Talk And Tech

Welcome! My name is Emma, and this blog was created to compile a digital scrapbook about tech and comm for a college course. I’ll be posting links to articles, videos, and other media about tech and sharing my views about what I think new tech will mean for human communication.

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How Black tech entrepreneurs are tackling health care's race gap

Determined to improve the way doctors connect with their patients, a new wave of innovators are using technology to match people of color wi

I want to close this journal with a more hopeful picture of the future than has been the typical trend. This article introduces us to four up-and-coming tech entrepreneurs and their health care apps. Each of them is a POC, and each recognized a gap in the care they were receiving as POC. They wanted to close that gap, and have turned to technology to help them do so.

This is the sort of thing that Wajcman described, in her closing chapter, that could help address some of the current issues within the field of technology. As it stands, tech giants are dominated by white men whose ideas and innovations typically uphold the same old status quo that has always been harmful to minorities. These four entrepreneurs are a step in the right direction, and hopefully, a signal that the field is changing.

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TikTok

This video, posted for “No nuance November”, compares the use of credit scores in the US to China’s social credit system. Although this is posted without nuance, and may not be strictly true, the points that the poster makes about how people with low credit scores are unable to do certain things because of their score rings true. Some would say that it’s different because people with low credit scores “earned” their score, but as Benjamin’s book demonstrates in her argument against positive eugenics, a lot of things that we deem as individual failures/issues/defects in the US are often just symptoms of the systemic inequality that is rampant in our society. While this video may just be a quick take, it is certainly thought provoking.

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TikTok

I chose to include this video, not because it shows off any real tech innovation, but because it really shows the harried feeling that many women have. In her book, Wajcman addresses the uneven way in which women are affected by acceleration culture. Although they have joined the work force, on the whole, they still maintain their traditional role as predominant caregiver to children and caretaker of the home. Even their “leisure” time is less leisurely than men’s, as they often have to take on multiple tasks in the process of it. This video exemplifies the harried feeling that many women have as a result of the demands on their time and attention.

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https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8xtdcSx/

TikTok

This video was posted to tiktok in response to comments the poster had gotten about making algorithms that could “breed” out certain genetic diseases. Just as Benjamin does in her book, they point out that algorithms can only do what we program them to. They use an example of a program picking up a t-shirt with a specified phrase on it when it was meant to be finding a license plate. While they don’t say so in as many words, the root of their argument seems to be that technologies are limited by the societal norms and ideals of the people that birth them, just as all of our authors have demonstrated this semester.

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Americans compete with automated bots for best deals this holiday season: "It's not a good thing for society"

Retail experts say a large share of online buying is being done by automated bots — software designed to scoop up huge amounts of popular it

This article covers the phenomenon of automated bots, and the impact that they have on the market. They scour the Internet for certain popular products, automatically buy them all up, and then whoever has employed the bot re-sells the items at a steep mark-up in, order to generate profit. This issue is one that has yet to have a regulatory crackdown, and is yet another example of how the tech savvy use technology to exploit the system.

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Twitter will take down pictures of people posted without their permission.

The company said the policy was consistent with privacy laws in the European Union and elsewhere.

This article covers Twitter’s new policy of taking down pictures of people posted without their permission online. While some criticized the ability to actual enforce this policy, this seems like a step in the right direction towards Internet privacy. The platform acknowledges the concern, but does state that this policy is similar to EU Internet policies. 

This push towards more regulation reminds me of a similar push that took place in the 20th century surrounding wireless technologies. Privacy has been a major and enduring concern since the dawn of communications technologies. That it still is a major concern shows that we are still negotiating our relationship to technology. 

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Apple Sues Israeli Spyware Maker, Seeking to Block Its Access to iPhones

Apple accused NSO Group, the Israeli surveillance company, of “flagrant” violations of its software, as well as federal and state laws.

This article announces the lawsuit that Apple has filed against NSO, an Israeli Spyware Maker, now infamous for its selling of programs to governments which then abuse spyware to spy on political dissidents, activists, journalists, and others. Apple’s suit comes on the heels of a similar lawsuit that Facebook filed against NSO, and some experts say that it is a step in the right direction towards dealing with spyware. However, experts also agree that major steps still need to be taken by governments in regulating spyware companies. 

The issue of spyware is one of particular interest for me. Although none of our authors directly mentioned it, I think it is one of the more insidious things to come out of the Internet age. Concerns for privacy have dogged technological innovations since the early 20th century, as Marvin demonstrates in her book, but spyware is that fear made reality. While other technologies have infringed on personal privacy, spyware makes nothing private, and allows interested parties access to everything on a device. For something as personal and ubiquitous as a smartphone, this is truly troubling.  

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Space Pagans and Smartphone Witches: Where Tech Meets Mysticism

The internet allows us to discover, select and combine the spiritual traditions that suit us best. In a new exhibition, artists are exploring the connections between ancient beliefs and futuristic systems.

This article details the unveiling of an exhibit called  “Technoshamanism” in an art installation in Germany, and relates it to the rising popularity of technology based spirituality online. 

This phenomenon reminds me of Carolyn Marvin’s exploration of 20th century attitudes towards electricity and the emerging technologies associated with it. In the early days of electricity, many laypeople had a more spiritual view of technology - seeing it as an extension of the natural world, and wondering how harnessing it might impact the environment. The experts too, in their own cynical way, capitalized on the perception that electricity was spiritual by treating (read tricking) laypeople with seances and demonstrations that presented it as such. 

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This clip, from the 1997 film Gattaca, explores the concept of “geneoism” or genetics based discrimination. In this fictional future, your life is determined by your DNA. This is a play on the concept of eugenics.

This relates back to two points found within Benjamin’s book. First, and most obviously, it relates to a relatively new form of eugenics that is rising in popularity, positive eugenics. Positive eugenics are less obviously unethical as the classic form of eugenics, but that simply serves to make them more insidious. Positive eugenics is selectively breeding for the “best” traits, a la Gattaca. Another important aspect from Benjamin’s book that this clip features, is the concept that “black people live in the future.” While Gattaca imagines the concept of positive eugenics as a nightmare for the white guy protagonist played by Ethan Hawke. It is already negatively impacting POC. As the movie later plays out, genetics are a very unreliable test of potential. More often than not, circumstances are what determines achievement. That our society typically places POC in worse circumstances, therefore affecting their ability to achieve standards determined by the white elite, seems not to be considered in discussions of positive eugenics.

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Pinterest agrees to spend $50 million on reforms to resolve discrimination allegations.

Shareholders had accused Pinterest’s board of directors of failing to respond to a pervasive culture of discrimination and retaliation against women and people of color.

This article is about Pinterest’s move towards reforms after it’s recent discrimination allegations. The company had already paid out over $20 million last year to resolve a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit. These reforms are a step in the right direction, but they highlight a pervasive problem with tech - it’s insular nature, and lack of diversity. 

This is a problem that Benjamin discussed in great detail in her book. One thing that Benjamin specifically highlighted was the way in which these sorts of discrimination could be built into corporate culture, thanks to discriminatory hiring software. Although the allegations of retaliatory actions and discrimination of minority employees have little to do with coding and much more to do with social norms, hiring softwares are made by those who are conditioned and complicit with those norms, and their software reflects them. 

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Just How Optimized Can Your Life Be?

An app seeks the outermost limits of productivity.

This article looks at our relationship with productivity, specifically through the lens of optimization and productivity app, Blinkist. Blinkist promises to get to the meat of non-fiction books, mostly about productivity and time-optimization, and deliver bite-size summaries, or Blinks, about the content of those books. The author, Rosa Lyster, points out the obvious flaws in this idea - How can one truly get anything meaningful from a short summation of a book? That this is a flawed idea is obvious, but it is a nice representation of what Wajcman calls our acceleration society. 

According to Wajcman, thanks to our acceleration society, we are constantly feeling harried, and pressed to pack more and more activity into the same amount of time. She brings up the changing of standards within society, the rise of women in the workplace, and the rapid, wasteful push for new tech as reasons for this acceleration. This article seems to demonstrate the truth in her argument. 

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The Best Tech Gifts That Aren’t Gadgets

Supply-chain disruptions may make it tough to buy devices, but the most thoughtful presents were never tangible to begin with.

This article is a rather light-hearted turn away from the fare when reading about tech in the pandemic. While it hints at the larger issues currently going on in the world, namely supply-chain issues and shortages, it’s main focus is on tech adjacent gifts that may be good ideas this holiday season. While this article has little to do with the actual texts we are reading this class, I think it is important to include in this journal because it is a good example of how we culturally think about tech. This article suggests we move away from rapid replacement, and instead focus on more sustainable tech gifts, especially in wake of the issues surrounding the pandemic. 

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‘Saturday Night Live’ Weighs In on the Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

This weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Simu Liu, also included some helpful Thanksgiving tips and, uh, Dog Head Man.

This article goes over some of the sketches from this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Simu Liu. SNL is a sort of barometer for pop culture, and typically doesn’t shy away from satirizing current events. As part of this, they have a sketch news segment and this week reported the verdict and had one character play that they were surprised, and the other admit that they were not. They satirized the judge’s preferential treatment of Rittenhouse, as well as the verdict, and the situation itself. While this has little to do with a new technology, SNL’s skits exemplify the impact that communication technologies have had on our culture. While Marvin does not get to technologies like TV and the Radio in her exploration of the 20th century response and relationship with emerging technologies, they are important aspects of our technological culture which have culminated in skits like these.

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Discord Backs Off of Crypto After Entire Internet Yells at CEO

When the CEO of the gaming-focused chat platform teased crypto integration this week, the response was swift and brutal.

This article details the backlash that Discord’s CEO faced after teasing NFT integration on the platform with a screenshot. There is a fairly clear divide on the Internet - those who support NFT’s, Cryptocurrencies, and the next phase of the Internet (web3), and those who are vocally against them. For the naysayers cryptocurrencies and NFT’s seem little more than an elaborate grift, and quite a few scams have already been publicized. As the article’s ending suggests, the true impact of cryptocurrencies on the Internet, and our lives, remains to be seen. This discussion reminds me of the back and forth between the 20th century electricians (experts) and the laymen. Marvin paints a picture of an insular group, not above misleading the public in order to hold some sort of supremacy over them, and a similar picture seems to be resolving before our very eyes. Perhaps we, the layman, are woefully wrong about our misgivings towards cryptocurrencies, but the so-called experts have done little to enlighten us in any meaningful way.

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Random People Buying the Constitution as a Meme Is the Future of Everything

Buying the Constitution is about a lot more than buying the Constitution. Is that a good thing?

This article describes a DAO’s, that is Democratic Autonomous Organization, bid to purchase an NFT of the US Constitution. They aim to use crowdsourcing to outbid billionaires, and anyone who contributes to the fund gets tokens which they can use to vote on certain matters. Spokespeople of ConstitutionDAO, aptly named as they are gunning for the Constitution, tout this as the next step in the Internet’s evolution, or web3 as they call it. The author however makes note of how small a subsection of the population is actually involved in this, and how they are affluent and likely not plagued by the financial realities of the average American. This bid, and the elitism that goes with it, reminds me of Wajcman’s discussion on the slow living movement and it’s inherently inequitable nature. She cites this movement’s emphasis in tradition and expensive nature as barriers to equality for both those who are not wealthy, and often women. Although the slow living movement aims to make time spent more pleasurable and languorous, it’s emphasis on tradition often leaves women with more work than they already have. In a similar way, this bid for the Constitution seems to assure at least some measure of political efficacy, for those who can afford the entry fee.

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'Financial Colonialism': A Bitcoin Mine in Navajo Nation Flares Tensions

A Bitcoin mine run by a Canadian company is the newest power customer in Navajo Nation, where many residents live without basic utilities.

In this article, Vice News covers a Bitcoin Mine on land in the Navajo Nation that uses enough electricity to power over 19,000 homes, while many indigenous people live without running water or electricity in their homes. The Canadian company that owns and operates the mine says that they are simply buying unused electricity that was being stored in substations, but this defense seems flimsy when you read that they have paid the Navajo Nation less than $110,000 in taxes and other operational costs over the course of 5 years. Meanwhile they reap the benefit of millions of dollars every year with their mining operation. Perhaps if they paid more for the unused energy, they would be in danger of lessening their supply as the community gained the wealth needed to add more infrastructure. This situation serves as a great example of the ways in which technologies uphold existing social patterns. At the end of her book, Wajcman says that despite their rapid evolutions, technologies can be conservative. That certainly seems the case here as this Canadian company keeps up the 400 year tradition of profiting off of the lands and resources of indigenous people in the US.

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Shentel files for Blacksburg franchise; Comcast continuing Christiansburg push

Shentel has filed for a Blacksburg cable franchise as Comcast continues to increase its Christiansburg presence.

This article reports that Shentel is making a move towards breaking into the Blacksburg market, as an internet and cable provider. The article cites increased consumer access to wireless internet, and increased consumer choice as positive outcomes that may rise out of Shentel’s presence. The issues that customers are experiencing with tech monopolies ties back to Wajcman’s assessment of the way technologies are introduced into domestic markets. In her book, she says that domestic products like washing machines, microwaves, and other tech are first created for utilitarian industrial use, and then altered for domestic use. However, these alterations are not always enough, and the technologies can remain impractical for use in the domestic sphere. For this example, a one size fits all plan for cable and wireless Internet is serviceable for businesses, who profit off their use and can afford it. Domestic customers have different budgets and lifestyles that may make the current system of cable monopoly insufficient.