Our Relationship With Technology (Final Post)

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I believe technology is a vastly important, yet insidious, communication tool that has become a core part of many people's lives. While that is not necessarily a wild statement to make, it is vital to understand why it is both. First off, technology does have its benefits, it grants people abilities that would be absolutely impossible otherwise, such as instant long-range communication and access to vast amounts of information. With the introduction and advancement of technology, communities, and minorities are able to connect like never before. It is suddenly possible to learn about anything and then talk to other people about it. 

As for the negatives of technology, a massive one that is being addressed more and more is the invasion of privacy it allows (and might as well welcome). Companies are constantly collecting people's data to sell or to flood you with targeted advertisements. In fact, it is such a problem, that companies have to tell you they are protecting your data, instead of companies having to tell you if they are stealing and selling it.

It is at the point where this data is so valuable, that the government is openly searching through it. Just in the past month or so, an article by the National Public Radio network states that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that they are looking through immigrants' social media for antisemitic activity and will use it as a reason to deny them immigration benefits. This just goes to show how technology's invasive nature can affect people's lives.

Furthermore, mental health is impacted heavily by technology, especially by social media. It can lead some people to self-harm or even commit suicide. Its portrayal of an "ideal life" and access to other people's opinions can be harmful to one's mental health. Likewise, it brings about "FOMO" or a fear of missing out, leading people, especially teens, to be constantly stressed about being left out of something.

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As for whether I believe technology is "healthy" or not, I think it is not. While it is a powerful tool that has helped a lot of people, between the invasion of privacy and the mental health risks, it should be kept at a distance. In the present and near future, AI has become an almost ever-present facet of technology. Its adaptability makes it a powerful tool, and as a tool, it too can be used for evil or good.

AI is quickly evolving, with thousands of new models and companies seemingly appearing out of nowhere. It won't be long until someone creates an artificial general intelligence (AGI), which has the processing power to independently create an artificial superintelligence (ASI), that would be capable of anything. AI is already connected to things like social media algorithms, allowing companies to collect data automatically with adaptable intelligence.

Recently, I myself have been experimenting with AI. It is surprisingly easy to download an AI directly onto your computer and ask it questions without even needing a wifi connection. With a little bit of coding knowledge, it is possible to create a personalized AI that works like Jarvis from Iron Man. These interactions with AI have made it apparent just how powerful they can be. While ChatGPT can help programmers code, it rarely gets it entirely right, and still needs a human's eyes to check its work, showing that AI cannot support itself quite yet.

Luckily, this means that AI has not yet become powerful enough to evolve into Ultron. Although that could be closer than we think. AGI could be right around the corner, and with it, the potential for a superintelligence to emerge.

Overall, technology has (so far) been used largely for good. While it has its negatives, it is still rapidly bettering society, and giving people amazing tools. Its power over us just depends on how we use it and on how much we rely on it.

EOTO #2 False Flags

"False Flags" are negative events or actions taken that are intended to be blamed on someone else for political or military gain. They are often brought up by conspiracy theorists to say that any variety of negative events were taken to blame others, such as terrorist attacks or shootings. These explanations are usually the result of confirmation bias, in which their beliefs cloud their judgement. An example of the more truthful version of a false flag is the sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba, which was blamed on the Spanish and used as an inciting incident for the Spanish-American War in 1898.

As for the conspiracy theorists' use of this term, the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th was believed by some to be led by antifa to undermine President Trump's support. This term has been used for a long time, with its origins beginning in the 1800s when it meant an enemy ship (pirates for example) would fly an allied flag to trick their enemies. It first appeared in 16th century anti-Roman Catholic propaganda that said Catholics pretend to be faithful.

The term in and of itself is a very distasteful practice that often works as an excuse for war or as means to defame an adversary. Another example of a false flag was in World War I, where the German cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar was disguised as the British HMS Carmania. Unfortunately, the first ship it ran into was the HMS Carmania, making the disguise completely useless against the real ship, leading it to be sunk.

False flags were often used during and before World War II, such as when the Japanese blew up their own railway in 1931 in 1931 to justify invading China's Manchuria. Or when the British sent a ship filled with explosives that they disguised as a German vessel to blow up a German harbor. Finally, Nazis disguised themselves as Polish troops and attacked a German outpost in Gleiwitz in 1939, acting as a reason for the Nazis to invade Poland.

As for some more recent examples, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad accused the Organization of the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of faking a report about a chemical weapon attack. He also accused the U.S. of ordering them to falsify the report, which gave the U.S., the U.K., and France an excuse to launch air raids on Syria.

Another is how, in the past few weeks, Venezuela has been suggested as a possible assailant on ExxonMobil's oil-drilling site in Guayan. The U.S. has already promised "consequences" if Venezuela does attack its neighbor. 

Overall, false flags are dangerous tools that can be used as an excuse for conflict between countries and/or important officials. When there is already so much conflict brewing between the U.S., China, and Russia, it is not the time for these false flags to come into play. It would be terrible for a large scale war to start simply because of a false accusation or self-inflicted invasion.

Diffusion of Innovations

Social media is a huge part of our lives now, especially for younger people. It is common for teens to spend a lot of time on social media, with some spending five hours or more. Some of the most popular social media apps, Instagram and Snapchat, came out in the early 2010s (Instagram in 2010 and Snapchat in 2011), since then, they have become staples of every high school and college's student interactions.

I myself was a late adopter of both of these apps, as well as social media in general. Not only did I not get my first phone until 2019, but I was fervently opposed to social media as well, seeing it as a waste of time. While I still see it largely as a waste of time, it is helpful for long distance communication and relationship maintenance. I am able to easily send pictures and posts to friends back home. I only got social media around 2021, because it was all my friends used to communicate.

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I imagine the majority of people adopted social media for similar reasons. Younger people want to stay in touch with their friends, and while there is nothing wrong with that, social media has ulterior motives. Regardless, it is so widespread that anyone without social media is seen as weird by most, and noble by some. I believe we are at the point of laggards choosing to fight against it, and have passed the late adopters, where I believe I was. 

As for the negatives of social media, there are a few glaring ones. First off, it significantly grows the "fear of missing out", causing people to be glued to these apps and sites out of fear they might miss someone asking them to do something. Second, people's self-image is torn apart by social media through the posts of models and celebrities. It emphasizes looks and outward appearances through posts instead of who people actually are, creating a vicious cycle of intense trends and body dysmorphia.

The Obscurity of Antiwar Voices

 There will always be people who are against war as long as there is a profit to be made from it. The main source of this is the military-industrial complex, a term President Eisenhower coined in 1961. He warned that the U.S. needs to avoid becoming influenced by this complex. Currently, the U.S. is continually involved in random wars throughout the world to feed the 'defense' industry. Because of all of this, antiwar voices are not heard because then these wars, that are making a lot of money, would lose some support. 

Furthermore, there is such a stigma behind being antiwar that few want to speak out about it. It is seen as unpatriotic and as colluding with the enemy. This causes the people themselves to disregard any antiwar voices they might actually hear, and possibly even argue about it openly. Likewise, war has been presented as noble and that those who join or support it are strong and good people. This is done through the use of propaganda and news sources.

Propaganda is further used to polarize the perceptions of war. War views are framed as either supporting the troops or opposing the war. Some people believe you can do both, others completely disagree. It is part of what keeps war going, this polarizing stance people are told they have to take. If there was less propaganda, it would be much easier to see and understand these wars as relatively meaningless, and often played out on a much larger scale then is necessary.

Alongnside propaganda, social media and other forms of content have similarly been weaponized to push pro-war views. Social media easily becomes an echo chamber of political views, but it is also a great way to get all kinds of news. Because of the sheer variety, there are some antiwar views that can be found, although it takes a lot of effort for those to start popping up in the feed.

EOTO #1 Reaction

Across the presentations, there were several interesting topics explored. The first being messenger pigeons. While I was always passively aware that birds were used as messengers. Especially learning how vital they were as communication tools in the past, especially in 

World War I. Likewise, it was surprising to learn they earned medals for their contributions. Their being named, which in hindsight makes a lot of sense, also came as a surprise.

Second, learning about the history of streaming services was interesting. Netflix, especially since they started their website in 1997 as a DVD rental service. Although I was aware of their Redboxes, I was surprised by their streaming service, as well as most of the other ones, when they seemingly suddenly popped out of thin air. 

YouTube started as a dating site, containing video clips that were unknown to me. Likewise, it was too successful for the original owners, which is why they had to sell to Google. They were unable to keep up with the traffic the website was generating, and were simply not able to make enough money to expand their servers enough.

As for some miscellaneous facts I found interesting, of radio's two modes, FM is far easier to connect to, making it ideal for spots with spotty connection, like camp sites. Another is that there were 100s of different kinds of magazines in the 1800s, which is completely different from today, where they are only seen in lobbies or maybe bathrooms. Lastly, email was invented as early as the 1970s by Ray Tomlinson, which is when the @ symbol became forever linked to email addresses. 

Overall, the history of communications technology is far more widespread and ancient than I believed it to be, and there is a lot I was completely unaware of, or simply had not thought about. I am interested to see how it continues to change in the near and distant future with the implementation of AI and other, more obscure, advancements.

Privacy, Online and Off

First off, in this day and age, privacy is pretty well-respected offline. It is online, where there is very little of it. In the first video from Juan Enriquez, privacy is related to a tattoo, in that it is a permanent mark displaying a core part of who the wearer is. While frightening, it is almost ignored that everything you do online is tracked and stored as data in some digital profile. Companies track every click through methods such as cookies, site/app interaction, and willingly posting info online. With so much of our lives online, it is impossible to escape past decisions or to hide from posts that should not have been sent.

Next, in the video from Christopher Soghoian, the idea of encryption being embedded within private technology being a necessity and a default is vital. He goes on to explain that the government does not like that companies like Apple make encryption the default, preventing them from listening in. The issue with them being against this encryption is that it means they want to listen in. They believe it is necessary. 

Encryption is absolutely vital to online privacy, and is often overlooked as inconsequential. Things like a strong password and careful online activity can help prevent companies and the government from encroaching on your digital privacy. If the government were not as keen on stealing people's information, it would be making it so that digital privacy was a fundamental right.

Lastly, the vast amount of information that accumulates over years online is a significant risk to privacy. In the video from Andy Yen, Email is related to a postcard rather than a letter. The idea is that letters were sealed. A postcard can be easily read by anybody who happens to see it. Encryption using individually-held API keys (such as what is used when streaming to a specific account on Twitch, or when accessing OpenAI remotely) would allow individual people to be the only ones with access to their messages and emails. Unfortunately, companies need this data to send targeted ads, which account for a massive chunk of companies' revenue.

The History and Impact of the Printing Press

Block Printing

The printing press itself was designed in the mid 1400s, but there is a long past of printing before then. For starters, the oldest printed book we still have is a copy of The Diamond Sutra from the Tang Dynasty in China in 868 A.D. 

Back then, they used a method called ‘block printing’ which uses hand-carved, static wood blocks that were carved in a mirror-image of what would be printed on the page. It was an inefficient way to print unless it was being used for a multitude of prints due to the permanence of the carvings. Alongside printing, paper was also invented in China around 2000 years ago, making it the origin of both printing and paper.

Movable Type

A few hundred years later, around 1000 A.D. in China, Bi Sheng developed moveable type, which replaced block printing. Moveable type used individually carved characters, which could be laid out in any combination and were therefore reusable, improving upon the fully carved pages of block printing. 

For even more reusability, Bi Sheng chose to use clay instead and moved away from wood, which soaks in the ink and is too soft to be consistent. The hardness of the clay made the prints clearer and overall improved their quality. This was only possible because of his creation of individual characters, because making a whole sheet would be significantly more difficult with clay then wood.

Another few hundred years later in Germany, around the mid 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg developed the printing press. He began development in 1436 and was able to finish a prototype around 1450. Its first commercial use was in 1454 for Church indulgences and Bibles.

Printing Press

The design was based on the screw press which was used to mint coins. The printing press itself used pre-made and movable metal characters. Alongside these characters, Gutenberg invented an oil-based ink that printed better and was more compatible with metal than the water-based inks that were otherwise used. These inventions allowed for much faster and clearer printing than any other method at the time.

Gutenberg’s printing press was able to print 250 sheets per hour, but that is nothing compared to the rotary press which was invented by Richard M. Hoe in New york in the 1800s. The cylinder press was power-driven and was able to print 8000 sheets per hour, which is 32x the printing press’ efficiency. The rotary press was used largely for printing newspapers.

Rotary Press

Next, the offset press was invented, allowing large-scale color printing by stretching content along a large rubber wheel and rolling paper across it. Until the 21st century, offset printing was the best way to print in color. It was eventually replaced by ink-jet and laser printing.

As for the impacts of the printing press, it allowed news to become much more widespread and easily accessible. At the time of Gutenberg’s printing press, its invention made it so that ships could take a copy of current news and transport it to their destination, allowing different countries to stay updated on events across the world. 

Second, the Renaissance saw a resurgence because they were now able to (relatively) mass produce famous historical works such as those of Plato and Aristotle. It allowed for knowledge and ideas, both new and old, to be easily shared. Furthermore, it also gave scientists a chance to collaborate and spread their findings, significantly speeding up the advancement of science.

Offset Press

Lastly, it was the first example of machines ‘stealing jobs’ from workers. Suddenly, scribes were much less useful due to the sheer efficiency of Gutenberg’s printing press by comparison. Although, it also created jobs such as booksellers and those who worked the presses.