While the Hedgehogs, Foxes and the Internet Filter Debate post directly related to Internet censorship or what has become known as nocleanfeed, I did not seriously link my last post, Revisiting activity systems, to that issue. I kept reading my thesis and realised the next section spoke directly to issues of the filter, learning and change. Transparency of technology involves the ways in which we no longer focus on the technology, but rather on the tasks and processes afforded by technology. That is, the computer fades into the background and becomes a means by which we achieve something else. Read more of Transparency of technology
Posts Tagged ‘censorship’
Hedgehogs, Foxes and the Internet Filter Debate
A recent journal alert led me on a fox and hedgehog chase. I came across a paper called The Hedgehog and the Fox: A Discussion of the Approaches to the Analysis of ICT Reforms in Teacher Education of Larry Cuban and Yrjö Engeström. It’s a bit of a mouthful of a title, but as my interests do lie in the area of ICT reforms and education, I downloaded it and read it. What struck me most was this explanation of the first part of the title.
… Isaiah Berlin (1998) began by quoting Greek poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing” (p. 437). Berlin used these words to describe people as being either like a hedgehog or like a fox. Hedgehogs are those people who pursue one idea thoroughly and who develop an integrated or universal principle. Foxes, on the other hand, are people who pursue many ideas and who seldom stay long with one before trying out another. These people are pluralistic; they move on many levels and draw on a variety of experiences. (p84)
While the paper does describe the reactions to reforms of teacher education using computer technology, the conceptualisation of foxes and hedgehogs lead me to consider other areas where computer technology approaches are dichotomised, namely the Internet Filtering debate we are currently engaged in within Australia.
Read more of Hedgehogs, Foxes and the Internet Filter Debate
Tags: censorship, nocleanfeed, research
What if Children were Adults?
Many years ago, I read Gloria Steinem’s Moving Beyond Words, and my favourite essay from that collection was “What if Freud were Phyllis” (excerpt here). When I read that, I remember laughing at some of the reversals of gender roles and then realising the reality. It was a bit of a wake-up call about some unconscious beliefs I held and how deeply our acceptance of things is. Read more of What if Children were Adults?
Tags: censorship, nocleanfeed, politics
Thinking … now with fewer consequences
I keep coming back to the issue of ‘filtering’ the internet that is most concerning to me. I don’t care so much about morals – everyone has a different set; and I’m not that convinced of the technology – it will improve or not as it always does. What concerns me most is the effect that a filtered feed from all sources will have on us as a society and as individuals within that society.
It’s not so much that Big Brother is watching us 1984-style, it’s that we won’t be able to think our way clear on any issue. It’s not that we will have ‘thoughtcrimes’, it’s that we won’t have thoughts. Our perceptions, our knowledge, our reality will be reduced to whatever it is that we can access. Mindless facebooking, linking stuff, grabbing stuff, accumulating links[1]. It’s like the EPIC thing, the Evolving Personalised Information Construct.
But, where EPIC2014 hints at the commercialisation of the process, the current filtering proposals don’t even give us the option of anything evolving. Anything not appropriate will be filtered, we won’t have any choice.
We’re already seeing people mindlessly buying stuff on the internet, witness the Beijing Ticketing scam[2]. It’s that idea of ‘functional literacy’ in a hyperconnected world. People believe what they want to believe, they read what they want to read. But sometimes there is no thought behind the reading. There is no way for them to fully participate in the business of living. Hence we have people losing thousands of dollars to scammers, and not just any people, but even the tech savvy[3].
The idea that anything bad for us should be filtered, that children should be protected from accidentally realising that maybe, just maybe, their parents have sex, is quite disconcerting. Or is that the point of the filters – children shouldn’t even think that sex is normal[4].
I wonder at what will become of our ability to think when we have a clean feed. Here is your box, think inside it. Outside is bad, very bad.
Perhaps there is a better way.
Tags: censorship, education, learning, nocleanfeed
Moore’s Law and Wetware
Senator Conroy (our dear, dear friend) invoked Moore’s Law with regards to the filtering systems currently available. I haven’t actually heard what he said about it[1], although I’m quite able to comment on just the fact that he did mention it and luckily read the transcript.
Moore’s Law, as depicted by the Wikipedia page linked above “describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware” (emphasis added). In layman’s terms, it is often rendered as “computers get twice as good every two years”. It sounds simple enough, but if you read on, the entry continues:
Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years.
So, we have a physical capacity that is increasing, relating to the hardware. So, surely that can apply to the software running on it? After all, the filter will be software that is run on hardware (which we’ve just established is getting better).
Let’s think about that. We had Windows 1 in 1985, Windows 2 in 1987 (so far, it works), Windows 3 in 1990 (slightly behind schedule), Windows 4 (AKA Windows 95) in 1995 (slipping a bit here), Window 5 (AKA Windows 98) in 1998 (almost back on track), Windows 2000 (and its variations) and Windows XP (in 2001) which together should make 6 and 7, but are probably variations on Windows 5[2]. These two were nearly on schedule according to this mythical Software verstion of Moore’s Law. Then we got Vista … in 2006. Whoops, running a bit behind schedule. The next version coming will be Windows 7 (see, I did mention there was something wrong with the versioning system of Windows) is currently in Beta which means it could be ready for 2009 (still behind MSML – Mythical Software Moore’s Law).
To turn the other cheek, so to speak, Macintosh System Software (Version 1) was released in 1984 (January to be precise), System 2 in 1985 (April, we’re doing pretty well here), System 3 came out in January 1986 (ahead of the ball game here), System 4 was released in 1987 (March – still meeting targets), System 5 was 1987 (no month available) and System 6 in 1988 (unverified on Wikipedia from which all the above are drawn). I’m no expert on all of these systems, but I’ve played with a few. The Wikipedia article suggests there were major updates in Systems 1, 4, 5 and 6 which gives us periods of 3 years, some months, then one year. Following System 6, we had system 7[3] released in 1991, but there was no major update until Mac OS 8[4] in 1997, giving us 6 years, rather than the suggested two. OS 9 was released in 1999 (back to the 2 years), then OS X in 2001 (and a version of that every year or two … Mac users are suckers for the shiney).
So, without even going near the run of the mill application software, we see intermittent development (some coinciding with major developments in the technology – probably related to Moore’s Law) with no pattern emerging. There’s no Moore’s Law for software! We cannot predict when improvements will happen, because as soon as something is done, the chips are all updated and it has to be tested again with new parameters and invariably, the code that runs it, no longer does in the way that was anticipated. So, we can’t even predict when things will change, unlike the physical measurements that have been observed with hardware.
So what about wetware? What’s that you say? What is wetware? Well, that’s our brains. I’m fairly sure there has been some significant improvements in the functioning and capabilities of the human brain, and I’m pretty sure that Moore’s Law does not apply. Although, perhaps it simply applies to the propensity to develop new ideas[5]. Perhaps we will find that Moore’s Law of the Human Psyche will allow our politicians (not mentioning any names, Senator Conroy) to develop a new idea every 2 years. Which would be positive, because we’ve already lived through enough of this filtering crap.
Can we have our new idea early, Senator Conroy?
- I find it too nauseating to watch for too long at once, although the female panelists seemed to be quite the critical thinkers [↩]
- I don’t profess to be a Windows expert, but how many people are? [↩]
- which was on the first Mac I ever bought [↩]
- a system I somehow missed [↩]
- at least in some individuals [↩]
Tags: censorship, nocleanfeed