Student

Video Games
The affect that video games has had on our society today is amazing. Being a Halo fanatic I know what it is like to spend a sufficient amount of time playing a single game. The question that arises in my mind is am I wasting my time or am I stimulating my brain. The answer that I come up with is probably a little bit of both. Video games clearly help to develop hand eye coordination and problem solving skills. They also probably distract people from doing other things that they ought to being doing instead (like homework or writing in my blog for this class). While you could probably be doing better things that video games you could probably be doing worse. I think most television shows will "rot" your brain much faster than any video game will.

Online video games create a particularly interesting forum. These games allow you to interact with other people. While many of these games can become particularly addicting (Everquest, Counterstrike, Ultima Online, Quake, etc.), I think that they have positive affects to them. They create their own communities with their own culture where everyone is accepted as long as they follow the rules of the game. The ability to 'fit in' in these communities has allowed some people to shed their outcast label that they have in society while in this online community.

The violence that is in video games receives blame for reasons that society needs to address. While I wholeheartedly agree that there are video games out there that children should not be playing, I believe that the blame that is placed on video games for violence by teens and pre-teens in the real world is wrongplaced. The real blame should be placed on the breakdown of parenting in today's world. There is a true lack of morality and discipline in many households in America today and this is the reason that kids have become more violent in recent years. The burden should be placed on parents to teach kids right from wrong and they are to blame when something goes wrong with their kids, not video games. Kids should be taught that video games are, well, just that, games, and that what happens in most of them should not be repeated in real life.

Digital Art
The world of computers has created an entire new array of possibilities in art. Computer animation is particularly amazing to me. I think that this takes true talent. The amount of manipulation that is possible with computer animation leaves the possibilities in this medium with no limits. I also find it particularly interesting that computer art used to be mostly unrealistic and instead create fantasy. Now, however, we are seeing a movement towards realism in the computer animation world. Computer graphics are beginning to look more real with every video game and cartoon movie that comes out.

I thought the conversation that we had about whether or not pornography was art was particularly stimulating. I myself don't believe that it is but it seems to come back to the question of what it art. The human body can be a beautiful thing and when photographed in the right what I think that it can be art. I think that there is a fine line between nude art and pornography. I draw the line with the act of intercourse. I think once this occurs it is no longer art and has become pornography. When someone is photographing the nude body in a tasteful way I think that many things can be expressed that traditional art tries to express.

Some of the things that people question as art I think are ridiculous. Websites of random things that people take with there webcam on their phone are usually not artistic. I think that technology has created new ways for people to combat their boredom and this is often confused with art. I think that photography is really only an art when their is a certain amount of skill involved in the manipulation of the camera to make the picture turn out as the photographer sees fit.

Hypertext
Until I read about this topic I hadn't really thought about the possibilities that the internet gives readers to manipulate what they are reading. Articles and stories with hypertext are kind of like a modern choose your own adventure, allowing the reader's choices to come into play concerning what come next. I think that this ability gives the author the opportunity to be more creative because it allows him to explore all the possible endings and twists to a story and not just one. This type of literature is almost like a game in some instances where people have to try to get the outcome to the story that they want it to have. I think that this creates a new medium that is sort of like a combination of a narrative and a database. While authors can still take the reader where the want them with a story, they also can help them become informed about all aspects of the story through the use of hypertext links within the story that help to explain a certain word or phrase.

Intellectual Property and Copyrights

The issue of downloading music and movies through file-sharing networks is one that I believe has become out of hand. I think that the sales of both DVDs and CDs have not suffered because they are able to be downloaded for free. While music sales have went down I don't believe it is because of free downloading. I believe most people still buy CDs that they think are quality as they did before. The reason that I think that CD sales have went down is because the quality of mainstream music is horrible right now. I've only bought about 5 CDs in the last year because these are about the only CDs that I believed were worthy of the lofty purchase price that most CDs have risen to.

The music companies are just going to have to adjust their business plan to adjust to today's music market. People want to be able to buy a CD and rip it to their computer and be able to copy it to their MP3 player. People also want to be able to download music to their computer for cheap without having to buy the whole CD. The music industry's business plan no longer fits to today's society and they must adjust because free file-sharing networks aren't going away anytime soon. If music companies could provide a cheap and efficient way to download music online I believe that they would be able to compete with the free file-sharing networks because the service is more convenient. It is only when this happens that people will begin to be willing to pay to download music. I know that if it were cheap enough to use pay sites to download music I would do it because the amount of 'bad songs' that have flooded the free file-sharing networks is beginning to make finding the songs you want a strenuous process.

The most positive thing that I believe that file-sharing has brought about is the emergence of a huge underground music scene. Bands that most people would never have heard of outside of the band's local area are getting exposure on the internet. People are buying these band's CDs that they would never have had the chance to before. These bands are adjusting to today's music market and are far ahead of the huge music companies in realizing what it takes to be a successful musical act today. Just as TV didn't ruin movies and libraries don't tear down book sales, music downloading will not ruin the music industry if the music industry learns to adjust.

Online Security

The issue of online security is one that is growing greater as our society becomes more cyber-oriented. Personally I think that encryption devices that we talked about in class should be used so everyone has a definite online identity. While there are hackers that could still probably get past this I think that it will keep honest people honest. Using this would still allow you to have a certain amount of anonymity online while letting us track people doing illegal activities online. My theory is that if you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't care if your online activities can be tracked. Tracking of people in the physical world is relatively easy although there are ways around it. I think that this should be so for the web.

It seems funny to me that there seems to be two real extremes when it comes to revaling identity on the web. There are people with 24 hour webcams that allow stangers to see them anytime they are in front of the camara. Then there are people that wish to remain totally anonymous and take on false identities on the internet. This leads me to believe that some day not to far into the future there will be a happy medium between the two with encryption identities.

Posthuman Dreams

This topic stimulated some very interesting conversations in class. The idea that computers would some day be able to function as fast as a human brain seems ludacris a few years ago but not so distant after I read the articles. While I think there are several downfalls to Kurzweil's argument I do believe that computers will be as fast as the human brain in the not so distant future.

There is one thing that I believe will keep computers from being able to function completely like a human brain. That is computers lack of ability to recognize patterns. The way humans learn is by pattern recognition and repetition. Computers cannot do this yet. If they someday are programmed to do so I think that computers could someday become 'smarter' than humans. However, I think that that day is a long ways off.

While computers may be able to think as fast as humans in the near future, I think that computers lack of emotion and mobility limit them in their abilities to become dominant on our planet. One of the main problems that aritificial intelligence is having is that they are finding it very hard to program computers to do simple things that humans take for granted and very easy to do complicated things like solve math problems or play chess. Along with this computers don't have the ability to learn, which goes along with their lack of ability to recognize patterns. If someday computers have the ability to learn I think that they could rapidly become more intelligent than humans. After this the possibilities are endless.

The two realms the theorists seem to believe we are going towards is either a takeover by computers as the dominant intelligence or a merging of computer and human. I think that the later is particularly interesting. Extropians and other theorists seem to believe that the brain works like a computer and that one day we will be able download our brains on to computer chips. At this point in time they believe that cloning will be possible and that we will essentially be able to download our brain to a new body and continue living from the point we last downloaded our brain. With this technology, we could essentially become immortal. This is something that I don't believe will ever become possible and wouldn't want to happen if it were. I think the amount of corruption that would become possible with this technology far outweighs any benefit it would bring.

While we are becoming more and more dependent upon machines, I don't believe that some theories that they will merge will ever become possible. The idea that we could someday just think our way into a virtual reality realm do not seem possible to me and isn't something I would like to see able to be done. I also never foresee 'nanogens' within our body being able to replace cells and be able to essentially replace organs cell by cell until they are like new.

Overall I thought that a lot of the theories that were brought up in the readings and in class were pretty radical. I don't foresee most of the things that were brought up ever becoming possible. However, it is weird to think about what it would be like if they were.

I thought that the discussion that we had in class about communities was particularly interesting. I think that the internet has become a tool to help push democracy forward. The freedom of speech that is practiced on the internet is more taken advantage of than any other medium. The internet is a potential tool to harbor change in the world for many reasons. First of all it allows everyone to gather information and become exposed to viewpoints and groups that they probably wouldn't have been aware of without the internet. Before the world wide web existed many people would only be vaguely aware of some of the radical groups that still exist in the world. I think that the internet possesses the potential to change some of these radical views because people will be able to reach out and try to change them for the better because they are now informed. Second of all that isolated groups become not so isolated because of the internet. The example that we used in class of the Ku Klux Klan is great. Before the internet many KKK groups lived in all white areas (like rural Idaho) where they were not exposed to diversity and had no potential to change. With the internet they are nearly forced to become exposed to diversity because it is so great on the web. While there will always be ignorant people in the world with ludacris viewpoints, I think that the internet will go a long ways to try and combat this ignorance.

Globalization and the Network Society

The effects of globalization and the network society are widespread. We live in a world today where a car contains components that were manufactured in numerous different countries. The radio may have been made in Mexico. The seats in maybe made in China. The wiring components may be made in Thailand and so on. All these components, through the use of networks, come together in one place to be assembled in America and sold to American consumers as an American product. The logistics of this all is amazing and wouldn't be possible without the internet and other technologies of today.

There is great debate over globalization and its effects on the U.S. and the world. Most anti-globalization people in the U.S. complain about the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign countries. However, these are jobs that are costing taxpayers inordinate amounts of money to keep in the US because of government grants that are given to companies whose jobs could go elsewhere is far more money than the wages lost by the workers layed off. In essence globalization is all about a redistribution of jobs in the global community. America has become a service economy and the jobs that are being lost are replaced by the growing jobs in the service sector.

The so-called race to the bottom is another very potent issue about globalization. Many countries have laxed on environmental standards and working conditions in order to draw foreign direct investment. So-called "sweatshops" are commonplace in many countries where the work days are long, the pay low and the conditions horrendous. One thing that many anti-globalization people look past is that these countries are still developing, much as America was during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Theses very same things used to be common place in America during these times. As the countries become more developed the people will organize and these things will cease. However, until the standard of living becomes higher in these countries the wages they are making are probably comparable to or even higher than the average wage in these countries. People must realize that not every place is America and not everyone lives the same way.

In class on Thurday I tought that I conversation about cyberculture was very intriguing. It is crazy to think how much most people, especially today's youth, are affected by the internet and cyberspace. When the subject is looked at further I think the definition of cyberspace becomes much less clear. I defined it as the reaction between people using electronic media. I think that is wide definition broadly defines the word.

The topic of the world becoming a global community was also very interesting. Technology has come so far that nearly the whole world is accessible with a few keystrokes and mouseclicks. I think the concept that we have moved backwards as a society is absurd. While the global community of today may resemble the smaller tribal communities of the past the other advances that we have made as a society make our society much more advanced.

I also believe that the cyber world must be regulated in ways that currently are not covered by our laws. A lack of true identity and the easy access to information on the web make it possible for morally corrupt things to occur in cyberspace that should not be allowed to occur. The current laws that we have simply do not cover some of the perverse things that are made possible by the internet and this needs to change.