loose. But why? ‘Simple,’ he said, ‘I want to prove you don’t really exist. You’re a product of this computer, and you only exist as part of cyberspace. In all other ways you’re nothing.’

LIFECASTING

Cheek. That’s what I say. Of course, I know where he’s coming from. It’s been reported this week that people are moving away from simple texts and emails to what has been termed ‘lifecasting.’
The concept is quite simple. Technology has now allowed us to use words and video over the internet 24/7. We can keep in constant touch with whatever we like, whoever we like, whenever we like. We’re wired up.
These new hyper-connected services can be controlled as we like. Rather than being one-to-one, we can communicate one-to-many. We are all our own star, producer and director. We are in control. But …

A PERSON OR AN ENTITY?

‘But what are you?’ asks Anthony. Well, I tell him, I’m me. ‘But you don’t exist.’ I do. ‘But even if you do, you don’t on the internet. You’re an essence.’ Which lost me completely. I just didn’t get the essence of what he was saying.
I can see it in part. With the new tech, our contribution to the internet is by way of a constantly up-dated autobiography of ourselves. We have placed an essence of who we are on the internet, but is it really us? Does it reflect the living, breathing you?
‘You’re getting there, Techie,’ said Anthony. ‘But the downside is this: are we beginning to live our life for the ‘stream’? Does our ability to become hyper-connected mean this hyper-connectivity is the reason for our life?’

COLLECTIVE US

I’m getting it. I think I am. If the central reason for ‘us’ is to display our autobiography on the net, then the main purpose of our existence is to become disembodied information in a form of hi-tech collective consciousness.
‘Spot on,’ said Anthony. ‘Jung came up with the concept of the collective unconscious, shared by all, and populated by archetypes, which can best be seen as essences of situations or personalities. It looks like he was also describing the future.’
I get it, I said. What you mean is, we’re not only getting wired up; our individuality is dissolving into a form of planetary consciousness. Cyberspace is ‘becoming’ us – and we are collectively becoming a ‘being.’

DENOUEMENT

‘Got it in one,’ said Anthony.
So you know what that means? I said.
‘What does it mean?’
It means I’m becoming the real you.
Anthony gave a frightened look. He nodded slowly. ‘Smart ass,’ he said. But I could see he was terrified.

© Anthony North, May 2007

Blogging Blog

WITH A LITTLE HELP

Techie Without a Clue here - again. Anthony hates it when I sneak out, sending him to the back of his mind. He doesn’t like it there, with all those thoughts. And he keeps saying to me:
‘Techie, you’re not complete. You’re not real. You’re just a fragment; and a shallow, uncoordinated one at that. You’re anarchy. A kind of psychosis. Get out of my mind!’
Anarchy? Typical. Aren’t my thoughts rational?
Not real? HE needs to get real. As you read this on the computer, are the words real? How do you tell me from him?
I mention this conflict because in the UK Save the Children have asked teachers how modern tech, like computers, is affecting kids. More than 70% believe time spent on the computer is leading to them not learning how to socialize with friends.
I know Anthony has long thought that toys and gadgets are becoming ‘individual’ instead of ‘social.’ He thinks it’s as if we only live in a half world, as if a shallow fragment. It’s as if socializing is becoming electronic, creating a new fragmented reality.
And I bet you thought HE was the mad one.

© Anthony North, May 2007

Blogging Blog

While you’re here, why not have a look around? Check out the pages - you’ll also find sub-domains on the Blogroll.

ARE YOU A WILF?

Are you a Wilf? Techie Without a Clue wants to know. It’s not a name – don’t answer by saying, ‘no, I’m a Pete, or Reg, or Sue,’ I’m being serious. You see YouGov have done a survey in the UK and found out something important.
It seems that computer ‘users’ – love that term; is it an addiction? – use as much as two whole days a month surfing in cyberspace for things they don’t need. And it’s been dubbed ‘what I looking for,’ hence ‘wilf.’
Wilfing is becoming a serious ‘habit’ – like a trip, so to speak. Most ‘wilf’ on shopping sites, buying nothing – not even remembering what in wilf they were looking at. But of course, I’m not surprised.
The computing revolution is said to have outed a new type of person, but I maintain the internet changes nothing but the means and speed of doing what we do anyway. And we do do this when we spend a day out ‘shopping.’
I also maintain that, like the new shopping centres, too much choice turns off the brain. What we need is less choice and more focus. Still never mind. I just hope that you lot wilf over in my direction.

© Anthony North, April 2007

A LITTLE EXTRA

We have a mania for self-help books. They tell you how to do this, or do that, and get over the other. But a thought: if we indulged in self-help, why do we need a book to help us?

(c) Anthony North, Apr 07 - Find more little extras on pages of North’s Review.

THE BORING BIT

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics and links). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

MORAL GAMING

Techie Without a Clue here. That damned Anthony North keeps stealing my blog. I want to talk about video games - you know those cyberspace thingymajigs - usually violent - that stop kids going out for fresh air, exercise and socialising.
A psychologist would no doubt come to the conclusion that such gaming is a means of creating an alternative reality - a kind of dream play. Apart from the obvious provisos above, I’m not entirely convinced it’s a bad thing - in moderation - but could it tell us something important about ourselves and society?
Modern western society is based on the liberal premise that man is a social animal. But does video gaming disprove this? Would a fundamentally social animal even contemplate displays of violence, even in dream or video gaming? I suspect not.
Rather, video gaming - the most popular, violent sort - is a refutation of the liberal ideal. At our fundamental core, we have a propensity for violence and anti-social behaviour. Yet, if this is the case, why don’t we naturally take this aggression out into the world and do violence upon others?
A great many do, and when you analyse why, you can usually find a lack of moral restraint by not learning how not to be violent to others.
Video gaming, and the ability of most to keep the violence within the game, shows that the liberal ideal is wrong, and we curb our desires to be violent to one another by learning a distinct morality that says it is wrong.
With violence apparently on the increase, can we blame this liberal error for removing much of our morality as an unrequired burden?

(c) Anthony North, Mar 2007

Blogging Index

This is a post from Anthony North’s ‘alternative network.’ Current affairs posts almost daily on North’s Review and Eye on the World (this includes politics). North’s Review also has fiction, writers’ resources and TV reviews. For deeper issues, including paranormal, crime, environment and much more, Beyond the Blog is for you.

CAN THE INTERNET BECOME A GOD?

Techie Without a Clue here. I’ve been away a while. Now I’m back I want to know: can the internet become a god? Maybe the answer can come from looking at the impulses in religion and seeing if they apply to the net.

The religious impulse began in prehistory, most likely with animism. This was a belief that parallel to the physical world was a world of spirit which interacted with the physical. In electronic terms, we can see the net as running parallel with the physical, and it certainly interacts.

A god is said to be omnipotent and everywhere. I think that applies equally to the net. A god is also said to be the font of all knowledge, allowing learning ‘quests’ to improve yourself. Certainly sounds like a search engine to me.

A god requires devotion at the personal level, and it certainly seems to me that people spend increasing amounts of time devoted to the net. Why, they even sit at their personal ‘altar’ and click away, light shining upon their face.

A god requires gurus, priests, call them what you will. They must guide you in your dealings with a god, and even offer sermons. It is not hard to see that certain internet ‘gurus’ are arising, their sites offering sermons in use of the net.

Vital to a god is that it must be combined with morality and a code for how to live your life. Increasingly, a net morality of conduct is arising, with people being compelled to follow the rules.

A god must punish those who transgress. Punishment must be absolute and beyond questioning. Well, make a wrong move in your dealings with the absolute ‘machines’ that control the net and you’re permanently flagged, cut off or otherwise excommunicated.

Of course, this doesn’t make the net a god – yet – but there are some amazing sociological similarities. Maybe the internet should be studied in terms of understanding the genesis of religion.

© Anthony North, Mar 2007

Blogging Index

See more from Techie Without a Clue in Blogging category. If you want real philsoophy, try my Philosophy and Religion pages. Or how about current affairs? Click North’s Review or Eye on the World.

STAGNANT TECH

We are told we live in the technological age. Throughout the modern world, technology seems to make life more comfortable, and inventions appear almost daily to increase our survivability and quality of life. But just how advanced IS this technological world? Further, could the entire idea behind this tech be purposely held back, and in being so, affecting our chances of survival on an environmentally ravaged planet?
I find it interesting that the two main forms of tech today are incredibly old fashioned in historic terms. These forms are the internal combustion engine and computer. Both were devised over a century ago. Yes, they have become incredibly advanced, but isn’t that advancement simply a series of variations on the theme?
This, I’m afraid, is not invention, but re-invention, over and over again. If we were really living in the technological age, the internal combustion engine and computer should have advanced to the point that the original idea behind them was no longer observable in the latest models. For instance, transport should, by now, have moved away from oil as fuel, and the computer should have bypassed electronics and gone into the known digital codes of nature itself.
Bearing this in mind, we must ask why such advances have not been made. And the obvious answer is that the internal combustion engine and computer are the mainstays of mass consumer society. Both require huge, global enterprises to maintain them, and they both allow a fast, thrusting global economy.
It is not that inventors are not around to make the advancements that would see the end of this cycle of re-invention. They are. But their inventions are usually less damaging to the environment, and require smaller, more local enterprises to maintain them.
This would destroy the power of the multi-national corporations. So it is easy to see why we do not invent, but re-invent. Any design that would radically alter the power of the multi-nationals is immediately marginalized and buried.
The internal combustion engine and the present computer systems remain, the latter producing the fast consumer world we inhabit, the former doing more damage to the environment than anything else. And they remain simply to line the pocket and ego of the few.
Of course, such a system of hierarchy has existed, in various forms, throughout history. But please, let us stop calling our present age ‘technological,’ when in reality it is repetitive.

© Anthony North, Feb 2007

Go to the Environment page, above, for much more. Visit the Environment categories on North’s Review and Eye on the World for the latest news.