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Paywalls & Privacy: Chat GPT Helps Me Out

Hello all,

It’s mysterious_maple, back to hit you with my final post on this blog. Boy oh boy, how time flies! Later on, I’ll be pairing up with an AI bot called ChatGPT to help with this blog post. This week’s topic in our Digital Humanities class is all about conspiracy theories. 

Recently, I watched a Ted Talk by Elise Wang called “Why some conspiracy theories just won’t die.” Throughout her talk, Elise explains why people hold onto conspiracy theories in the first place and how information against what you believe will most likely make you hold onto your beliefs harder. Also, if facts don’t match our experiences of things, we find a story to make them fit, or to make them comprehensible.

In addition to this, the idea of the radicalization of social media and the internet is brought up. Basically, Wang says that the more radical (or exciting) a post or segment is, will cause you to keep clicking. Online communities form out of these radical ideas, connecting over the theme of placing the blame of suffering on different, often marginalized, groups of people.

Now, I’ve completed preliminary research on online communities and what their benefits and drawbacks are. They help shape and form identity, and promote inclusion amongst many who may not find a place to belong, or who have difficulty finding others who share their beliefs, in the real world. The online world allows them to find and secure a spot where their views are heard and seen. However, this can be taken to the extreme when we are discussing radical online communities. 

The moment we all have been waiting for…the teaming up of ChatGPT and I. I asked ChatGPT, “Do you believe radical communities should be allowed on social media?” and here was its response (with some of my commentary added into it). The bot’s text is in red font and my commentary is in blue font.

As an AI language model, I do not have beliefs or opinions, but I can provide information on this topic.

Haha, yeah right, the disclaimer to remind me that it’s still a robot and doesn’t have feelings or opinions. Thanks, Chat!

The question of whether radical communities should be allowed on social media is a complex one, and there are arguments both for and against it.

We like a robot who considers ALL sides involved.

On the one hand, allowing radical communities on social media can be seen as a form of free speech, and can provide a platform for individuals with unpopular or marginalized views to express themselves and connect with others who share their beliefs. 

Ah, yes. I do believe it is incredibly important for marginalized communities to be empowered and feel like they have support, including having their voices be heard. This can create a safe and open space for others to connect via the internet, which is beneficial to their mental health. 

Additionally, monitoring and regulating these communities can be difficult, and there is a risk that any attempt to do so could infringe on the rights of individuals to express themselves and associate with others.

Freedom of speech is definitely in question when it comes to social media and the internet. Free doesn’t mean that they have the right to express discriminatory messages about other communities or generally accepted thoughts in a culture. Free speech and hate speech do not go together.

On the other hand, allowing radical communities on social media can also have negative consequences. These communities may promote hate speech, incite violence or harassment, and spread misinformation or propaganda. They can also serve as echo chambers, reinforcing extreme views and isolating individuals from diverse perspectives and experiences.

You can run into an issue such as isolating individuals into one singular belief in communities such as the incel community. This example is composed of mainly mentally ill community members who gather together and share the same or similar (mostly negative) opinions about women. Sometimes these opinions can build off of one another and the community members engage and heighten the extremes of their radical opinions, which can lead to violent events and attacks occurring in real life.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to allow radical communities on social media should be weighed carefully, taking into account the potential benefits and risks. Social media platforms have a responsibility to balance the right to free speech with the need to protect their users from harm, and may need to take action in cases where these communities are found to be promoting harmful or illegal activities.

You know what this reminds me of? A centralized internet. Think about it, social media is controlled by a handful of main corporations. These companies filter through what we can see and say on a daily basis. What we are exposed to, what shapes our beliefs, and ultimately what forms our identities, are all run by powerful people behind computer screens. It is up to them to delete, de platform, and “protect” its users from harsh or inappropriate content. But who are they to decide what exactly is inappropriate, or something that isn’t fit for social media use? Sure, we need media and digital literacy when using the internet. However, we must remember that what we see is already filtered to the likings of another before we lay our eyes upon it.

Anyways, I agree with what the ChatGPT bot had to say. Whatever content it’s putting together and reflecting seems to fit well with my own personal opinions. I believe that radical content which leads to conspiracy theories can be controlled to some extent before it gets to the point of real life action. However, the question of WHO controls what is said or blocked on the internet is a whole issue in itself. And if our internet was fully decentralized, who would be responsible to stop hate-filled radical communities? I don’t know the answers to my own questions, but there’s some food for thought. 

It was a pleasure posting for you all. Have a great life!

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The Neverending History of Discrimination

Hi! It's Teddie - let's talk discrimination.

I recently had the opportunity to read Mar Hicks’ “A Feature, Not a Bug” where Hicks discussed the explicitly ingrained role of gender discrimination and privilege in Silicon Valley and technology as a whole. One particular quote stuck out to me:

"[…] gender discrimination is baked in to the structures of high tech economies themselves, a critical part of their focus on concentrating power in the hands of those who already traditionally wield it. Gender discrimination is not a bug—it’s a feature."

What interested me the most was the way that Hicks’ article describes exactly how gender, sexuality, racial, ethnic, and other discrimination was incorporated into the evolution of modern technology, so that not only does it enforce pre-existing biases and prejudices against marginalized identities, but it also hides it behind a relatable valuation of talent. This connected deeply to a philosophical author George Yancy, who introduced the white gaze into a discussion of embodiment for racialized bodies. In his essay, “Confiscated Bodies,” Yancy literally coins the term white gaze to represent the way that in his, and quoted, experience, white people look and otherwise physically interact with “black bodies”. Interestingly, Yancy discusses the way that black bodies are singled out; objectified, sexualized, “problematized” – just for existing against a backdrop of white “normalcy”. By establishing a social norm of whiteness (this can be similarly extended to ability, beauty, gender, sexuality, and other races), the world, we, have conditioned the “abnormal” (those deviating from our previously established norms) to be something to be seen, confiscated, even owned. Then, even in situations where no one is being explicitly racist (/sexist/ableist/etc – you get it), these ingrained concepts of normalcy are still portrayed and act discriminatorily against these marginalized groups. This is exactly what Hicks is discussing, just on a larger scale; even if this scenario wasn’t intentional, it still allows these misguided norms to persist and exist despite decades of protest.

What’s more, Hicks perfectly describes another behaviour that Yancy writes about in his text: where this “metanarrative structure of whiteness” a large portion of its power is the fact that each time the white gaze acts, regardless of how intense the act might be, it continually suggests that racism (among all discrimination) is something that is historical, something natural, something not man-made. But this is false – racism is not a historical fact, it majorly came into play when colonizers stole human beings from their homes and treated them like garbage.

All those arguments that say we’re naturally trained to recognize abnormalities, that ancient civilizations were also racist, that it takes a long time to unlearn racism, are just not true. Sure, we as humans have exceptional pattern recognition, and can isolate things that don’t fit that pattern – but nowhere in that psychology does there exist a natural tendency to point out these differences and shame or discriminate against them. And unfortunately, the sentimentality that some people have for these “historical” acts of discrimination are not only unfounded, but just completely not an excuse…? Just because several generations were raised believing that the colour of your skin determines your worth, that does not mean you have any right to believe that same thing. Be better than them. (Like honestly, they also believed the sun revolved around the earth. But also, people still believe the earth is flat. So do with that what you will.)

(LMAO)

As Hicks claims, there’s not really any way we can just add more women to the field of technology, or idolize the women that make it far (because this only engenders more discriminatory behaviour by recognizing the outliers, or special cases of success). Unfortunately, we can’t demand these racist, ableist, sexist, “misguided but destructive” technologies and social constructs to collapse, as it would be impossible to undo everything that has already happened and start at the very beginning. But what we can do is see these hidden forms of misogyny, racism, discrimination, and from them learn how we can better understand one another as human beings and stop being “trapped by its negative effects”.  

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Who am I? For you? For me?

Hey, long time no see; it’s @dawn-of-the-silver-age here with a new post! I recently read two interesting articles which discussed the shaping of our identities. The first was “Descartes was wrong,” written by Adeba Birhane and the second was “ ‘What’s on your mind?’ Writing on Facebook as a tool for self-formation”. These were super fascinating for me to unpack as, unlike most young adults my age, I used Facebook fanatically during my teen years and still adore it! I may be a bit nerdy as I deeply enjoy reading Descartes—go ahead and judge me.

Abeba Birhane discusses how we rely on our interactions with others to create our own identities and share different aspects of our identities with various people, for example, presenting one way to your mom, a different way to your boss and another way to your new love interest—at least for the first month! The second article discusses how adults use Facebook posts to present themselves to share with their loved ones and everyone who invites them to see their posts. Have you stretched the truth on Facebook?

I came up with two exciting case studies to consider.

Firstly, superheroes such as the Green Arrow. Feel free to geek out alongside me; Oliver Queen would not have been able to create the identities he could conform to during his time on Lian Yu (Pergatory) without his trusty (or not so trusty) companions Slade Wilson, Shado and Sara. When he thought of himself as alone on the island, he was left with the shell of the rich party boy and began his journey towards self-formation with Sara where he was forced to toughen up, get over his playboy days, and become a leader, as he was able to figure out who he needed to be and transitioned into his new-found identity in Starling City.

His new self depended on the mask he used to protect those around him including his sister Thea, the public, his friends Diggle and Felicity, and his persona of the Green Arrow.

These segments of his identity depended on his relationship with each person, as he relied on “others in order to evaluate… [his] existence” (Birhane).

Secondly, from the perspective of being a Disabled young adult, I’ve found that we need relationships with others to be able to “evaluate our own existence and construct it” (Birhane). When we consider masking, a term which can mean putting on different attitudes and behaviors to ‘mask’ our difficulties, masking allows Disabled people to portray different versions of themselves to varied audiences, from our classmates to our parents, to other Disabled people.

Interestingly, we can only be a “person through the other persons” as we depend on others to figure out our own identity (Birhane). Some Disabled people, like me, mask to figure out who we really are and when we unravel our masks and consider why we put them on in the first place, whom we mask for and with, and why we are afraid of sharing parts of ourselves with others, do we really form and share our identities authentically?

Spending time in Facebook groups like a Dyspraxia Awareness group has shaped my identity and self-formation. I shared different things depending on the community. For example, when I joined groups where parents discussed their kids and disabilities, I identified myself as a teenager and shared my perspective because I thought it changed the conversation. This influenced my behaviours as I internalized their messages, especially their criticism, and made me feel less than. I formed a self around these comments and labels, which I first portrayed openly on Facebook and then to friends, colleagues and more in-person relationships.

Overall, self-formation is formed due to our interactions with the people we spend time with and the way we present ourselves to the world.

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Radioactivity: Photography is Surveillance to Perform For

March 19, 2023

by: MADNESS00

So, I’m not really one for being the subject of photographs, or even really taking photographs at all. I’ve always been one to prefer being in the moment without taking photos, specifically taking photos of myself, because I’ve always feared how I’m perceived through photographs. Whether that’s as I’m taking the photo, the fear of being perceived as vain or uncaring of people’s privacy, or sharing a photo with people, which is more the fear of people perceiving me as I am stuck in that photo.  

So, as the world becomes more and more steeped in this culture of taking photos and videos of everything, I have become more and more aware of how I am perceived by people in public and how that may transfer to a photograph. And once a photograph or video is taken of me, I will always be perceived as that photo has captured me.  

I think this aligns very well with Susan Sontag’s “In Plato’s Cave” from her book On Photography, which centers the way that photography has power inherent in it. For example, in “In Plato’s Cave”, Sontag states that the act of taking a photo is an act of violence in itself because it violates the subject of the photo by capturing them as they have never seen themselves, and then having knowledge of them that they could never possess. Sontag calls this being “symbolically possessed.”

I think this idea of being symbolically possessed is really interesting, and really crucial to how we as society have started to use photography and video without the consent of the subjects. For example, I have seen countless videos and photos posted online by paparazzi who have captured celebrities in public who are quite obviously holding a hand up over their face. This itself is a violation of their privacy and their consent. Just with the act of covering their face, they are telling us, the audience, that they have not consented to these photos, and they are entitled to their privacy, as we all are.  

I think that this is applicable to everyday life, as it’s become more and more acceptable to take photos and videos without taking account of accidentally or even intentionally capturing someone else. This has started a culture of always being ‘camera ready’ and of always being aware of how you present yourself. It is almost like evidence of who you are as perceived by everyone else.

This idea of always being viewed and therefore always performing has very close ties with Michael Foucault’s text Discipline and Punish where he introduces the panopticon, which is a prison with a guard tower in the very centre, and the cells surrounding it. The guard tower is set up in a specific way so that the prisoners are never able to tell when the guard may be looking at them, perceiving them, which then convinces them that they are always being watched.  

So, they perform. They become the perfect prisoners, who never try to escape or do anything to elongate their sentence, because there is always the question of when the guard may be looking at them and what the guard may see them do.

As applied to photography, one photograph can illustrate who the subject is just through body language, clothes, the framing of the photo and even the action that the subject is caught doing. This means, with the threat of always being perceived, and being immortalized in a picture, it is best to always be performing. If you are always performing, than there can never be photographs that depict the idea of yourself that you do not agree with, and there can never be evidence against your person that you do not agree with.

But, always performing creates hyper vigilance that can then lead to adhering to more and more of what society tells us we are supposed to. Whether that means that you are always preforming to reject those norms or adhere to them, it can lead to always fitting within the box that society has dictated that you stay in.  

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Paywalls & Privacy: AI From The Grave

Hey! It’s Mysterious Maple, and today we’re getting into the graveyard…“The Internet Is A Graveyard” by Oliver Misraje, in fact. It’s all about the spooky of the Internet- that’s right, it’s about ghosts. Misraje digs deep into the virtual graveyards of the deceased’s profiles, recreating someone through AI, online memorialization, and a possible digital afterlife. In today’s blog, I’ll be focusing on his piece about virtual ghosts and thanotechnology. 

Thanotechnology are “digital technologies used to commemorate, memorialize, or conjure the dead '', as defined by Misraje. While reading the article, I didn’t quite get a solid answer for what Misraje’s opinion is on thanotechnology. On one hand, Misraje focuses on the benefits of recreating people virtually and how it positively impacts those who are grieving. Then, he points out the potential harm that could come from people overstepping boundaries with the AI technology and getting attached to the virtual ghost as if it truly was their loved one.

I completely understand why Misraje doesn’t pick a clear side in his article as there are good arguments for both perspectives on this topic. This ethical crisis leads me to contemplate AI technology and what makes a human...well, a human. Can AI replicate a human well enough to practically be one? What codes or criteria do we have to define what a person is? How similar does AI need to be before a desperate person will accept it as a human?

All of these questions lead me to Abeba Birhane’s article, “Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ ” .  Birhane explains that each interaction you have with another human shapes your deepest thoughts, self image, and keeps the self as a ‘work in progress’ rather than a solid, unchanging being. Social interaction is key to identity.

AI models such as ChatGPT use endless amounts of information found online and information imputed into its system to compare, analyze, and decide what responses to give its users. It matches up emotional patterns, has coherent conversations, and can use past memories to make future inferences on what to say and how to react to real humans. These AI bots are therefore shaped by society and learn as they go; a constantly changing and adapting system to its surroundings. I don’t know about you, but this sounds awfully familiar to what an average human does as they grow up. The bot is like a toddler, mimicking the actions and words of others and growing up to have their own degree of emotional intelligence. 

So, after debating how close an AI bot is to a human with the technology we have available today, is it truly possible to make boundaries with AI when talking to deceased loved ones? 

In particular, when someone is in a deep state of grief, having a voice with the memories of their loved one to chat with would become extremely addictive. Misraje says that the goal is to eventually remove the dependence on the virtual ghost after the grieving is done. However, I believe that the grieving will go backwards in its progress, way back to the stage of denial. The person using the AI will probably become reliant on ‘hearing’ the voice of those who passed and being about to ‘talk to them’ whenever they like. It re-establishes the makings of a dependent and consistent relationship. Personally, I know that I couldn't move on from someone who is thought to be deceased if I feel like I'm communicating with them.

Actually, after my cousin passed away when I was 12 I used to write to her every day by writing her letters. I never got a response, but it allowed me to get my feelings and thoughts outta my brain instead of letting them build. I had no attachment to writing the letters as I never received a response. This helped the grieving process. I can't imagine how attached kid me would've been to the letters if someone was writing back to me.

In addition to halting the grieving process, what vulnerability does this dilemma cause for the living? If someone becomes dependent on AI for their emotional well-being, it is imperative to consider who controls the AI in the first place. Somehow, somewhere, someone is holding onto the data given to the virtual ghost. Intimate memories, conversations, and more are no longer private when put into the system which produces the AI. It causes me to wonder what someone could do with all of that information, passwords they could guess, and the mental control they have once the living person becomes reliant on the ghost for their emotional needs. 

Overall, I believe that AI is a little too close to acting like a human for a grieving person to have the ability to even desire making solid boundaries with the technology. This presents future challenges of dependency on AI and a cessation of the grieving process, as well as a question of autonomy and privacy for the living. 

What do you think?

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Radioactivity: The Disconnect Between Our World and Ourselves

March 5, 2023

by: MADNESS00

Sometimes, I find myself forgetting that the real world even exists because I’ve been on my phone for hours, sucked into my next hyper fixation. While entertaining my hyper fixation isn’t exactly a bad thing (except when I really need to get other work done), because of the way technology has continued to evolve it creates a community where the only interaction is online. This can create a total disconnect between the online world and the IRL world, and I’m totally someone who finds myself falling prey to the addiction that is technology.

That’s not to say it’s all bad, of course, just that as we introduce more and more technology into our daily lives, the more convenient our lives become but the more disconnected we become from our everyday lives.

When I was kid, before I ever got an iPod or really any technology other than the television, I would bully (affectionately) my older brother to go outside and play with me, no matter the weather. We would run around the streets playing games I can’t even remember the names of now, and we would play in the mud and the snow and the rain. But, as we got older, and more and more technology was introduced into our lives, the more I found myself feeling more disconnected not just from my family but also the world that I used to use as my playground.  

A book I read recently reminded me of this disconnect from the world, called Software Takes Command by Lev Manovich, where Manovich talks about how software, all of the programs that make a computer, has taken over almost every aspect of our daily lives. Some of the most recognizable brands are software brands, like Google and Apple, which have completely taken over brands that have a more physical product, like books or CDs. But that is just one example of how software has started to take over almost everything.

Not to mention how our governments and militaries are completely reliant on software so if it were to ever stop working, entire countries would be shut down. Last summer, when the Rogers lines went down, entire companies couldn’t make bank transactions or keep their systems running because most software is almost completely reliant on the Internet. So, entire communications software just wasn’t working when Rogers went down because everything is so reliant on Internet and data that everything basically shuts down when we don’t have access to it. For me, that’s a really scary thought.

On the other hand, because everything is so reliant on software, and by extension technology, those who don’t have access to it don’t have access to majority of the world. It can even be as simple as not being able to make appointments because of not having access to a phone, computer, data or internet. Without them, some people are unable to live their normal lives because everything requires some bit of technology to communicate, access documents, or access just about any piece of information (which is still limited because of the Eurocentric ideals that plague the internet).

So, there’s a disconnect in two ways: one being how technology, and by extension software, especially as new, over the top technology is introduced, disconnects us from the physical world around us, and the other being how people without access to technology are completely disconnected from the online world. This is so important to how we see the world and to how we are influenced to think about society, as many ideologies are inherent in how we consume media and how media affects us.  

While I named only a few examples here, there are so many more. The more software takes over how we think about and experience the world, the more disconnected we are going to be from the world and even from ourselves.

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Instead of "chronic illness" I'm going to call it "eternal illness" because then maybe, just maybe, people will understand that I'm not getting better soon.

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Hey!! It's Teddie again, welcome back. Today we're talking software.

When I hear the word software, it’s really hard to come up with any kind of tangible definition. I know of computer software, that it exists, and that I probably see it every day, but I couldn’t explain to you exactly what it is or where it might be hiding. I think of the tiny panels inside my phone, circuit boards glued together with tiny signals somehow wirelessly escaping my little interface and travelling around the world to deliver bits of information. Thankfully, in his book Software Takes Command Lev Manovich reveals that software isn’t the mystical fibre optic cables or hard drives; instead, it’s actually the thing that brings the hard-wired confusion of computer science to meet the real, living world — “the very grounds and ‘stuff’ of media design”, Manovich quotes a colleague. But not only is it “stuff”, it’s also the very thing that connects us to everything digital, from Google to Photoshop, Facebook to the compass app on your phone (that I know you never use). Ironically, something that people (myself included) know so little about is the only key to accessing the seemingly endless stream of information coming from the internet and other digital tools.

It’s for this exact reason, as Manovich points out, that software is constantly affecting and being affected by culture and society. Similar to the back and forth of art and literature, software is ever changing alongside cultural shifts in values and interests, serving as both a catalyst and a response to societal changes. But arguably unlike the arts, software reaches across the globe to impact billions of lives simultaneously, influencing a globalize society at the click of a button (or however it is the developers create software updates). It’s interesting to think about how a key driver of societal change is consciously being designed and redesigned for us consumers.

Although I can’t say it is the primary goal of software developers to generate large-scale societal shifts, I find it particularly interesting that they have that power to do so. Manovich describes, for example, a shift in privacy in the 2000s: “the boundary between “personal information” and “public information” has been reconfigured as people started to routinely place their media on media sharing sites, and also communicate with others on social networks.” When software introduces us to new (seemingly harmless) tools, such as an option to share a file, it can quickly take affect on society and, in this case, debase previously long-lasting values (such as that of privacy). A similar, more drastic effect came from the eruption of social media, as people were encouraged to spend more of their time sharing their lives rather than actually living them. Then, as Manovich mentions, these social affects can be taken advantage of; “By encouraging users to conduct larger parts of their social and cultural lives on their sites, these services can both sell more adds to more people and ensure the continuous growth of their user base.” Now, not only does a select community of people have a huge power over social and cultural change, but also they can enact changes that only they get rewarded for.

While software is far from the first or only thing initiating these cultural shifts, software is among the first to accept immediate feedback through engagement (and non-engagement) and human attention — while we can’t (or at least, don’t) dip our brushes into the drying paint of a Picasso to change its colours, we can engage with software to support or prevent its growth in the digital world. When we like a friend’s photo on Instagram, or click on an ad, we actively lay out a pattern of what software was successful and what wasn’t, not only through the type of interaction but also in whether we interact at all; and this data allows software to conform so tightly to common social and cultural values in a way that arts could never. In a similar way, engagement gives software an ‘insider access’ to human behaviour, giving it a power to shape the way we conduct our lives without even intending to. It’s interesting to think that something we know so little about knows and affects so much of the way we live.

*if you find these kinds of discussions interesting, I highly recommend watching “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix - it talks all about the role of the internet and globalization on the real world!

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Paywalls & Privacy: Finding Out How To Do Internet Safety

Hello there. It's mysterious_maple, hitting you with some complaints about the internet.

First off, though, I have a question. Have you worked with kids in 2023? Because I sure have. And boy, are they different than when I was growing up. 

Now, I’m not as ancient as you’re thinking I am. I’m from the early 2000s, but the internet has developed so quickly that as generations pass the kids seem to be growing up and adapting as quickly as the social media they watch. 

I recently read an article called “Reimagining Digital Education Literacy to Save Ourselves” by Cory Collins. The article about how misinformation, disinformation, misrepresentation, and hate have direct ties to offline violence and swaying the democratic vote. The article delves into how we can educate ourselves to protect against misinformation and disinformation on the internet, especially from when younger generations are learning how to use the internet. 

This is called digital literacy, where you understand the very “root” of the information you read online and realize how to counter them and pick sources which are trustworthy. The article outlines how outdated the education system is regarding online sources and “weeding out” the bad ones, and how we can better inform inevitable users of the internet. Lastly, the article explains how students are at risk of internalizing extremist rhetoric and recruitment, or other harmful materials. 

This article was an easy, comprehensible, and impressionable read in my opinion. Collins discussed the outdated C.R.A.P test versus the newer COR test, and I wish Collins explained the COR test a bit more so that teachers and parents reading the article could put it into practice. The main part I got from the blog were the questions asked during the COR test, like “Who made this? Why did they make it? What systems of power does this enforce? What perspective are they sharing? Whose stories are being told, and whose are being left out?” When I researched what the COR test was, all I received on Google was the search engine trying to say that I meant CPR test or something to do with a whole lot of math. No results showed me anything to do with internet safety, but when I googled the C.R.A.P test I received an abundance of sources. 

I think an article such as this one could possibly scare parents about their children being on the internet. After all, when any trusted system learned is said to be not good enough, you may wonder how safe you really are until you’ve mastered the newest strategy to keep safe on the internet. This leads me to ponder the significance of the internet not having more information about the COR test. I normally think of the internet having everything, like some holy bible of existence at the touch of your fingertips. Access to any and all information just a few clicks away. Now, for the most part that’s true, but the internet remains an imperfect system. This lack of information regarding the COR test, something that should be advertised everywhere, shows that the internet doesn’t ‘have it all’ like we expect it to. I guess I’m not the only one frustrated by the irrelevant information instead of what I’m looking for on the internet, as a study in Great Britain shows that 72% of internet users are frustrated by this. Read more about it here. 

Alas, I cannot fix the internet with my frustration, nor will it magically make people have access to useful resources while navigating the web. All in all, I think it would be helpful for Collins, or any educated person regarding COR for that matter, to write another article about the COR test. Let's hope the word is spreading about the newly updated way of becoming digitally literate and safe in our near futures!  

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Hi! Teddie here.

In December, 2022, Oliver Misraje published this article in Zine, “The Internet is a Graveyard”. Misraje talks about four case studies in which ghosts have infiltrated the online realm – from AI "reviving" lost loved ones, to immortal memorialization on the internet, the freelance writer reveals the less-than-lively aspects of our generated world. As a philosophy fanatic, the thing that spoke out most to me in this article was Misraje’s final case study, labelled “Future Ghosts”.

Briefly, in the history of philosophy there has been endless back and forth regarding the immortality of the human soul or mind. Essentially, whether or not we exist after we die. And the implications of this reach all the way back to Plato, who claimed that death should be the philosopher’s ultimate goal, so we can more or less finally free our minds from the physical world and become omnipotent/transcendent beings.

But as someone who does consider life a wholly unique and miraculous experience, this cheap acceptance of death does not come easy, and I feel a need to believe that there is something more to the mortal world that we are missing. I think a lot of people would agree with me there.

Misraje explains, in the fourth case study of the article, an old event in 1994 where “techno-pagans” reframed the internet as more than a realm for enhanced globalization and human connection – where the internet becomes a hub for a kind of “magical evocation”. Misraje also connects this to the more recent paper by Melanie Swan, in which she coins the term “cloudminds”: a form of transhumanism (the idea that humans can evolve beyond our bodies and minds), where we have some processing power that is entirely virtual (think crypto-currency, but instead of having monetary value it makes decisions for us). We would be able to upload our minds (our experiences, memories, decisions) to an online database where our own individual knowledge and histories could connect and collectively be used in a kind of uni-mind (credit to Marvel), which could be used to solve much more difficult, large-scale human problems. Apart from completely eradicating the importance of human engineers, though, what does this mean for the rest of us? What might that tell us about life and death?

I’d love to take this in a non-conventional direction, so bear with me. Let’s pretend that the afterlife does not matter, whatsoever. It doesn’t exist, it doesn’t get experienced, it doesn’t affect anyone living or anyone dead. Imagine it as a junk drawer, or a trash bin: out of sight, out of mind. Now, we introduce this cloudmind: instead of our knowledge being carried with us into the trash, we keep a record of all of it, every experience and memory and thought. Everything except our physical bodies and brains would remain in our mortal world, where it could forever be interacted with and investigated. The living can interact with every intangible quality of the dead. Is this what it looks like to achieve immortality?

Short answer: No. Even if we could capture every essence of one person on some sort of virtual hard drive, if we could upload it into a computer so we could “ChatGPT” it, or if we could plug it into some sort of rain-proof, life-sized sex doll, this is not immortality. The essence (for lack of better term) of this being would be trapped in this state of simultaneous existence and non-existence, where it no longer feels or senses the way a human does, it doesn’t interact with its environment or manipulate the objects in its life the way a human does. Regardless of if it ever gains its own consciousness, it’s the same thing as taking a human mind and soul and welding it to a rock instead of a body – think of “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”.

So, yes, Plato might be proud – we found a way to potentially transcend, to tether a part of human consciousness to an immortal virtual world. But if our consciousness is primarily connected to our human experiences, perceptions, and memories, would you want to be rock? A computer? A ChatGPT?

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Access Denied ~ Decolonization as a Digital Activist

Hi! It’s Dawn-of-the-Silver-Age again. I’ve been thinking about how we must decolonize technology since reading a blog by Beatrice Martini.

When considering what decolonized technology is, I tend to think about computers, the internet, phones along with devices like braille readers, reading pens, otter.ai, etc. What about you? When I think about the act of colonizing I tend to think of residential schools, the stealing of Indigenous peoples’ lands, and lack of water/poor housing on reservations. We have certainly “othered” Indigenous people and their right to exist on the land that was once their home. When I put these ideas together, I think about “who gets to use a tool or service” (Martini). I think about who has and doesn’t have access to the internet. Language can be a barrier as can money. We need to look at the barriers to technology for Disabled people.

All of this is to ask “How can we use technology to decolonize?”

How-To Guide to becoming a Digital Activist focused on Decolonization:

1. Find a topic that you are passionate and want to learn about!!

2. Find resources on the topic from a variety of perspectives. Primary resources like diary entries, letters, official government documents, photographs; and, secondary sources including: statistics, historical texts, biographies, cartoons, newspaper articles are useful.

a) Consider the origin, purpose, content, and the values and limitations for each source. I.e.-- if a source was meant to be a private reflection, thoughts and feelings expressed are likely to be a person’s honest experiences as they don’t need to hide from themselves. In a public post people can say things to shock or hide things due to fear of retribution.

3. After reading the passages, consider who is included, whose stories are being told, why they are being told, and who’s stories aren’t there.

4. Depending on what stories and perspectives are left out, learn more. Seek people out, read, watch documentaries (they aren’t all boring), learn from them, and pay for their labour.

5. What do you think about what you have read? If the topic relates to your own life and experiences, how do these differ from the source?

6. Start writing and building a presence online to find others like you interested in the topic and start conversations with them to build community.

When starting a digital activism journey, consider who you are, your experiences, access, and where you live.

When I started my journey of becoming an activist and an advocate, I confronted my perspective as a white settler and the differences between my experiences being Disabled and those with intersectionalities, for example, Disabled/male/Indigenous, or Disabled/Black. Our experiences are unequal. We have different views on what is right or wrong in the Disability circle.

For example, for years, I was very anti-ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) therapy and voiced this opinion through digital activism. In my posts, I said that ABA indoctrinates, pushes Autistic youth to act in Neurotypical ways, and is abusive.

This changed after I read Tiffany Hammond’s piece. Hammond is a Black Autistic adult with two Autistic sons. She revealed to me the perspective of those who require ABA so that they are not harmed walking down the street, in the classroom, or in other spaces because of racism and ableism. Hammond’s view on ABA is neither pro- nor anti- – it’s one view, and her experience within the community and her lived experience spoke to me far more than I could have imagined. She saw ABA as necessary because it reduced the possibility of harm to her kids who couldn’t mask their Autism.

I wish we lived in a world where Autistics do not need to worry about it, but we don’t. And, until we do, I appreciate Hammond using ABA to keep her family safe. What do you think?

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Radioactivity: Gender isn’t Real

February 5, 2023

By: MADNESS00

As a person who has always been raised by my parents to see my body as a vessel through which I live, without expectations of how I was supposed to perform my gender, it’s interesting how socialized I am to see my body as a vessel of performance. My parents never really cared about how I dressed or how I acted as long as I was kind and put effort into the things I loved.  

But, through the corrupt education system and the effect of media (any media: movies, tv shows, social media, even books), I was suddenly conscious that I was (emphasis on was) a woman who had to adhere to gender norms, and norms of sexuality. That I had to perform this idea of what gender was and who I was supposed to love.

This has carried on through my life, as I’ve become more in tune with how my weird little brain works (the neurodivergence really hit me hard in high school but I didn’t really know what it was then), and become more aware of how these norms have been prominent throughout my entire life.

I recently read the introduction to Glitch Feminism, written by Legacy Russell, and I think it really encapsulates how I think of the body.  

Glitch Feminism talks about accepting the body how it is, and instead of using it as a vessel for performance, using it as a vessel to just exist. Russell explains that “The glitch is for those selves who joyfully immersed in the in-between, those who have traveled away from their assigned site of gendered origin.”

And this ‘glitch’ is also for how race and religion and disability (and so many more, enough to literally fill entire pages) makes performance even more prominent, as there are expectations of how someone is supposed to perform their gender based on these other identities.  

Many people, both in real life and online, spend their entire lives performing gender. This can also expand to how other identities interact with gender, as there is an idea of how Black women should conduct themselves and an idea of how Black men should conduct themselves. And, since the whole system is set up on gender binaries, people outside of the binary just don’t exist according to gender roles.

Another interesting thing is seeing how queerness is expressed through gender expression, as many codes and ways to dress were created to denote queerness to other queer people, which have obviously evolved as society has become more and more connected to technology. Even I, an out and proud queer person, am constantly wondering if I look queer enough because of how I’ve been socialized to view queerness.

And while media can enhance this idea of performance, it can also help people find communities of like minded people. I wouldn’t have accepted all facets of my identity as a queer neurodivergent person without having access to communities that not only shared information about these identities, but also accepted people as they were without expecting performance from people.  

This is true of all identities, and it doesn’t just help people find their own identity, but it also helps people who want to learn and to be accepting towards all.  

While I talk a lot about queerness here, this is applicable to all marginalized communities, and some even experience greater power imbalances because of the historical significance of performance. For example, how Black people are expected to adhere to a certain amount of whiteness to be acceptable, and Black women are held to an even higher standard of femininity than white women. These two expectations, of whiteness and femininity, also converge so that Black women are expected to uphold both, and erase what they know about their own identity.

I think my overall takeaway from Glitch Feminism is mostly that gender isn’t real, and we shouldn’t be expected to perform our identities in a way that continues to create power imbalances. And if we continue to practice glitch feminism, we can start socializing people to just see bodies as bodies and not as vessels of performance, which also in turn starts to take away power from the systems that thrive off of performance of the body.

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Access Denied

January 29, 2023

By: Dawn_of_the_silver_age

Have you ever wondered why some things are digitized while others are not?

Not me, until I was annoyed when I wanted to access a resource only to find out that it was only available in a museum or a library far, far away.

Recently, I read an article that made me think about who does and does not have access to resources. Kamposiori, Warwick and Mohanty explained the stages of the research process, the difficulties that researchers encounter when digitizing resources like art and texts, what can be done to solve them. The author's style was very scientific and thorough and identified the following issues:

Lack of access to materials in private or smaller public collections as many remain undigitized

Access to locations (cost, language, accessibility, reliability of information, and availability to the public)

I have thought quite a bit about access as I am a Disabled student. I have found it a challenge to access textbooks and other resources, forcing me to adapt my learning and research processes.

Digitization on its own does not give full access to Disabled people. For digitization to be accessible, we must think beyond what is needed for neurotypical people and centre Disabled folk. Often what is stylistically pleasing to the eye makes it less accessible to Disabled folk.

Changing fonts are a straightforward way to give meaningful access. When creating texts, we need to think about improving access.

It’s much easier to read San-Serif fonts like Arial and Calibri.

Instead of fancy fonts.

When sharing images, we need to provide image descriptions and Alt Text. Digital resources must be available with OCR, font size options, colour overlays, audio recordings or text-to-speech. OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition, allowing screen readers to read the text. In Online Disabled community forums, you can easily see that the lack of OCR is a significant issue because of the volume of discussion. I rely on OCR to use my text-to-speech software, and blind students need OCR to access texts using text-to-speech or use a braille interface. Rarely are the needs of Disabled people even considered when we create digital sources. Texts must be digitized using formats that Disabled folk can access.

Digitizing text and artifacts gives everyone with internet — access. Imagine a world where everyone with the internet could access all texts and artifacts, even rare ones! When you think about it, access to sources democratizes learning. Access to the internet is another issue!

The cost and physical accessibility of visiting collections mean that some folk will never have access. Rarely do non-disabled people consider wheelchair accessibility, that stairs prevent access to artifacts and texts, signs without braille and large print and a lack of audio guides deny people entry. This needs to change.

There has been a lot of talk about intersectionalities lately. Let’s be clear, accessibility is not only about Disabled folk. It's also about race. Watching the documentary, The Recorder: Marion Stokes, I found myself as a white settler questioning who is left out of data-finding stories and that the process of searching, collecting, writing, collaborating and researching in the digital sphere (chaining, browsing, verifying) means that marginalized people, their way of knowing and how they experience the world are excluded. There is a whole database of Black women in physics and astronomy whose research and methods are rarely taught. We need to digitize and welcome everyone by providing access for everyone so we can all develop, analyse, reflect, evaluate, learn and communicate with one another.

It’s 2023, and it’s time to consider real inclusion. It’s time to showcase those who have been excluded. We need to see the brilliance of Black women in the arts, and Disabled people in the sciences. We need to digitize databases, artifacts and texts so that everyone can access them, learn and analyze them, be part of the dialogue and contribute to research.

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Our first of our weekly blog posts will be posted today! Can’t wait for it to be up for all of you to read. -Dawn_of_the_silver_age