Thoughts and Reflection

Another Network is Possible

I found this article to be a rather comprehensive read, as many of the topics that was explored had left me intrigued. Their mention of how major events of police brutality during protests and how individuals unionize over the internet to find communities amongst themselves is very eye-opening and inspirational at the same time. I agree with the message of how large coorporations do a poor job of using and spreading the information they have regarding these important news to the public. I feel that in most cases their SEO method should not be prioritized by the business side of which coorporation paid them the most to have their site highest on the search results but rather how credible, related, and important the information each site is offering. It would be nice to have a reliable search engine that does their fair share and due diligence of fact-checking on our behalf, but of course outsourcing our judgement is what causes media literacy that much more important, but at times it would be nice not to have to question everything we search.

Architecting Emergence

It was fascinating seeing how this article compared computer algorithms and AI to the biological systems of the human body. I guess that seems to be the goal now a days, to simply recreate another being without the involvement of the biological aspect. One that is completely devoid of the real human essence but capable of imitation on a grand scale. That does seem to be a theme on what the greatest human achievement looks like. Along the same lines and expectations of having a nuclear family, white-collar job, and many children to pass on your "legacy". This deep rooted belief that one should leave their mark on the world prevails today and technological systems are but another log that tracks exactly that.

The women who taught internet strangers to actually care for one another

Whenever people roam the internet, especially in the earlier cyberspace days, I think it is so easy to forget that there are actually people behind the screens. Of course it is no easier now, given how much fruadenlant bots and AI has infested the internet. However, something that the article touched upon that are not really discussed openly about is the digital truama. It is such a real thing that gets sweeped under the rug by large cooperations and that is so scary. Things like violence, pornography, and hate speech is so common on the internet that I fear for the sanity of whichever unlucky human is in charge of any kind of manual moderation of public cyberspaces. This is certainly not a job for the weak and it is understandable why there are on call psychiatry for them. Nearly every other day you learn something horrid was happening behind the scene at some popular company like Roblox being a breeding ground for groomers and pedophiles while some international mobile chatrooms like KakaoTalk was used to support a pyrimad scheme. This certainly makes one wary of the products they use, because you really never know until it's too late.