Technology and Me
Akshansh Chaudhary
September 2018
Abstract
‘Technology and Me’ is a paper presenting my views on the world and the way it is heading based on my recent readings of the books: The Three Body Problem and Collapse of Western Civilization, and viewing of the movies: CitizenFour and Chasing Ice.
In this paper, I have introduced a term I call “Digital Web” with the thought that humans today are caught in a digital web of priorities and responsibilities that they tend to ignore the rising concerns like climate change. Giving reference to my book readings and movie viewings, I foresee a grim future unless we do something about it.
Keywords
CitizenFour, The Collapse of Western Civilization, Chasing Ice, The Three Body Problem, Technology, Climate Change, Realization, Digital, Future, Earth, Monitoring, Digital Web, Viewpoint
I like to think that I stay up to date – I update the apps on my phone and my system, my antivirus updates itself regularly, I am interested to know the latest products announced by Apple, I follow bloggers on YouTube talking about technology trends, I look for the latest trends talking about the future of software and products, and the list continues.
Amid all this, I fail to realize that it is a trap, not because it engages me in stuff I don’t necessarily need to be engaged in, but because it diverts me – it diverts me from the conversations I could have possibly had about the issues around me that get missed in plain sight.
So, who am I? I am today’s generation. I am someone for whom keeping up with the digital world is of more priority than looking up and seeing the bigger picture. I am comfortable in my narrow outlook and do not want to think about the world because there is so much to do that I can never keep up and because I know that are scientists working on global concerns.
This has been my life. My outlook is influenced by the technology around me and my adoption of it. I am caught in a “Digital Web” and can only see the world through this narrow lens.
***
I used to like this, but now it is beginning to scare me. The world is at a risk of maintaining its existence in the future and I am more concerned about updating my phone? How can I be so indifferent to this? Is the world really in danger? What am I missing?
These are some of the questions I had never asked myself until recently.
Consider documentaries like CitizenFour [1]. The film made me realize that we humans are reaching a stage where our every action would be monitored and analyzed. Such invasion of privacy would sometimes be forced on us by the government, and other times be willingly given away through technologies like blockchain. Now that is a major concern for me because I want to restrict what I share with the world and how I share it. It is a problem we are facing today since we accept the information sharing blindly. For instance, most of us tend to “Accept” the Terms and Conditions of any agreement without looking much into it. This same agreement sometimes includes access to our personal information and its sharing. Even being unwilling to do that intentionally, accepting such agreements automatically poses a threat to our privacy. It is interesting to point out that this issue of the digital world seems so large that it overshadows the importance of talks on problems like climate change. Also, it is oddly amusing to think that we are trying to fight against and find solutions for something we invented (technology).
Now climate change is a known concern. It does not matter where you are in the world, you would know that the climate is changing, polar ice caps are melting, and our planet is getting hotter. But, this information has been so passively shared with you that you tend to ignore it. I never thought about it until I read the book, The Collapse of the Western Civilization [2]. The book talks about the reaction of the world to climate change and the helplessness of the scientists in spreading its awareness. Although the details are presented in a fictional form, the book presses on the thought of what the world can do when it decides to avoid solving an impending disaster just because it chooses to prioritize economic development. The book presents a peek into the future of the acts of people of power (governments, institutions, companies, among others) on the topics of climate change. They are almost ignoring the problem just because it is not their immediate concern. What is more disturbing is the account in the book which states that throughout history, governments not only ignored global concerns like climate change but also prevented the scientists from spreading awareness about them. This brings back the idea of being caught in a digital web and believing that economic development is the key to progress and nothing else is more important. Since we have been living in a world which focuses on this ideology, we knew about climate change and its concern but did not prioritize it.
***
The movie, Chasing Ice [3] also talks about the issue of climate change. Narrated through the photographer James Balog, the documentary gives an on-site account of the ice caps melting. Together with a crew, he starts a project called EIS (Extreme Ice Survey) with the idea of recording the melting of polar ice caps (a process called calving). They do that by installing cameras on primary glacier locations of Greenland, Alaska, Iceland, and Montana. The images clicked over a period of 3 years are terrifying. I was numb the moment I saw them. We hear about polar ice caps melting, but, seeing them live through a time-lapse clears the mind of doubts and fills it with concerns. That was a moment of realization for me that something was not right. People must know about this and should act on it.
***
We are proceeding to an end. This is a common thought these days – ice caps will melt, the continents would be submerged in water, temperature rise would be unbearable – earth will eventually be inhabitable. In a situation like this, it is not uncommon for people to explore other options. One of the books by Liu Cixin, The Three Body Problem [4] talks about the same: having seen a world of neglect for the environment, the researchers in China start seeing the invasion as the only hope for saving the earth (restart life on earth). Although the content is primarily fiction, I can imagine such a situation occurring in the foreseeable future. This book by Liu goes even further – the researchers on the Red Coast Base in China communicate with other galaxies (aliens), build virtual reality suits to recreate a possible life on the alien world (called Trisolaris – the world of Three Suns), and detail the mechanism of how “their” world’s invasion would take place through nano-computers called sophons, which would disrupt particle accelerators on earth to stop its scientific progress. The detail with which Liu has portrayed Trisolaris and Trisolarans (the people of Trisolaris) hints the likeliness of a foreseeable future. It is dissatisfying to realize that people in the future would just be waiting for alien species to invade them just because they see a terrible and an unavoidable future for themselves.
***
I am concerned about the future we all are heading. We all saw it coming but are not doing enough to prevent it.
I cannot imagine seeing the world crashing right in front of my eyes. I believe the world must shift its focus from awareness to action – stricter controls, better devices, proper monitoring, global realization –some of the things we all need to do.
While we still have time, I want to do something to maintain sustainability. I plan to create an environment sustainability control device – something that can detect the harm we are causing to the environment in real-time, make a log of it and inform us about the damage we are doing. I believe that this visual feedback integrated through a device would help people control the relentless damage they are doing to the environment. The way I see it: the first step to do the right thing is to stop doing the wrong things.
I do not want to end this thought by saying that it doesn’t matter because in the end we are all gonna die.
It does matter because while we are still alive, we can do something that can delay (if not prevent) that eventuality.
References
[1]. Poitras, L. CITIZENFOUR (2014). Praxis Films. Film. https://citizenfourfilm. com. [2]. Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2014). The collapse of western civilization: A view from the future. Columbia University Press. [3]. Balog, J. (2012). Chasing Ice. National Geographic Documentary. [4]. Marchal, C. (2012). The three-body problem. Elsevier.
Download the Digital Paper
Technology and Me – Akshansh Chaudhary
Note
I wrote this paper as a part of my assignment for the course Creativity and Computation (PGTE 5251) at Parsons School of Design, The New School. The contents mentioned in the text are my views on the world. It was a research project done purely for educational purposes and should be considered outside the purview of copyright claims. I do not intend to infringe the privacy of any individual or entity through the paper.
