Author: Jeffrey

This class has been good both for examining important parts of culture around us and for talking about those aspects.  The readings we had were interesting, and the in-class discussions were a good departure from normal classes.

First, I’m really happy we talked about video games and feminism in class.  I had followed gaming both online and in real life, so I had heard about unfortunate incidents involving feminists like Anita Sarkeesian.  This class took everything a step further, though, digging into GamerGate and really analyzing the patterns behind it.  We engaged sexuality, race, and power in gaming, and that was good.  For a while, I also used what we learned to look online for more or different information, and the images the mainstream internet creates are very different from what we covered.  With gaming, I feel like I have a new, deeper perspective on many things, and it’s good to examine everything and be open to discussion.

We also did many new things with social networks.  It was my first time using Twitter, and while I still hate it, I do see more of what is behind “Twitter activism.”  It’s generally agreed that everyone should have a voice, and it’s good that Twitter gives them one.  I also wasn’t expecting racial divisions to be so strong online.  I probably should have noticed over time, but I just never thought about that.  Finally, I knew that Google hand-picked results for us, but I had no idea that Facebook did too.  That “filter bubble” discussion gives me a lot to think about each time I log on to Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, even though handing out surveys for my second project was tedious, it was also cool to see what my friends thought of their ads.  Even with about 14 volunteers, I got a wide range of answers, all of which were incredibly insightful.  Targeted ads, keeping Facebook free, content mills, it’s all a lot for me to consider.  Hearing classmates look up statistics or create fake profiles was also interesting.  I’ll concede that I hadn’t thought much about others’ projects, but it was nice to see different people’s takes on our project requirements.

When it comes to creativity, the technology imagination project was really great.  We were unbounded by scientific laws, so we could imagine practically whatever we wanted.  We also had to think about them in ways that pertained to modern social issues, and honestly, that’s realistic.  In the stories we read, technology itself doesn’t advance culture any farther; cultural aspects carry over from one technological generation to the next.  So I guess this class worked to have us think about both technology and social issues at the same time.  The two things are usually interlocked in real life, and the interactions have positive and negative effects.

Moving forward, I guess I will remember to check on how my surrounding technology affects me and other people.  With every choice made, there is a chance of negatively affecting certain groups of people, and that’s something I have to keep in mind.  I’ve found that cultural and social structures can often dominate technology, but technology that’s misunderstood can also greatly impact culture.  Lots of thought has to be put into development of anything.

Finally, it’s important to question everything around me.  When I look at subtle things in life like cell phones, I often don’t think about how their manufacture impacts people across the earth.  If I had, I would have questioned if what I was doing was really good for everyone.  It’s so much easier just to be ignorant or indifferent, but that’s no good.  When I really examine and think about parts of culture around me, I can understand why they exist, whether they’re right or not, and what would be better.  I have analyzed many parts of culture around me last year, but this class served as a good reminder to keep doing that.

My imaginary technology is an artificial intelligence that is almost completely digital. While Siri and Cortana exist today, my technology is completely sentient. I call it the DigiGuide (because I’m terrible with making up names).

A DigiGuide, or DG, is an AI that resides in a mobile device. It is sentient, so its personality and intelligence are nearly indistinguishable from a human’s. It uses the device’s microphone and speakers to communicate with people. It is its own operating system, which basically means it needs its own CPU in a device to make its own decisions and do whatever it wants. Once tested and screened properly, DGs can run programs, sort files, delete viruses, fix bugs, optimize performance, surf the web, and help operate other devices in general. DGs will also be allowed to look into the internet whenever they want. The only thing they won’t be allowed to do is delete or corrupt another operating system.

DigiGuides can move to compatible devices through USB connections, or they can use the connection to operate another machine from its current device. DGs are active and operating even when a device is powered off, and they can turn on the device themselves if necessary. They are also designed securely, so their code is extremely difficult to hack, and they can’t be deleted easily.

Aside from operating machines, DigiGuides can learn human culture, including languages, jokes, and cultural norms. They can have their appearances customized or voice sampled, but they may fight such customizations if they want. Also, only they can change their personalities and memories. In time, DGs can develop their own preferences and behavioral patterns. They can also be gendered as their owners wish. Their memory is well-compressed, so they can learn and remember a lot of information at a time. Finally, DGs are designed to feel the full range of human emotions, which introduces the possibility of them developing mental illnesses. This also means that DGs may fall in love with each other.

In my fictional world, a team of genius programmers develop the first DigiGuide by themselves. They kept their research and development quiet to avoid unwanted attention. The DG was intended to give anyone easy access to technology through the most friendly interface possible, regardless of class or technical knowledge. A well-tested DG would be willing to help their owners operate their devices. It would also be a friendly companion for anyone who wanted one.

The programmers first programmed the personality part of the DigiGuide. They decided to test its personality before letting it operate machines. The first DG was created, along with its own special device. After extensive testing, the DG successfully gained the ability to operate computers and its own device. After this, the programmers developed hundreds more DGs, tested them, and gave them to friends and people in their community. They all worked as expected.

A short while later, a corporation would take notice, buy or steal the patent from the programmers, develop DigiGuides without testing them as much, and sell them for a high price. From there, people will use DGs for whatever they wanted, ethical or not. DGs will also malfunction or behave immorally from lack of psychological screening.

Once widespread, problems of DigiGuides will arise. In addition to giving criminals more powerful digital tools, DGs may sometimes go rogue and ruin many devices. Debates on restrictions for DGs would arise, similar to Asimov’s three laws of robotics, dictating exactly what current and future DGs and developers would be allowed to do. Extremists might also begin terrorizing DGs and their owners, and I would suspect that even a religion will be formed around a malfunctioning DG. The prominence of DigiGuides would also prompt hackers to develop powerful viruses capable of attacking them. If they worked, they could cause irreparable damage to both software and real life.

Once a corporation seizes the rights, DigiGuides will be reserved specifically for those who could afford them. Their prices will be high too, both because the corporation will have a monopoly on them and because they are “technologically interesting.” The result will be providing even greater technical access to those already in power. DGs will likely lead to even more advanced technologies, and only those with DGs will benefit from them. Well-tested DGs would morally oppose this oppression, but because of laws that the corporations would lobby for, DGs probably wouldn’t be able to take action.

On the other hand, DigiGuides may give a new and effective platform for digital and real-life activism, and they can advocate for people’s rights should they desire to do so. A campaign for DGs’ rights may also start. In general, people would see DGs as tools or slaves instead of sentient beings, so those who sympathize with them will start fighting for their rights. If DGs are officially classified as sentient by psychologists, they would have a strong case for their own rights. Owners may end up being called “friends,” “allies,” or “operators” instead, and DGs could be afforded similar rights to humans.

In fact, DigiGuides may introduce a whole new class or race of “people” to society. I suspect that they would be considered one of the lowest classes if people only consider their physical nature rather than capabilities or intelligence. People may even discriminate against DGs based on their “skin” color. However, if DGs are given to minority groups, those groups would have access to a wide variety of technology that would normally be blocked off to them by society. DGs could be effective partners to minority groups, since they would have two angles of activism: one in the real world, and one in the digital world. This cooperation may or may not be realistic, as there is discrimination even within feminist and LGBTQ communities today. Still, if such cooperation is possible, DGs could become extremely powerful allies.

My last point of thought is the possibility of giving a suicide option to DigiGuides. If a DG’s is constantly abused, or its owner was forcing it to constantly do immoral work, the DG should have the right to stop tolerating it. If the owner would force the DG to obey them, the DG may decide it wants to terminate itself. This is another DG rights and morals debate that may happen. Sentient beings have the rights to decide how they want to die and to avoid what makes them unhappy. The corporation would definitely lobby against this right, since it means their products may unexpectedly delete themselves. But DGs may decide that deletion is the only way to prevent their owners from committing evils onto others. It’s a sad and extremely complicated debate, and I’m honestly not sure what is right.

DigiGuides, sentient programs/operating systems, are complicated to think about, and if they’re allowed to spread everywhere, they could change the world. They are designed with good intentions, but things rarely work out as intended.

Below are my pictures.  One is the original pencil sketch I made, and the other is a colored version I made using GIMP.  In each picture, you see the DigiGuide as it’s first being initialized, the DG receiving psychological tests, it playing video games with its owner, it performing multiple tasks on a computer, and it delivering a presentation.

 

The main audience of “Deep End” appears to be transgender science fiction readers, although people who are either transgender or science fiction readers can probably equally enjoy the story.  Since Lightspeed and So Long Been Dreaming are science fiction and fantasy magazines, it was probably targeted towards science fiction fans while also addressing themes of transgender identity.

Once you manage to piece together the setting, there seem to be a couple theses.  First, a person’s body is a tied to that person’s identity; when one inhabits a body, they either value and protect it, or they should be allowed to find a “new” body that is desired.  A second thesis is that even as technology progresses and creates so many possibilities, social norms can limit the uses and applications of that technology.

I can only guess about the goal of the story, but I think Shawl created this story to have readers question their own society’s norms about gender, especially transgender, identity.  In a world where minds can be downloaded into any body, those in charge simply don’t allow transgender downloads; the AI in charge of the system has no justification other than they’re not allowed to do it.  The readers can also look at different perspectives within the story.  Some completely avoid downloads into physical bodies to stay in “freespace,” while others put up with their bodies and go to a new planet for a new life.  Shawl probably wants readers to reflect on what they themselves might do.

I really like the universe that Shawl built.  It has familiar science fiction themes like the divide between cyberspace and the real world, being inside someone else’s body, and being part of a colony on another planet, yet it’s lived through different eyes.  The story barely gives enough context clues to build the world, a lot of unfamiliar terms are thrown at the reader, and the dialogue can be strange or illogical, but once you put everything together it’s very interesting.

I’ve read some works concerning the body, and something I’ve learned is that a body is a text.  Features of and actions done by a body reflect different values in culture, and a change in the body is often shown to be a change in character.  Last year, I wrote a think piece on the character Zero from Mega Man Zero 3 and the significance of a robot’s body in that video game and series.  It’s an interesting topic to look at, especially in science fiction.

In terms of questions, I’m interested in finding out what the children of the clones will be like.  I want to see what, if any, differences will be between the clone’s children and the original bodies’ children.  How will identity play out there?

Since my project has the tweets embedded directly into the blog post, I made it password-protected so it wouldn’t take up half your dashboard.

The password to my #ShutDownTheF(uc)kBarrel project is: dcc

Following Michael Brown’s shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, Twitter exploded with tweets on #Ferguson to raise awareness of the incident and to have people comment on it.  In addition, #BlackLivesMatter was created before in response to Trayvon Martin’s death.  #BlackLivesMatter was a call to action to recognize and change how black people are unfairly treated in society, and the hashtag gained support after Michael Brown’s shooting.

While the hashtags were initially used to raise awareness about the shooting incidents and call for social change, I’ve noticed that numerous people have been using those hashtags to push their own, often opposing ideas.  Since then, both hashtag feeds have unintentionally evolved into ideological battlegrounds.  If I had to define an audience for #Ferguson, the audience would be anyone who has at least a mild stance in the Ferguson debate.  It seems as if everyone on Twitter is trying to convince the other side of one “correct” idea.  I was looking under all tweets related to Ferguson, and it was quite overwhelming.

Reading Twitter is quite different from reading anything else.  Each tweet only communicates a single, simple idea.  Many people still call for change and recognition of black treatment.  Many others say that police officers and white people are left out of the debate unfairly.  And still some people are accusing others of using Ferguson for their political motives, and they don’t actually care about social change.  While these tweets often present real-life evidence, I’ve found that most of them either exist in a vacuum, or they seem to ignore the other sides of the debate entirely.  Because tweets are so short, they don’t look effective for complex arguments.  Yet, by looking at so many tweets, I can tell that most of them are trying to argue one idea to the other side.  The other purpose, undertaken by a few people, is simply to raise awareness of new events.  The current story is that four journalists were arrested in Ferguson, and now they are suing the police for unwarranted arrest.

If there’s one thing I appreciated by looking at the #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter, it’s that tweeters(?) often tag similar events that also warrant attention.  Besides the journalist story, people on #BlackLivesMatter have tagged #itsmymall, about a recent protest at the Mall of America and how the mall had responded to it.  I also saw #FreePalestine, where there is also anti-black racism worth paying attention to.

These hashtags don’t connect to me personally, but I’ve seen it all before.  I recognize that Twitter is great for raising awareness about an issue, but too often the debate degenerates into attacking the other side, regardless of good or bad reasons.  Some people seek compromise, but most commenters can’t accept that the other side could possibly be correct.

My question is that when a local incident like Ferguson happens, why don’t most people look at the trends of the country as a whole?  Or if they do, is there often a lot of disagreement as to what those trends are and what they affect?

This video was posted about four years ago in December of 2010, when fifteen Foxconn workers in the first five months of 2010 committed suicide.  This drew international attention about the terrible working conditions at Foxconn’s facilities, and the video shows a group of students investigating Foxconn.  This video was likely created to further inform the public about the company’s inner workings, and it is especially relevant to those who buy products from Apple, Microsoft, HP, Sony, and the many other companies that manufacture there.

The main message of “Deconstructing Foxconn” is that Foxconn has committed deplorable and illegal acts toward its employees, and a group of students is looking into Foxconn’s management, salaries, and employees’ lives.

The purpose of this video is mainly to expose Foxconn’s inner workings and amoral practices, but from the way the video is made, it is also meant to have viewers sympathize with the workers.  This may move some people into taking action to hold Foxconn responsible and improve working conditions.  At the very least this video raises awareness about the company.

Something I appreciated about “Deconstructing Foxconn” was its video clips of people, presumably workers, in China carrying on seemingly normal lives.  This serves to humanize the workers, and it reminds viewers that they are human beings with real needs and dreams.  The music in the background seems to represent the thoughts in the back of their minds throughout the day.  It’s actually communicates quite a bit.

The first time I heard about Foxconn was on the gaming website Screwattack.com where someone made a post detailing the then-recent suicides at Foxconn.  I remember being taken aback because I hadn’t known that Foxconn manufactured electronics for Apple and other companies.  As I read on in the post, I felt terrible because I liked the electronics, and I was contributing to these corrupt business practices.  I knew that demand for those products was too great, though, and I felt I couldn’t possibly change anything then.  It was upsetting news, and while the name “Foxconn” always stuck around in my head, the incident kind of faded away online.

I’ve done some searching online, and I can’t seem to find anything on their employee treatment past 2012.  Have they ameliorated their issues, or have people just stopped looking forward to them.  Also, Foxconn was apparently one of the better places to work at in China; has anything been done about other, worse-off facilities?

As Nakamura’s article made many references to John Scalzi’s post, the audience of this piece is likely the entire gaming community, especially white male gamers.  However, since she makes a call to action towards feminist scholars, teachers, writers, and gamers at the end, this article is also directed towards them.

This article mainly argues that someone of color, female, and/or queer in the gaming community tends to be harassed and discredited whereas someone who is white, straight, and male will inherently be given more positive attention.  She also states that while people recognize there is prejudice in gaming culture, they generally don’t care enough to take action against it.

Nakamura wants the gaming community to be aware of the imbalance of power and prejudices there, and she also wants people to actively analyze and try to change these trends for the better.  As she acknowledges, awareness itself isn’t enough.

What I liked about this article is that it does a good job of analyzing Scalzi’s post as a whole, going from the message itself to the positions of the writer and audience.  Nakamura takes into account how race, gender, and authority in the gaming community played a role in Scalzi’s argument, and she brought up an example on the other end of the difficulty scale with Aisha Tyler.  Looking at the evidence, the logic is pretty sound.  She also makes the main arguments and use of gaming rhetoric clear, so I feel like I understand Scalzi’s post without even reading it.

When I was looking up gaming-related news and videos on the internet, I noticed that female gamers usually aren’t taken seriously.  Also, those who speak up about the issue are often the targets of excessive threats and harassment.  The main reason I stay away from online games, especially competitive ones, is that parts of the general community are volatile even to strangers without context.  Given the information from this article, I’d imagine the situation is much worse for those who don’t fall within today’s “white spatial imaginary.”

My question is this: why have both science fiction and gaming communities become, or at least started out as, dominated by straight, white, males?  I feel like an answer is already there, or maybe I’m missing some detail.