Our Communication May Destroy Us
Vannevar Bush’s “As We May Think” is an interesting take on the future of technology, written a few generations ago. In it, Bush explains his apprehensiveness for the efforts that scientists of the day had put into war and destruction. Bush believes that their efforts would better serve humanity if they were toward a focus to make knowledge more accessible and collective. His antidote to war and destruction was to make a collective memory for the human body. Underlying this technological end, I believe, was the hope that with this knowledge the humans in the decision making positions would choose constructive rather than destructive paths. While much of the technology that Bush describes as being his desires and dreams for science have been reached in our current age, we as a society have not shown much advancement in how this technology has aided international relations and communications on a global scale.
The backdrop of Bush’s writing is the dawn of the nuclear age, culminating in the dropping of the atomic bombs over Japan. His mission in his essay is to dream of the ways that technology can advance the ideals of humankind. Many of the technological tools he dreamt of have indeed come into existence. The microfiche of earlier decades that once preserved various pieces of history on film is one example. Storage servers and the cloud are more modern examples of how we use technology to add to our memory; to be able not to forget.
While we as a technologically advanced society and nation can say that we have reached some level of Bush’s dreams for capturing memorable moments, the use of this information to help form and guide the human conscience remains largely underdeveloped. The concept that we as a people, the human race, are still not hitting the surface of our potential is a parallel theme found in Douglas Rushkoff’s writings in Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. In this piece, Rushkoff explains that if we as people don’t understand the technology that we’re using, it will eventually use us. The technology that we believe we are manipulating to meet our needs will actually be manipulating how we live our daily lives. One example of this can be found by looking at how long it took for political leaders to finally communicate regarding nuclear weapons as the world was frozen in a Cold War that lasted about fifty years. In our present age, could it be that old political country boundaries are being replaced by those who know how to use the Internet and computer to their advantage and those who do not? It could be argued that new technological devices of which most people know very little about, have replaced the prowess of nuclear weapons. What is scarier than the idea of that possibility is the fact that very few people in power will accept it and take the initiative to better understand what they’re using.
Rushkoff does see a divide in people. Most people who use computers and other devices simply focus on the material aspects such as the pretty designs and easy-to-use interfaces. Very few people fully understand the codings and inner workings of these machines and because of that, he states that they fall victim to the very devices they believe they are manipulating.
People continue to adjust to whatever is thrown at them without taking the time to fully understand how these mediums are affecting them and their daily lives. Rushkoff outlines ten useful principles that places the user in charge. With these principles, Rushkoff gives the examiner of Bush’s collective history a platform to organize, categorize and act upon the information presented. Some of Rushkoff ‘s principles are pretty basic. What can be learned locally, or learned from the local source, interpersonal relationships and contact, are more important than the actual content on the web. Rushkoff is blatantly stating that people utilizing these technologies must use their minds to know the sources of information or what is advancing the information that they are taking in. These are just a few of his commands to those who are using the Internet or scrolling the web.
While Bush speaks to knowledge capacity and use, this same issue can be applied to communication in general. How did people once pass information down from generation to generation? They communicated every day and even now we have proof of what was spoken and said so many years ago. From cave paintings to oral history to writing, humans have found a way to share themselves and their combined knowledge just fine for hundreds and hundreds of years. Communicating personal messages has not changed but what has changed is the method in which this is done in. Oral communication can be manipulated through multiple ways. Some of which include face to face communication, over a phone, spoken through a microphone, recorded for later broadcasting or listening, sent over radio or television airwaves and even heard through a computer. While many people will hardly think twice about which medium they use to communicate with another person, these modes are all incredibly different and literally shift the message that that person is trying to get across, whether they realize it or not. When it is broken down as such, this idea truly sums up what Rushkoff is saying and why it is so important that people understand the various technologies that they are utilizing.
It is noticeable that generation X has utilized newer forms of communication such as texting or email much more than previous generations which relied more on phone calls or better, face-to-face communication, something Rushkoff would not be in favor of according to one of his commands. What is interesting is that even though people often complain about conversations over text as being easy to misunderstand or misinterpret, people continue to utilize this form of dialogue because it is easier and more convenient than expressing feelings in person. A text can be sent from virtually anywhere at any time with little thought or confrontation. What is often overlooked is that sending words via text literally changes the message and the significance of it. Because of this it is no longer the message of the sender that is being read by the receiver, but also in part, the message of the medium by which it was sent.Texting clearly sends a message of either urgency or insignificance, which is not always what is intended. The idea that what people believe they are intending and what they are actually doing with these technologies connects Bush’s beliefs that we are not utilizing our knowledge to its full potential. We’re resting under the cusp for our own convenience, whether that be texting because it is easier or using these technologies for destruction and satisfaction, rather than shared communication and knowledge.
Texting is an excellent example of how modern technology can control or rule over a person instead of the person having the control over the technology. Without the framework of the commands, the text message stands on its own and may not convey the true message that the sender intended on sharing. Ideas can then be condensed or construed and taken out of context.The interpreter of the message has to make some basic assumptions about the message and the person sending the message in order for true communication to occur. This is not what Bush had in mind when he dreamt of a shared knowledge. What readers could benefit from in Bush’s piece is the vision that communication and knowledge can and hopefully one day will be available to all by a means of linking different paths together and creating a more balanced platform for ideas; one that isn’t broken as the scientists were applying it at the time. Many inventions have come from the dreams that Bush elaborated upon using the term, “memex,” that he coined as being a kind of memory machine that could make knowledge more accessible and widespread to everyone. Everything from the Internet to online encyclopedias has served as tangible examples of the sharable platform for ideas that society should work toward.
It is this platform that could potentially assist people in better understanding the devices they use and in turn, the new world that we live in, which in hindsight, really isn’t far off from that of Bush’s. This can only be possible however, if people take the initiative to better understand this sharable platform, as Rushkoff explains. This is why, in reviewing and understanding these collective memories, a discipline is required by the user. What is needed in conjunction with both men’s theories is the human heart that directs scientific, political and humanitarian efforts to focus on the ability of the world to gain for the good of all, based on the stored and shared knowledge of everyone who has come before, rather than a focus on how to control and destroy as Bush feared was happening then and has continued to happen into our generation now.
