Chapter Fifteen: Navigating Virtual World Conflicts: How Electronic Devices Shape Us
Part Two: Abstract, Virtual, and Natural Modes of Framing the World
Readings:
Wheeler, T. (2018). In cyberwar, there are no rules: why the world desperately needs digital Geneva Conventions. Foreign Policy, 12.
Key Dilemma of Part Two:
Contemporary mainstream cultures increasingly adopt abstract and virtual modes of framing the world and its elements; do these world-framing devices encourage us to reduce our view of the natural world and other people to generalized categories and stereotypes?
Review of List of Navigation Strategies for Seemingly Intractable Conflicts, Differences, and Dilemmas:
Example to help us work through these dilemmas:
“Yet the doctrine that man is a machine was argued most forcefully in 1751, long before the theory of evolution became generally accepted, by (Julien Offray) de La Mettrie; and the theory of evolution gave the problem an even sharper edge, by suggesting there may be no clear distinction between living matter and dead matter. And, in spite of the victory of the new quantum theory, and the conversion of so many physicists to indeterminism de La Mettrie’s doctrine that man is a machine has perhaps more defenders than before among physicists, biologists and philosophers; especially in the form of the thesis that man is a computer.” (Popper, K.: Of Clouds and Clocks, included in Objective Knowledge, revised, 1978, p. 224)
Questions:
- How are electronic devices world-framing devices?
- Is there a war where computer technology is battling users and nature?
- How are we becoming ruled by computer technology?
- Aren’t humans behind every computer, making what appear to be conflicts with machines really conflicts between users and people hidden behind machines?
- Is cyber war a real or imagined threat?
- How are we going to create peace, as nations and political entities use the virtual world to make war against their enemies?
1. How are electronic devices world-framing devices?
As electronic devices ceased to be mere tools, communicators, and resource access points, they became human-framing and world-framing devices. This transition started with the industrial revolution (starting in the middle of the eighteenth century) when people marveled at the capabilities of the new mechanical technology, and started to think of themselves as machines, following Descartes view of animals are machines unable to think.
As the computer revolution has become a global phenomenon, we are now linked in a global network that literally frames the world as a virtual entity. We now have a fully realized virtual world existing side-by-side with the natural world. This is how the notions of de La Mettrie’s notion of humans as machines and Isaac Newton’s idea that the world is a huge mechanical system held together by God have taken such a strong grip on what has become computerized thinking.
2. What is computerized thinking?
In my opinion, computerized thinking parallels accurate, efficient, speedy, computerized, data management and functionality. It is the epitome of perfectly rational thinking. The opposite of computerized, rational thinking are the sluggish, inefficient, inaccurate impersonations of rationality, and the impulsive behaviors driven by both internal emotions and getting caught up in the emotional power of one’s identity-groupthink. In short, the opposite of computer thinking is the kind of thinking we might expect from animals. This increasing split between the human and the animal worlds had helped expand the empathetic gap between humans and animals, and this gap further aggravates the disconnect between humans and nature.
Rational, mechanical, and now computerized thinking have become dominant forces in civilization since the eighteenth century, but it had its earliest conceptualization in Aristotle supposing that humans are rational animals (from scholasticism). On Aristotle’s view, we have the capacity to carry out rationally formulated projects through our deliberative imagination. From this, one might argue that computers function as “rationally formulated projects,” at the command of our “deliberative imagination.”
The project of this book is to close the gaps between people and between people and nature, so computerized thinking will be challenges, and replaced with “connected knowing,” “meditative thinking,” and “engaged thinking.”
3. Is there a war where computer technology is battling users and nature?
As I have suggested, above, computer technology can easily overpower users who may have problems with it, or find themselves in conflict with it. Users, seen as mere data to computers, are alienated by the inhumanity of this kind of interaction and reification (reduction to an object). Nature, itself, is reduced to data, and the life force of nature is objectified and denied. Therefore, computer technology is great when it functions for the benefit of individuals and cultures; it is demonic when there is a conflict with users, with cultures, and with nature.
4. How are we becoming ruled by computer technology?
An argument can be made that our day-to-day lives are ruled by the bureaucratic state, as well as corporate capitalism that controls our economic life. Furthermore, we are ruled by the cultural structures of mainstream American life, as well as the workplace, school, family, and identity group cultures. All of these structures are enmeshed with computer technology. As I write this, I am working on a desktop computer, with my cell phone nearby, as well as a multifunction printer, copier, fax, and scanner. I have control over some aspects of this technology (importantly, the on/off switches). However, most importantly, my computer technology has control over me. So, in my personal, indoor, cloistered life to my out-of-home work life, social life, political life, consumer life, travel life, I have some control over my travel technology, but mostly, I am at the mercy of vast amounts of computer technology that represents the interests of governing structures, transit structures, cell tower placements, communication functionality, GPS reliability, and economic/consumer interactions.
5. Aren’t humans behind every computer, making what appear to be conflicts with machines really conflicts between users and people hidden behind machines?
I suggest that there are people in powerful positions in business and government, who could help users become more empowered to resolve conflicts with the people responsible for computer-abuse of users. Consumer rights organizations are trying to advocate for consumer protection regulations that will provide relief from the abuses of the tech-world. However, there needs to be international agreements because the tech-world is not local or even national; it is global. There needs to be international consumer protection organizations. There is the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN), “composed of consumer protection authorities from over 60 countries.” (website: www.icpen.org) However, it has been suggested that international law is the “only way to assure a safer environment for consumers to act in the global environment.” (The World Journal on Juristic Polity, August, 2017)
6. When your computerized devise talks in a human voice, and you command it to do something, how is this different than the master-slave relationship? Why can’t there just be beeps, rather than voices and personifications?
The master-slave relationship is the essence of hierarchy and authority. The master gains power and freedom by having slaves, servants, or workers, who are held in some kind of bondage, whether it be chattel, indenture, or non-represented wage work. A computer is enslaved so that we are free to produce more, and climb the hierarchies at work. A computer is just like an underling in the hierarchy who carries out our assignments.
7. Is cyber war a real or imagined threat?
Computer hacking can steal money from our online accounts, steal our identities, and take down websites, but is this malicious encroachment on our financial safety and privacy really a kind of war? Some of our political leaders and news outlets would like us to believe that we have entered an age of cyberwar, where computers are being used to undermine an enemy’s ability to carry out certain important functions. If hackers were able to tilt the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton to
Donald Trump, then perhaps this constitutes an attack on our democratic institution.
8. How are we going to create peace, as nations and political entities use the virtual world to make war against their enemies?
If peaceful processes have many dimensions: international law, international negotiations, international commitments to fair trade, peaceful interventions in civil disorders, humanitarian aid, and nonviolent strategies for change and security, then what can peaceful strategies do to stop cyber aggression and war? Must we have global culture change to peacefully force the end to this war? Can there be international agreements for political entities to find technologies to disarm cyber-weapons?
