Wednesday, February 6, 2013

#EDCMOOC Week 2

Here are a couple more videos that were provided as part of our Week 2 resources.







Whereas the Week 1 videos and resources had us looking at how we have viewed technology in the past, these have us looking to the (possible) future.  Again, we look at these with a view towards reflections on utopia/dystopia.  In the case of these two videos, my immediate thoughts are that both are presented as idealized futures where technology integrates fully and seamlessly into our everyday lives.  Information is truly at our fingertips.  We are connected to one another by means of this technology.  Everything is clean, smooth, uncluttered.

But these are the visions being created by large corporations that have an end goal of profit.  Profit is not in itself a bad thing, but I see the echoes of the discussions from Week 1 around movies like Wall-E in these videos.  We see the rosy future being advertised without the consideration of potential negative implications.  In Wall-E the advertisements were (still) on a constant loop even after Earth had been abandoned because it had become unlivable as a result of all of the trash (consumables).  Another concern is the power and influence that would come with being a company whose products were so completely enmeshed into the population's everyday life.  Again, visions of Wall-E, where the goals of the corporation supersede the rights of the consumers.  The concern is that checks and balances are abandoned when the level of influence becomes so great.  Security becomes another issue.  With information so readily available, the implications for the security of that information (personal or business-related) increase.

There are another few videos with this week's resources that I still need to review.  I'll post on them as well as exploring the various conversations occurring in other blogs, on Twitter, in the forums, etc.

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