On "The Machine Is (Changing) Us"

"In the midst of a fabulous array of historically unprecedented and utterly mind-boggling stimuli... whatever."

This quote applies, historically, to most of history. (While we know the Renaissance as, well, the Renaissance, I'm sure the majority of the bodice-and-jerkin crowd were less interested in the evolution of artistic culture and modern reason than getting through the day without contracting syphilis -- maybe the Internet age will fare so well in history's estimation.) Great leaps in technology are, by definition, unprecedented. Still, here's a fascinating explanation of ennui and narcissism as end-products of one's anonymous existence in a physically disconnected world, especially in the context of daily-emerging technologies that forever alter the landscape of human communications. At least until the next thing comes along.

I'm looking at you, YouTube. Dr. Wesch himself offers the caveat that "over 99% is irrelevant to you," threatening the "negation of all horizons of significance." And here we are again, with me wondering how the internet evolves now from "everyone says anything all the time" to "everyone has something to say and a place to say it." Compared to dumb ol' teevee, the "cultural conversation" offered by the internet has always been multi-directional and chaotically democratic. And I agree wholly with Dr. Wesch's thesis: identity is defined by relations to others; new media allows new ways to relate to others; new media therefore allows new understanding of the self.

But does the internet merely offer the illusion of engagement? As more engage digitally, may individuals become disconnected cognitively as well as physically? Do we respond with the same expressed self-importance facing impotence of the self, despite, or even hastened by, truly open dialogue? Or is it enough? Or will it become something else entirely?

If it leads to dystopia, I prefer both the Orwellian State-controlled truth and Huxley's world of empty pleasures (where the "truth is drowned in irrelevance") to any future where the truth doesn't really matter because of all the zombies or cannibals. (I'm looking at you, "The Road.")