WEBVTT 00:00:00.379 --> 00:00:06.880 ♪[Jazz music]♪ 00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:09.418 So yeah, being one of the first 00:00:09.418 --> 00:00:14.398 net culture or computers in society writers 00:00:14.398 --> 00:00:19.058 was, strategically, a poor move for me. 00:00:19.758 --> 00:00:22.175 And I'm living proof, though, you can still survive it, 00:00:22.175 --> 00:00:26.975 if you can get through it somehow, by answering e-mail more slowly 00:00:29.135 --> 00:00:29.971 It's funny, 00:00:30.421 --> 00:00:33.121 I wrote some notes because I thought I should be responsible, 00:00:33.121 --> 00:00:35.591 because you guys are real computer studies, 00:00:35.591 --> 00:00:38.436 computer science people, as opposed to just, 00:00:38.816 --> 00:00:39.856 you know, 00:00:39.856 --> 00:00:44.786 your average, digitally illiterate audience. 00:00:45.736 --> 00:00:50.060 So I don't really need to make the case - I probably don't - 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:54.380 on why learning something about digital technology is a smart thing, 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:57.331 because you guys have already made that choice. 00:00:58.911 --> 00:01:02.655 But something that occurred to me on the way here, actually, 00:01:02.655 --> 00:01:06.425 that you might not realize as young people 00:01:06.425 --> 00:01:08.984 if you don't mind being called that 00:01:10.804 --> 00:01:13.578 ...is that it's very hard to get 00:01:13.578 --> 00:01:19.458 an accurate sense of the biases of the digital media environment... 00:01:19.458 --> 00:01:23.096 ...when you've been raised inside it. 00:01:23.096 --> 00:01:28.693 In other words, what I want to suggest to you is that 00:01:28.693 --> 00:01:34.913 those of us who are old enough to have experienced and consciously experienced 00:01:34.913 --> 00:01:41.573 the shift from a pre-digital media environment to a digital media environment 00:01:41.573 --> 00:01:43.123 actually 00:01:43.663 --> 00:01:47.463 understand something or sense something or experience something 00:01:47.463 --> 00:01:50.730 about the biases of digital technology 00:01:50.730 --> 00:01:55.610 that is relatively difficult for those of you who have been raised 00:01:55.610 --> 00:01:58.499 with digital technology to get. 00:01:58.499 --> 00:02:02.188 Right now this is the opposite argument I made through most of my career. 00:02:02.188 --> 00:02:06.443 In 1995, I wrote a book called Playing the Future, where I argued that, 00:02:06.443 --> 00:02:08.187 "Don't worry, you grown ups! 00:02:08.187 --> 00:02:10.707 Digital technology is coming and you feel overwhelmed. 00:02:10.707 --> 00:02:15.054 But you guys are digital immigrants whereas kids are digital natives. 00:02:15.054 --> 00:02:18.564 So you're gonna speak the language like an immigrant, they're gonna speak the language like a native. 00:02:18.564 --> 00:02:21.490 You're always going to feel slightly out of place and unsure, 00:02:21.490 --> 00:02:24.190 and every time you have a hypertext link, 00:02:24.190 --> 00:02:27.260 you're gonna be disoriented because we're not used to that, 00:02:27.260 --> 00:02:29.512 where kids are going to experience that very naturally. 00:02:29.512 --> 00:02:33.156 That what looks disjointed to us, will be a natural terrain for them. 00:02:33.156 --> 00:02:37.056 And they will have command, don't worry, the kids are alright." 00:02:37.056 --> 00:02:42.422 But as I've grown older and as I've watched where cyberspace has gone, 00:02:42.422 --> 00:02:45.492 and where our culture has gone, or hasn't, 00:02:46.162 --> 00:02:51.728 I realize that some of my elders were actually more right about this than I was. 00:02:51.728 --> 00:02:53.240 And in reading all the - 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:56.550 finally catching up with who I was supposed to read, 00:02:56.550 --> 00:03:01.021 when I was younger, McCluen and Ong, and all the great media theorists. 00:03:01.021 --> 00:03:05.069 I would read about the digital or the media environments 00:03:05.069 --> 00:03:07.429 and this notion that McCluen had that 00:03:07.429 --> 00:03:12.386 if you ask a fish about water he wouldn't be able to tell you what it is, right? 00:03:12.386 --> 00:03:17.977 Because the fish is swimming in the water. The fish not aware of the water. 00:03:17.977 --> 00:03:20.629 If you ask someone who is raised in a television environment, 00:03:20.629 --> 00:03:22.659 "Oh, what about the impact of television on you?" 00:03:22.659 --> 00:03:24.878 You can't say it because you're living in it. 00:03:24.878 --> 00:03:27.568 You're living in that media environment. 00:03:28.638 --> 00:03:31.716 Likewise, those of us who are living in a digital media environment, 00:03:31.716 --> 00:03:35.556 it's very difficult for us to parse its effect, 00:03:35.556 --> 00:03:38.675 for us to feel what it is 00:03:38.675 --> 00:03:42.276 for us to understand the difference between 00:03:43.406 --> 00:03:45.276 what it is to be a human being 00:03:45.276 --> 00:03:49.572 and what it is to be a digital being. 00:03:50.172 --> 00:03:50.895 And 00:03:53.085 --> 00:03:58.555 being able to parse it, though, being able to begin to look at that 00:03:58.555 --> 00:04:03.210 What Norbert Weinert used to call, 00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:04.510 "the human use of human beings." 00:04:04.510 --> 00:04:07.510 He was one of the first people to talk about cybernetics 00:04:07.510 --> 00:04:10.222 I think he invented the word, actually, back when, cybernetics - 00:04:10.222 --> 00:04:12.652 Even though it got stolen. 00:04:13.132 --> 00:04:17.423 He was really looking at as we develop a computer environment, 00:04:17.423 --> 00:04:19.113 how will we recognize, what is the difference 00:04:19.113 --> 00:04:21.353 between humans and the machines that we're in? 00:04:21.353 --> 00:04:25.403 How will we understand how to create a human, 00:04:25.403 --> 00:04:29.403 or a humanity-encouraging, digital media environment? 00:04:31.394 --> 00:04:36.014 Now the reason why I think this is important is because most of my peers 00:04:36.014 --> 00:04:39.384 strongly disagree with this sentiment 00:04:39.384 --> 00:04:41.954 Most of my peers, and call them the sort of, 00:04:41.954 --> 00:04:44.964 the Negroponte, Kevin Kelley, 00:04:44.964 --> 00:04:48.324 Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson, 00:04:49.074 --> 00:04:54.758 all the way to Ray Kurzwhile on that spectrum, Clay Shirkey. 00:04:54.758 --> 00:04:59.138 There's this sense, and I used to have some of it, 00:05:03.338 --> 00:05:06.268 that's uncomfortably consonant with corporate capitalism. 00:05:06.268 --> 00:05:07.858 But that's another story. 00:04:59.138 --> 00:05:03.338 this sort of letter ripped sense about technology 00:05:07.858 --> 00:05:08.778 That 00:05:09.232 --> 00:05:12.472 human beings are merely one stage 00:05:12.472 --> 00:05:17.232 in information's inevitable evolution towards greater states of complexity. 00:05:17.294 --> 00:05:20.234 Right, and they tell this very compelling story 00:05:20.234 --> 00:05:23.774 about the beginning of time all the way through now. 00:05:23.774 --> 00:05:28.174 That matter has been groping towards greater states of complexity. 00:05:28.174 --> 00:05:33.135 That we had - atoms became molecules and molecules became 00:05:33.135 --> 00:05:37.205 sort of these weird pre-proto-life things which became cells 00:05:37.205 --> 00:05:40.165 and now we have this whole life thing that happened. 00:05:40.165 --> 00:05:41.995 And life got very complex through evolution 00:05:41.995 --> 00:05:43.305 and we had people 00:05:43.305 --> 00:05:45.105 And people built machines, 00:05:45.105 --> 00:05:50.335 and machines are just sort of in that big blue, overtake humanity moment. 00:05:50.547 --> 00:05:51.837 And when they do, 00:05:52.007 --> 00:05:56.539 then machines, our computers, our networks will be the real host 00:05:56.539 --> 00:05:59.009 for the evolution of information 00:05:59.009 --> 00:06:02.173 and we human beings can tend to those machines 00:06:02.173 --> 00:06:04.743 or, at best, upload our consciousness 00:06:04.743 --> 00:06:08.263 and then they will continue that journey for us. 00:06:09.108 --> 00:06:11.988 You know, and each one has a different metaphor for explaining it 00:06:11.988 --> 00:06:14.528 You know, whether it's Kevin talking about 00:06:14.528 --> 00:06:17.759 what technology wants, right? What technology wants, 00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:19.869 like it really wants. 00:06:19.869 --> 00:06:22.728 It's not bias towards something, but it wants something, 00:06:22.728 --> 00:06:24.518 we've made this thing. 00:06:24.518 --> 00:06:27.628 Just as God made people, people made technology, 00:06:27.628 --> 00:06:30.978 and this child will go on wanting something. 00:06:32.117 --> 00:06:35.447 Or Ray Kurzwhile who will talk about the singularity, 00:06:35.447 --> 00:06:40.067 which I'm sure you've all read or heard about, even on, 00:06:40.262 --> 00:06:44.262 if you find out about it in Vice Magazine or anything, at this point 00:06:44.284 --> 00:06:47.204 The idea that technology reaches this point of, 00:06:48.023 --> 00:06:52.023 not self-consciousness or self-awareness necessarily, but it just surpasses us 00:06:52.023 --> 00:06:55.103 It becomes this thing and can keep going. 00:06:56.512 --> 00:07:00.822 It's a...I don't know, it's a... 00:07:01.132 --> 00:07:05.192 for me it's a discomforting view of humanity 00:07:05.192 --> 00:07:08.672 but it's also, I would argue, an incorrect one, you know? 00:07:08.672 --> 00:07:11.672 It's one that is... 00:07:13.042 --> 00:07:18.642 it's one that is the result of living unconsciously in a digital media environment 00:07:19.226 --> 00:07:22.926 It's one where you let the digital media environment dictate 00:07:22.926 --> 00:07:24.736 what you are and how you think about the world 00:07:24.736 --> 00:07:27.876 rather than maintaining some sense of humanity in that. 00:07:27.876 --> 00:07:30.016 So, what's interesting to me 00:07:30.016 --> 00:07:33.916 as I look at the history of computing, which now we have 00:07:33.916 --> 00:07:37.306 and as we look at computers in society, which is a real thing. 00:07:37.306 --> 00:07:40.081 I mean, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, when we taught courses like this, 00:07:40.081 --> 00:07:41.541 it was futurism. 00:07:41.541 --> 00:07:43.531 Computers in Society was a course in, 00:07:43.531 --> 00:07:46.331 "What's it gonna be like someday when people have e-mail?" 00:07:46.331 --> 00:07:48.851 I mean, there were times, and I'm sure you were in those conversations 00:07:48.851 --> 00:07:52.149 when people like me used to go to a cocktail party 00:07:52.149 --> 00:07:55.179 or go to a publisher, or explain to a magazine editor: 00:07:55.179 --> 00:07:57.919 someday people are going to have their own computers 00:07:57.919 --> 00:08:01.429 They are gonna send messages to each other using little text editors 00:08:01.429 --> 00:08:03.449 using, you know, word processors, 00:08:03.449 --> 00:08:05.999 and they would literally laugh us out of the room. 00:08:05.999 --> 00:08:10.699 They did not - it seemed so outrageous, that - or they'd walk around 00:08:10.892 --> 00:08:12.932 No, you're not gonna have to implant chips in people, 00:08:12.932 --> 00:08:15.932 they're gonna walk around with phones that are gonna track them everywhere they go 00:08:15.932 --> 00:08:17.492 they're gonna do this voluntarily 00:08:17.492 --> 00:08:20.492 They're gonna give all their information . No one believed us. 00:08:20.492 --> 00:08:22.252 But, of course that happened. 00:08:22.252 --> 00:08:25.637 But, the thing to me that's interesting about computer history, 00:08:25.637 --> 00:08:29.122 if we're gonna follow it from the history of humanity 00:08:29.122 --> 00:08:31.307 rather than the history of technology, right? 00:08:31.307 --> 00:08:36.302 Let's not worry about paper tape to punch cards to tape to discs 00:08:36.302 --> 00:08:39.132 to hard drives to RAM. 00:08:39.132 --> 00:08:41.322 Let's not worry about machine evolution. 00:08:41.322 --> 00:08:44.292 But you look at the difference in people, right? 00:08:44.292 --> 00:08:50.042 If we look at history as the human story rather than the story of stuff 00:08:51.079 --> 00:08:53.459 then the interesting thing becomes 00:08:53.459 --> 00:09:02.059 the big switch, I think, is the shift from a pre-literate to a literate society. 00:09:02.149 --> 00:09:05.129 When we look at the impact of the printing press. 00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:06.572 Do we talk about it in terms of 00:09:06.572 --> 00:09:10.082 "Oh, look! These rooms filled up with books!" 00:09:10.082 --> 00:09:12.102 No, that's not the part that's interesting. 00:09:12.102 --> 00:09:15.032 The part that is interesting is people learned to read 00:09:15.032 --> 00:09:16.882 and then when they learned to read, 00:09:16.882 --> 00:09:19.962 they had personal interpretations of the Bible, right? 00:09:19.962 --> 00:09:23.372 So we had a Protestant Reformation with people rebelling against the Church 00:09:23.372 --> 00:09:25.192 So we had the idea of "one man, one vote" 00:09:25.192 --> 00:09:26.972 because everyone has their own perspective. 00:09:26.972 --> 00:09:29.142 It coincided with prospective painting. 00:09:29.142 --> 00:09:31.442 It coincided with central banking. 00:09:31.442 --> 00:09:34.092 And all of these other, very... 00:09:35.272 --> 00:09:36.812 analogous 00:09:37.642 --> 00:09:41.712 human inventions that were all about people having individual perspectives, 00:09:41.712 --> 00:09:43.712 "one man, one vote" - it led to the Enlightenment 00:09:43.712 --> 00:09:45.712 and all this other stuff, consumerism, 00:09:45.712 --> 00:09:49.192 Industrial Era and everything else. 00:09:49.372 --> 00:09:52.922 When we look at digital technology I think we have to look at it that way. 00:09:52.922 --> 00:09:54.932 In other words, what is the difference between 00:09:54.932 --> 00:09:59.952 a pre-literate digital society and a post-literate digital society? 00:09:59.952 --> 00:10:03.722 You know, I'm over arguing for digital literacy. 00:10:03.722 --> 00:10:07.582 I think digital literacy is inevitable, you know? 00:10:07.582 --> 00:10:11.684 I feel like I'm making that - when I... it's my main talk that I do. 00:10:11.684 --> 00:10:13.254 It's like "Program or be programmed!" 00:10:13.254 --> 00:10:15.094 And I wrote this book, Program or Be Programmed. 00:10:15.094 --> 00:10:17.264 and we have to learn to program. If you don't learn how to program, 00:10:17.264 --> 00:10:20.544 you're just swimming blindly in a sea of information. 00:10:20.544 --> 00:10:23.634 Kids don't understand the biases of the technologies they use. 00:10:23.634 --> 00:10:25.314 If you ask a kid what Facebook's for, 00:10:25.314 --> 00:10:27.574 he'll say Facebook's here to help him make friends. 00:10:27.574 --> 00:10:28.974 But we all know Facebook is really not here - 00:10:28.974 --> 00:10:32.104 it's really here to monetize the social graft and all that. 00:10:32.503 --> 00:10:35.823 And then arguing, you know, that the Chinese are gonna come to take our military 00:10:35.823 --> 00:10:39.083 and the Iranians are gonna take our banking and we gotta take - something 00:10:39.163 --> 00:10:46.773 any argument I can to try to have schools teach basic digital literacy in elementary school, 00:10:46.783 --> 00:10:51.905 in junior high school, so that we're not stupid. Which we are 00:10:51.905 --> 00:10:55.123 And it's like arguing, can you imagine when they invented text, people saying, 00:10:55.123 --> 00:10:58.903 Oh we're gonna have to learn 22 letters which is 22 letter alphabet at the time 00:10:59.074 --> 00:11:01.514 we're gonna have to learn these letters in order to read 00:11:01.629 --> 00:11:04.539 Well, let the rabbis read, let the kings read, but the people don't 00:11:04.649 --> 00:11:06.999 have to read, do we, we regular people. yes. 00:11:07.069 --> 00:11:09.579 it's like people are so confused on this angle 00:11:09.732 --> 00:11:14.522 but we will win this part war. just as people learned how to use e-mail 00:11:14.661 --> 00:11:20.011 and people decided to use phones people will eventually, we will teach kids 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:25.609 how to use digital technology they won't be completely blind 00:11:25.896 --> 00:11:29.896 the misperception now is that learning how to program is kind of like 00:11:29.984 --> 00:11:32.844 becoming an auto mechanic it's like "well I can drive a car" 00:11:32.919 --> 00:11:35.429 "why do I need to know how it actually works" 00:11:35.570 --> 00:11:39.000 We're not talking about the difference between an allround mechanic and a driver 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.740 we're talking about the difference between a driver and a passenger 00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:45.430 a programmer is the user of the machine 00:11:45.430 --> 00:11:48.280 If you don't understand the code you're not using the machine 00:11:48.280 --> 00:11:52.590 You are the used You are maybe the customer but you're not the producer 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:57.846 And that's where you get to the real biases of the digital age 00:11:57.846 --> 00:12:00.956 which are easy for those of us who are around before that to get 00:12:01.110 --> 00:12:05.520 The bias of the digital age, of the digital era is toward production 00:12:05.520 --> 00:12:09.520 That's why it's digital where do we even get the word digits from 00:12:09.520 --> 00:12:12.620 Digits are the fingers. They were ten fingers. Digital 00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:19.330 This is digital media. This is media that is constructivist 00:12:19.415 --> 00:12:21.765 It's media that you make stuff with 00:12:21.771 --> 00:12:25.771 The media before digital was all receive only 00:12:26.741 --> 00:12:30.741 It was all... they were no Do you still read write-only 00:12:30.741 --> 00:12:34.741 read only files. Is that still existing? Oh good 00:12:34.741 --> 00:12:38.221 For me, when I understood what digital was was the first time 00:12:38.221 --> 00:12:42.741 when I was asked to save a file on the Princeton mainframe computer 00:12:42.741 --> 00:12:45.451 And you had to save a file 00:12:45.451 --> 00:12:47.291 this is before we used papertape to save your program 00:12:47.291 --> 00:12:49.071 when you actually could save to a disc 00:12:49.071 --> 00:12:51.641 And it asked me "is this gonna be a read-only file?" 00:12:51.641 --> 00:12:55.111 Is this gonna be a restricted file or read-only file or a read/write file? 00:12:55.441 --> 00:12:59.241 And all of a sudden I went "Oh my god" 00:12:59.389 --> 00:13:03.389 You mean all of this time they could have been saving this stuff as read/write 00:13:03.389 --> 00:13:07.389 And I looked back at the media that I had been exposed to 00:13:07.478 --> 00:13:10.968 I mean, I was a Brady bunch kid and television was a read-only medium 00:13:11.134 --> 00:13:15.314 television and radio, all the broadcast medium, all the book, everything I got 00:13:15.398 --> 00:13:19.398 these were read-only media 00:13:19.551 --> 00:13:22.661 and now I was stepping into a world where we had read/write media 00:13:22.661 --> 00:13:26.661 Where everything that was put out there if it wasn't being made changeable by me 00:13:27.533 --> 00:13:31.533 Then it was a conscious choice of the author to restrict that changeability 00:13:32.455 --> 00:13:38.085 but the bias was towards me being able to copy that file and change it 00:13:38.391 --> 00:13:42.391 Or not even copy it, just change the file that was already there 00:13:43.508 --> 00:13:47.508 And that kind of flipped it around that's when I realized 00:13:47.639 --> 00:13:53.289 "Oh my gosh. if this really works If digital technology really happens 00:13:53.289 --> 00:13:58.778 Then it will be as big a change on human society as text itself 00:13:58.996 --> 00:14:02.086 It's gonna be that big a flip And text was a big flip 00:14:02.173 --> 00:14:06.173 When we got text when we got the 22 letter alphabet 00:14:06.279 --> 00:14:10.279 We got contracts, we got accountability We got the judeo-christian religion 00:14:10.529 --> 00:14:12.069 We got linear time 00:14:12.202 --> 00:14:16.202 We got cause and effect ultimately 00:14:16.280 --> 00:14:20.280 Text allowed us to put something down and leave and someone else could read it 00:14:20.623 --> 00:14:22.053 it changed... 00:14:22.194 --> 00:14:25.424 if you think about the difference between an oral civilization 00:14:25.474 --> 00:14:28.304 where other people have to be in the room with you to get something 00:14:28.616 --> 00:14:32.616 and a text civilization where you can leave it, go and then someone else finds it 00:14:32.707 --> 00:14:34.987 all of a sudden everything is different 00:14:35.403 --> 00:14:39.933 This shift that we are undergoing now is as big as that 00:14:40.194 --> 00:14:44.394 and what happens is a - certainly the last 600 years 00:14:44.407 --> 00:14:48.407 but probably the last 2000 years of emphasis towards 00:14:49.249 --> 00:14:53.249 sort of a top-down control of not just civilizations 00:14:53.648 --> 00:14:57.648 but organizations, families and pretty much every thing 00:14:57.890 --> 00:15:04.310 and religion's changes to a bottom-up, peer-to-peer conncected 00:15:07.650 --> 00:15:11.132 not just sensibility but organizational structure 00:15:11.700 --> 00:15:17.080 And it doesn't seem like a big deal if you are in it 00:15:17.312 --> 00:15:21.312 It seems like a very if you lived in a world that couldn't imagine it 00:15:21.549 --> 00:15:25.549 The only way people were able to imagine 00:15:25.588 --> 00:15:29.588 Something like the digital reality before we had digital reality 00:15:29.588 --> 00:15:32.388 were psychedelics people. those were the people 00:15:32.391 --> 00:15:35.091 It was Ken Kesey and the merry pranksters and Timothy Leary and those guys 00:15:35.091 --> 00:15:37.401 getting people to drop acid so they could see 00:15:37.483 --> 00:15:40.763 "Oh I get it, it's all connected" 00:15:40.763 --> 00:15:43.813 People would go off to Tibet and hang out with a Lama and learn Buddhism 00:15:43.813 --> 00:15:45.593 And go "Oh it's all one, every thing is one" 00:15:45.593 --> 00:15:49.323 But it didn't seem real. It was like that was some weird spiritual other thing 00:15:49.610 --> 00:15:52.220 It is if you to look at your computer history 00:15:52.334 --> 00:15:55.824 It's why psychedelics people were hired by 00:15:55.824 --> 00:15:58.514 Sun, Northrop and Intel 00:15:58.514 --> 00:16:00.364 In the early mid eighties 00:16:00.364 --> 00:16:03.924 Because they were the only people who were capable of programming 00:16:04.419 --> 00:16:07.089 They were the only people who were really 00:16:07.089 --> 00:16:09.759 them and children were the only one who could grasp 00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:11.759 this kind of bizarre hallucinatory reality 00:16:12.369 --> 00:16:14.509 but it was that different 00:16:14.796 --> 00:16:18.796 And it is why so much of the psychedelic bandwagon, including Stewart Brand 00:16:18.796 --> 00:16:22.796 who was kind of the publicist for the Merry Pranksters, Ken Keseys 00:16:22.796 --> 00:16:26.796 it was a big 1960s thing called the Merry Pranksters 00:16:26.796 --> 00:16:30.796 Which was a kind of... It was propaganda for 00:16:30.796 --> 00:16:34.796 the acid enlightenment of that period 00:16:34.796 --> 00:16:37.386 He became Stewart Brand of the Global Business Network 00:16:37.386 --> 00:16:41.386 It's Stewart Brand who started or co-started the well for 00:16:41.386 --> 00:16:44.036 The first online bulletin board and really told the counter culture 00:16:44.036 --> 00:16:48.036 It is okay, what led to the homebrew computer club and apple computers 00:16:48.107 --> 00:16:51.867 which was, again, a psychedelic invention 00:16:51.963 --> 00:16:55.963 These were two Reed College acidheads [who] came up with it on a bong stained carpet 00:16:56.051 --> 00:16:57.891 of their dorm room