iPod-ization

Don't get me wrong, I love my iPod.

I got it a month ago to replace another mp3 player that I never got the hang of. The UI just drove me crazy and I could never figure out how to do anything, even after I tried reading the instructions.

So, I got an iPod. It also made sense because I got my iBook a few months ago and simply love it. I thought it would be great to have an iPod so that I could have all the cool integration wtih iTunes-I'm very satisfied.

The great thing about it is that I can listen to music anywhere and I can carry around enough music that I can pretty much listen to whatever I want at any time.

Examples of times that I need to listen to music in public:

- On the bus when someone is talking loud on the cell phone.

- On the bus when someone is talking loud to someone else (possibly the buss driver)

- On the bus when someone nearby is rude or odd

- Downtown when I really can't handle being asked for money yet again (Sidenote: I bought a shirt that states, "I carry no cash." This has proven rather effective).

Basically, I can now use music to tune things out that normally make me a little crazy.

I suppose it's another way of dealing with information anxiety.

Then, I think about how I felt when I saw people with headphones on when I was on the bus without headphones... or even seeing people in stores or walking down the street. I feel like they have chosen to close themselves off from the rest of the world, which they have. They "go within" to some other place provided to the via technology instead of dealing with the issues of the world.

Now, I'm one of them.

I don't know how to feel about this. I think I feel bad because I could be missing out on some human interation (you know, that thing that we do with each other... without the computer between us?).

But how often do we meet strangers anymore anyway? For me, I'd have to say: not often.

This is a problem with technology... we shut ourselves off from society, from the world, from ourselves, from other people and from new people.

Isolation is the impetus for the iPodization of America.

We are so bombarded with people, things, media and advertizing that we do need to isolate ourselves... we just also need to reconnect with each other in a real sense.

Lyotard and the Inhuman

I just finished a book on Lyotard and what he calls the "Inhuman." It was fascinating for one and gets at one of the postmodern tensions that I've been dancing around in my blogs here:

Technology and its relationship to society.

Where do we draw the line between human and machine? How much of ourselves can be computer before we become a computer or a cyborg? Is it "right" or "moral" to do so?

What about pacemakers? they prolong our lives, but we are dependant on the machines to keep us alive.

How about life support? Again, we wouldn't be alive without them if we needed them, but what kind of a life is that often? We can prolong life of coma patients for years.

How much do we let technology come into our lives? How often do we accept that we are becoming more and more depandant on machines for not only our "productivity" but our lives?

This is what scared Lyotard. His message was one of warning to the earth to think about what could happen.

Machines could start taking over. When artificial intelligence becomes artificial life... this is totally starting to sound Matrix-esque.

Here's a suggested movie list:

- The Matrix
- The Animatrix
- Matrix Reloaded
- Matrix Revolutions
- A.I.
- Vanilla Sky
- Johnny Mnemonic
- Gattaca
- I Robot
- Bicentennial Man

These films play with these questions. Interesting how so many films have come out in the past few years that deal with the issue of the quality of human life versus the quality of artificial life.

They all have a different take on it. in the Matrix, for example, machines have taken over the world. In Vanilla Sky, they have just taken over someone's brain and extended his life.

The really interesting question for me is how do we draw a line between human and inhuman? How much technology is good for us and how much of it causes us to become dependant on the vary machines that might one day take us over?