What is Progress?

Over the past couple of days, the question that my group (Jack, Charlie, and I) explored was, “What is progress?” Sure, it seems like a fairly obvious answer, but taking a closer look reveals that our technological advances have gone forward and brought other things backwards at the same time.  After reading a short article by Claire Porter, a Technology Editor, one of the most catching things I found was how technologies “forward progress” mainly connects to the efficiency.  The more we as humans can get done, the more we can progress individually and holistically.  But in her article, Five ways technology has failed us, she notes that we spend countless hours on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media.  Therefore, this extra time that we have, thanks to our technology, is being used for… well… more technology.  The quality and quantity of our human interaction is declining, although at the same time our interaction in general is exploding.  We can now communicate globally within a few seconds.  So, the question comes back around again, is this progress or are humans taking a step backwards?

                Another common argument is that technology already rules humans.  Some believe that we have contributed so much time and energy to the growth of technology that it now has past humans.  This statement isn’t even hard to understand because when you think about it, technology dominates us.  We drive cars nearly every day, we use our phones every day, majority of our homework we do on our computers… that’s right, every day.  It seems as if we don’t have the will power to put our technology away and enjoy the natural moments in our everyday life.  That goes for once in a life time events as well. As Porter states in her article, “If it isn’t Instagram it’s YouTube, if it isn’t Facebook it’s Twitter. We’re all blogging and posting and uploading, but how many of us are actually living?” In this day and age this question has become more prevalent than ever.  If I had to guess I’d say a majority of us spend much more times on our phones or computers than we do with nature, or even each other.  This is ultimately why it becomes difficult to define our technological progress as good so far.  Every step forward with phones and tablets seems to have a parallel step backwards, and in that sense there’s no progress at all.

                For our group project my title was, “The Middle Man.” To put it simply, Charlie was Pro Nature and Jack was Pro Technology and the goal for them was to persuade me into picking one over the other.  Throughout this process the ideas of progression and regression appear as Charlie and Jack try to counter each other and I try to figure out which side holds a better argument.  Overall I thought our idea was creative and we were able to explore the question quite well, but in order to make this project better, I think it would have helped to not do it during the time of finals.  Also if we had more time we might have been able to rap our lines to a beat which would make it more fun (and challenging).

Link to the article I foud: http://www.news.com.au/technology/gadgets/five-ways-technology-has-failed-us/story-fnda1lbo-1226652142627 

Chris McCandless

After watching a few videos on Chris McCandless, the main character from Into the Wild, I noticed that there are multiple views on Chris’ actions and intentions during his trip to Alaska.  In the first video I watched, “Things you may not know about Chris McCandless,” Will Forsberg speaks about the destruction of the cabin located not too far away from the bus that McCandless was staying in.  In the book it mentions that someone with knowledge on bear destruction claimed that it could have been a bear, but there were other things that led them to believing it was Chris.  Will Forsberg has a different opinion though.  He claims that it had to be Chris due to things such as the dissemblance of the stove which yielded no destruction.  Throughout the book, all of the mysteries of Chris are portrayed in a fashion that doesn’t make Chris seem like a bad person, but at the same time they allow you to have your own opinion which may be that he is.  The difference in this video comes easily because Forsberg claims that it had to be Chris’ that caused the destruction in the cabin.

                The next video that I looked into was called, “Chris McCandless’ youth and student years.”  This video provided much more detailed and accurate information considering Chris’ roommate from his freshman year in Emory was able to give lots of valuable insight as to who Chris was.  The information in this video completely avoids any blame on Chris’ actions unlike the first video, instead the viewer gets historical background on what might have led Chris to do what he did.  Along with Chris’ roommate, the person that made the video also had a chance to interview Chris’ track coach throughout high school.  He recalls Chris as a very good runner and athletic kid, but at the same time had signs of a “quirky” kid who had a mind of his own.  Personally, I believe that these background descriptions give people who are interested in the story a stronger opinion on the gray areas of Chris’ journey. 

                Finally, the third and final video I watched was an interview of Billie McCandless, mother of Chris, at the spot of his death.  I believe this final viewpoint gives the truest feedback considering Chris was raised by his mother, therefore inferring that she would have the most knowledge about him.  Billie explains an unusual part of Chris that we don’t see much of in the book.  Billie talks about a trip with herself and Chris and she states, “Chris learned how to appreciate being with people, happiness is best when shared.” This seems shocking to ones who may have just read this book because besides his few jobs throughout the west, Chris couldn’t stand being around people for too long, yet his mother knows that isn’t completely true.  A little while later in the interview she continues on the topic and says that a big part of Chris’ downfall was probably the fact that he had no one to share this happiness with.  Out in the wild you can see some absolutely amazing things, but with no one there to see it as well, your story becomes less interesting.  Overall, these three YouTube videos provided some new and different insight on Chris McCandless and his journey into the wild of Alaska, where he ultimately found his resting place.

Video Triptychs

 
In my three vines I explored the differences and advantages to nature and technology. My first vine brings up a contradiction because our vines were supposed to be based on nature in some way, yet in order to record this nature we use technology. Sure this allows for creativity and cool experiences for this class, but at the same time, nature can't be enjoyed to its fullest if technology is still in use. After shooting my next vine, I walked to my car, another source of technology. Realizing how cold it had gotten throughout the day, I saw this as a perfect example for my next vine. Inside my car I was surrounded by a comfortable 70 degree feel, but currently outside it was only 40 degrees. This vine proves that our current technology can provide comfort as well as convenience in times of need. Clearly if you're not dressed appropriately, technology can provide comfort considering cold weather isn't something we would consider comfortable. As for my last vine, I had a plan to go longboarding while recording the vine, but then it began to rain really hard so instead I figured this could be another example in which technology is convenient. Sitting in a car completely protects you from getting wet in the rain, once again providing more comfort.

Our Success is Our Failure

To start out, Ishmael was a book that grew on me slowly.  I began the book skimming and finding myself very bored page after page, but discussions in the classroom, as well as deeper topics in the book eventually intrigued me.  Although, at times this book confused me, I’m glad I had the chance to read such an interesting and eye opening novel.

As we all know, Ishmael didn’t leave us with any particular answer which causes frustration for some readers, I understand.  But at the same time, I think this cliffhanger allows for a better discussion and more loose ends to play with. Is that really all Ishmael had to teach? Or was he just saying that because he knew his time to pass was coming? How do we go about solving the destruction of the Earth that we, the Takers, have put upon it?  I ultimately believe that Quinn left the book so open ended on purpose because you strive to keep finding “the answer.”

In terms of the arguments presented by Ishmael, I found myself most interested in the Tree of Knowledge.  

As we discussed in one of our final wrap-ups of the novel, the biblical representation of the tree shows how humans were a failure and we’ve been a failure all the way from the beginning (Adam and Eve), but Ishmael takes a different spin on it.  Instead of deeming us a failure, Ishmael portrays humans’ successful failure through an interpretation of the tree analogy.  The idea that the tree led us as humans to further knowledge, such as storing the food to ultimately beat the limits of life on Earth, shows the success we withhold.  When looking at the natural resources on Earth as well as things such as climate change, it’s visible that our success was ultimately a failure.

But how did humans reach this advanced stage of successful failure that we are at today? Well, it’s simple.  As Ishmael lays out in the novel, as tillers of the soil, humans discovered the storing and growing of food that could lead to a healthier, more sustainable life.  With this eventually came the agricultural revolution, and this event ultimately brought us to the stage of technological advancements beyond belief, also referred to as the Information Age.

The interest in the Tree of Knowledge ultimately brought me to an extensive writing by Tamar Frankiel.  Throughout the article Frankiel brings up ideas that agree, as well as disagree with Ishmael’s argument.  Right in the first paragraph Frankiel states, “our deepest happiness is also a path to truth and goodness,” but from Ishmael’s argument this quote isn’t necessarily true.  “Our deepest happiness,” being surviving and beating Earth’s limits, doesn’t show human’s goodness because ultimately that action is unnatural considering the limits were broken.  And once these limitations were broken, human’s act of goodness was not so good for the Earth.  Goodness also ties along with the Good and Evil of the tree and the failure of the test to not eat from the tree.  This guided my thoughts back to the discussion we had in class about how God’s punishments weren’t actually all that evil, but instead were things that are common today (man works, woman caretaker).  Looking at the biblical argument versus Ishmael’s interpretation, I think the telepathic gorilla knows what he is talking about.  Either way, I see human’s path as a failure, but the idea that we stored food (Ishmael’s argument) was the first stepping stone into creating the world into what it has become today.

Link to Tamar Frankiel's article: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2568/jewish/The-Tree-of-Knowledge.htm 

I think the most interesting idea that our class came across during discussion was the question of, is technology taking over humanity? Clearly at the rate technology has been expanding and advancing it becomes easier to communicate with individuals without actually being next to them and having a face to face conversation.  The concept of using social media as a means of communication shows possible signs that we, as communities and as a population, are partially destroying humanity.  Face to face conversation has become much less important considering a person could just pick up their smart phone and message an individual within seconds.  Obviously, social media has helped us in this way by being much more efficient, but at the same time humans shouldn’t lose site in having meaningful, non-technology based conversations.  When I searched for an outside source to relate with, I found an article that did just that.  Melissa Nilles, author of this article (attached below), “Technology is Destroying Human Interaction,” provides good points of how the meaningfulness of a face to face interaction is and has been declining.  In the article, Nilles explains that in order to preserve humanity we should use FaceTime more because the actual vision of someone’s face while talking to them is so important in understanding their character.  She also mentions that it’s hard to keep up with friends so instead of adding tons of people on Facebook in order to get a high number of friends, the goal should be to have a lower number of friends, but keep in touch more often, therefore furthering the relationships between one another.  This comment brings up my favorite quote throughout her article, “We need to start prizing the meaning of quality in our connections, not sheer quantity,”  meaning that instead of having a ton of friends that are contacted every once in awhile, humans need to make strong connections or people they can call their best friends forever.  Beyond this idea, Mr. Wensman began to discuss during our class on 1/22, that there may be a point in time when technology, whether it be computers or robots, passes the intelligence of humans.  Obviously being inferior to technology seems a little frightening to most people as of right now.  Almost all throughout humanity up to present day, humans have ruled the world.  Our sophisticated minds have allowed us to build this world into something it never could have been if we weren’t here, but now our dominance could quite possibly be falling into the hands of technology.  We all know how strong and amazing technology is now… Imagine 50 years from now, who knows what the world will be like? 

ARTICLE (OUTSIDE SOURCE): 

http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/01/technology-is-destroying-the-quality-of-human-interaction