Week 3

In his lecture “Rush: Adrenaline, Stress, and Modernist Velocity,” Enda Duffy discusses the development and transformation of human energy. His talk focused on two pivotal events as points of reference: 1) the full mapping of the Earth (which implied the concept of limited global space), and 2) the discovery of the speed of light (which inherently acts as a universal maximum and therefore restriction.)

It was at that first human realization that constant energy towards an expanding space necessarily became increasing energy within a fixed space. It was at the second that what Duffy calls “finite geo-space” was also matched with the concept of limited time. This is when I think his concept of human energy, now with dual restrictions, must increase triple-fold in a new direction: digitally.

Tying together Davidson and Goldberg’s “The Future of Thinking” and Wendy Chun’s “Habits of Leaking, Politics of Forgiving,” this redirection of human energy has manifested in two ways: through learning and through leaking.

Davison and Goldberg argue that the expansion of digital technologies has dynamically increased access to information and community collaboration — thus greatly encouraging self learning. I personally see learning as a gaining of energy, of self, of knowledge and skills that, in the digital age, is now increasingly accessible and individually doable.

In contrast, Chun argues that our now pervasive digital network directly correlates with a breeching of private information — that technology has enabled our qualities, interests, and personas to metaphorically leak out of ourselves into a virtual world where they are subject to the whims of any other person with access to the internet. It’s in this way that we lose energy. We lose parts of our private selves each time a photo is posted on Facebook or a thought is posted to Twitter.

While the simultaneity of learning(/gaining) and leaking(/losing) may seem contradictory at first, it’s important to recognize that they can be happen simultaneously — the constancy of human energy may even rely on this loop of gain and loss. The sense of “self” in the technological context not only centers on Duffy’s concept of human energy but also necessitates its transfer and flow between communities via Chun’s leaking and Davidson and Goldberg’s revolutionized learning. Now I’m just wondering if this indirect “exchange” of values is a fair one. (And if not, if there’s anything we can really do about that.)