#3: OMG LOL *skrrRRKSSSHH*

Why do people text and drive?

I was in the car with my boyfriend, and we were driving from my house in the Bay Area back to SLO after a fun weekend with my family. He was driving, and I was taking a nap. When I woke up, I looked over, and saw him texting. Immediately I told him to stop, and he dropped his phone into his lap and went, "Wasn't me!" I told him not to text while driving, and asked if he had been doing that the whole time I was sleeping. He replied, almost indignant, "No! My friend was just talking to me about this Prophets of Rage concert that happened in LA this past weekend and I wanted to know what he was saying."

That blew my mind. Like wow okay I hope you appreciate knowing that a bunch of people got wasted in a park listening to rock music while we lay in a ditch somewhere in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere surrounded by broken glass and a dented car frame, dirt and blood splattered everywhere. Pardon my French (and hyperbole), but his answer was just that astounding to me. He made it seem like I was the one being unreasonable for valuing my life--OUR lives--over his (relatively) unimportant conversation. You never NEED to text someone while driving, even if they claim it's urgent. If it's really urgent, they'll call. I don't understand why people do this... Every single person without fail is a worse driver when they text and drive, and this can literally kill people. OTHER people, not just you, the driver.

Let's just map this out for a second... Let's say my boyfriend crashed, and we both died because he crashed into a ditch. We both have 5-person nuclear families, and very large extended families. Already, over 50 people have been affected by this. And that's not including our friends, assuming only our very closest friends feel significant grief. Okay, so that's the mini-articulation of emotional wreckage. The insurance companies have to be contacted, as do doctors, morticians, funeral organizers, venue owners, headstone makers, potentially lawyers, potentially banks as someone takes out a loan to pay for all of this, maybe someone needs a therapist, who knows.

Everything is so much bigger than who we are where we are when we are. Why do we act like it's not? Where did this weird assumption that what SHOULD be low-level tasks (e.g. brake, accelerate, etc.) can now just be high-level tasks (e.g. get from A to B without crashing or getting pulled over) come from? Why don't we pay attention anymore?

Are we overestimating the extent to which we can control multiple technologies simultaneously? The extent to which are cyborgian bodies enable us? Clark sort of gets at the notion of assemblages in his chapter "Bad Borgs?" He talks about how the webs in which we are entangled are getting larger and more complex, but that we haven't lost any control. Rather, we must establish a more biological connection with these webs (assemblages): "The complementary skills of these biological subsystems help make human intelligence what it is today. The complementary skills of a host of nonbiological subsystems will help make human intelligence what it is tomorrow" (176). But humans can't master all skills, can they? There literally aren't enough eyes in a human body to make texting and driving (obviously, self-driving cars notwithstanding) a thing. But is the concept of a self-driving car, where you could easily text and drive, the human intelligence of tomorrow Clark is writing about?

Why do we just assume this human intelligence of tomorrow is good? Again, to bring in the last blog post and one my favorite chapters from S & W, "Progress for whom? ... Progress for what? ... The problem comes when the 'careful measure' of the real quality of real people's lives is abandoned in favor of the unexamined affective power of the language of progress that can be used to degrade that very same quality of life" (29-31). Who is this human intelligence benefitting? Who are the humans that are the intelligent ones? What is and is not and intelligent skill of a nonbiological subsystem? Where are we going, and why?

#2: Progress At Your Own Convenience

Dr. Blau, I've been waiting until we finished reading this book to write this blog post, because I was sure that the later, heavier chapters would surely inspire me to write... But after what, 8 weeks? I still ask myself almost every single day about Chapters 2 & 3 from Slack and Wise: "Progress" and "Convenience." In retrospect, I probably should have written these sooner given how often I thought about these two chapters, but I really thought Agency or surely Identity would do it for me... And while they were both excellent chapters, these questions of progress and convenience are on my mind almost every day.

I was so glad when you asked Dr. Slack (I had to actively restrain myself from having a when-I-met-Dr.-Ceccarelli-level explosion, because hoLY SHIT I SAW THIS WOMAN AND SHE ANSWERED A QUESTION I ASKED!!!) about what she does in her life to actually deal with believing what she does about progress and about convenience, because I've been struggling with the same thing. It's never enough to question the status quo; you have to be able to do something about it too. (If it's unclear, I whole-heartedly support the Revolution.)

The whole time I was reading these chapters I was nodding almost every two seconds. I've underlined things several times for emphasis, written "YESSSS" (or some variation thereof) in the margins almost 10 times, and generally just agreed with everything the authors were saying. I mean, they're just so right. "We often hear, 'you can't stop progress;' but what is often meant is, 'you shouldn't stop progress'" (17). THAT'S ONE OF THE MOST CORRECT THINGS I'VE EVER READ!!! "When it comes to conveniences, the reasonable choice seems to be to toss it and consume something new" (45). DR. BLAU!!! YES!!! Amazon has something called Amazon Dash, and they're basically little buttons that you own and they're hooked up to your Amazon account, and each button is for a specific product, and whenever you click the button, it orders that product for you. If that isn't the epitome of "progressive" and "convenient" technologies aiding and abetting the delightfully horrific structures of consumerism and capitalism, I don't know what is.

I agree with basically everything they wrote in these chapters, so I won't go on about that much longer, but for me... They just didn't really go far back enough in the human timeline.

Are progress and convenience just human desires? Convenience maybe more conscious, progress less so? When fire became a thing, was that not just so we could see at night? Either to protect ourselves or to hunt for longer, whatever it was? Was that not just convenience? And then as fire led to things like cooking and traveling for longer periods of time and other cool stuff, was that not progress? Do the things that historically progress our society start as conveniences?

I know what S & W talk about are progress and convenience in a contemporary sense, and I'm totally on board with them. I think we've totally exacerbated what these words mean and how important they are/should be to people, and I think we're screwing ourselves over as a society in always wanting to achieve "progress," making everything that is progressive just a stepping stone instead of an accomplishment. I think we're making too many shortcuts in the name of convenience that're starting to negatively affect our memory (individual and collective), our critical thinking, etc.

But are these just inherent to humanity? Humans are a storytelling species; are they also a species that wants an easier, better life? I mean, other animals do this too, right? The reason the predators will stop to eat the slowest of the pack isn't because it's objectively the best prey to eat, it's because it's the most convenient. Clark talks about it himself in his chapter "Global Swarming," when he talks about how ants make food trails. He literally writes, "... in order to discover and exploit the best, meaning shortest routes..." (145). (Already a ton to be said about how he's totally buying into the narrative of convenience, but disregarding that...)

I know the point isn't that doing things for the sake of convenience or the sake of progress is 100% inherently bad, but that we should question why we are doing something and if our "progress" is really progress, and if our convenience comes at negative expenses to things... Basically, to be critical... But it's hard to find the line. And I might be over-critical and way too cynical of innovation because of its tendency to privilege certain people and disadvantage others (white supremacist capitalist patriarchy rearing its ugly head, once again)... But maybe I shouldn't be?

I don't know Dr. Blau. I'm still a little confused on this one. Not confused... Just uncertain. I feel like these chapters left me with so many questions (some of which I'd like to think are "good question" questions), but I just feel like I have so few answers. 

#1: Technology (Sort Of) Change(d Me)

For my technology change, I decided to only use my phone for necessities/completely personal use and exclusively phone calls. For two weeks, I only used my phone to check the time, find directions, play music, set alarms, take pictures, and talk on the phone. I didn't use Instagram or Snapchat at all (I don't have a Twitter), I didn't use Facebook on my phone, I didn't play any games, check my email on my phone, or use an Internet browser on my phone at all. I also decided not to use Netflix entirely (phone or computer) for two weeks as well.

I loved it and I hated it. I felt restricted in my inability to text people whenever I wanted (especially my boyfriend), less connected to as many people as I used to in my refusal to engage with multiple social media platforms, and often bored at times where I was waiting for someone/something or idly sitting in my room. On the flip side, I realized how attached I was to technology and how often I used it, and it was liberating to feel independent of it. I also realized how much I could miss out on by being on my phone all the time when spending time with friends or family--usually by observing how often THEY were on their phones while I was telling a story or sharing something personal.

But you probably knew that, right? In fact, you'll probably see the same thing iterated 20-something different times and in different ways, save for one or two students. Because that's the thing about this assignment--we all hate how inextricably tied we are to technology, yet we need it to function in the modern world. I mean, the fact that this assignment is an online blog is proof of the latter.

The reason I say this technology change was enlightening but a little sad is because despite the mostly positive experience I had with it and the lessons I learned about being present with others, I still struggle with continuing it even SLIGHTLY beyond my planned "end" date. Like... This blog post is taking FOREVER to write. I keep checking my email/Facebook/Instagram/bank account (why?)/Snapchat, texting my boyfriend, looking through my calendar (again, why?), etc. while I'm writing, and I have to keep rereading parts because I'm not sure where my train of thought had left off. Isn't that sad? That AS I'M CURRENTLY WRITING about how liberating it was/is to be free of technology, I'm going right back to almost being willingly enslaved by it...

I guess that's what Clark means by "natural-born cyborgs..." Gah. I hate it. In his chapter "What Are We?," he talks about the Third Hand, this robotic arm you attach to your own body and control like... Well. A third hand. But he quotes a philosopher, Daniel Dennett, who says, regarding identity, "I am the sum total of the parts I control directly" (130). Clark then goes on to talk about how the Third Hand, then, becomes a part of the user's identity insofar as it is being directly controlled by the user...

Are our technologies part of our identities? I mean yes, there's so much that's a part of our identities... But to what extent? They're not part of the us the same way a Third Hand is, but we certainly act like they are. Almost everyone my age knows their phone like the back of their hand (ha ha), and as majors like computer science get more and more popular, the same is slowly becoming true of computers as well. But it seems weird to say that technologies are part of our identities because I don't appreciate technology for what it inherently is, but for what it allows me to do.

I would certainly say that my friends and family (and professors) are part of my identity, but I am able to have better (maybe) relationships with them because of technology. Is technology part of my identity the same way parts of these relationships are? Because if I didn't have particular technologies in my life (e.g. iPhone, Skype/FaceTime, computer messaging, etc.), then I wouldn't be able to contact any of these people nearly as often as I could/do now. I know certainly my relationship has shaped my identity, but I couldn't have had it without owning a cell phone. Are my technologies only part of my identity insofar as they enable me? And disable me?

I feel weird about that. I don't like feeling like something artificial that I have the-most-but-not-entire control over (e.g. only I know the passcode, but if its battery dies on me, then I'm S.O.L.) is part of what makes me "me."

But I guess that's Slack & Wise's "distributed self," right (208)? That I'm just part of a larger assemblage, and maybe I'm at the center of my own little articulation, but everything that branches outside of me is the center of its own little articulation. And part of the assemblage that I'm connected to is the technology I use and the people I can contact with it. S & W also talk about Heidegger's notion of "transparent equipment," or technologies that we we don't notice anymore because we've become so skilled at them (which is where I'm guessing Clark took his notion of "transparent" vs. "opaque" technologies). Is that what my phone is? A transparent aspect of the assemblage I am connected to that constitutes who I am? Is this just dovetailing, like Clark talks about in "Cyborgs Unplugged" (28), and that S & W end up quoting in their chapter on Identity (211)? Is this just a natural offloading of skill/ability and that's okay because human identity, not just mine, is an identity that engages in that?

Maybe it's not a bad kind of weird... Just a weird kind of weird. I don't know. I'm still resistant to it. Maybe I'm just a huge Luddite waiting for Bernie to bring the Revolution, who knows.