Suffocation

In the song, ‘Suffocation,’ by the band Against Me! there is the line, “Suffocation, Modern life in the Western world.” I suspect 21^st century world is more accurate, but I also acknowledge maybe that’s implied by the word modern.

In recent weeks as talk of Brexit has been building and the actual act of giving notice completed I have felt myself becoming disengaged with the issue, a feeling I hypothesise is not uncommon. The reason for this I think is quite simple; information bombardment. Though, even that is a misnomer.

In the film Anchorman 2 (a film I do not recommend, mostly because it’s shit) Ron Burgundy, relegated to the graveyard slot on a new 24-hour news channel, begins to report of the ‘emerging’ story of a police chase. The humour is two-fold, firstly in how it clearly is meant to mock modern daytime cable news, but secondly in how the ominous narrator explains how this absurd character and scenario was the origin of modern news today.

What Burgundy does in this scene is genius, and really, it’s fundamentally opposed to the modus operandi of a news station; he exploits the unknown. Now, from a viewer perspective we watch the news because we are ignorant of the day’s events, and the news anchors can inform us of the information we are missing. Burgundy, in this scene, flips this paradigm on its head by saying the news organisation themselves are ignorant of all the facts. Suddenly this becomes exciting, and engaging, and problematic.

It’s problematic because information only flows so fast, and doesn’t flow at all when there is nothing to know. In the modern 24-hour news cycle, there’s a lot of moments when there’s nothing to know. The solution to this problem is the aforementioned, ‘information bombardment’, and perhaps now you can see why it’s a misnomer; there’s no information to be bombarded with. Instead, the time is filled with analysis, and cross analysis and predictions and historical perspectives and counter perspectives and info-graphics and timelines and so on and so on, until something happens. All the while we, the viewer, sit there in a whirlwind of confusion and frustration and to an extent hysteria as we come to realise nothing, absolutely nothing, is being said.

In some ways, it’s just a supply and demand problem – there’s so much demand (air time) but so little supply (relevant news).

As an aside, if I were to suggest a reason for the rise in ‘fake news’ and clickbait, I would suggest it is from a desire to capitalise on this vacuous information environment, but that’s another discussion for another day.

This problem isn’t just a 24-hour news problem. Anywhere that we have access to information faster than that information can be provided this problem festers. Your phone and your computer are as much at fault as the 24-hour news channels. I suggest if you’ve ever felt yourself with a deep feeling of depression and self-loathing from a continuous pressing of that refresh button, this might be the reason. I know I have.

This is what I mean when I quote ‘Suffocation;’ we are suffocating in an information overload. Of course, this is maybe another misnomer – we’re actually drowning. The term ‘information diet’ is one I’m hearing more often and it’s taken the form as something hip and cool, but I do think there is a darker side to it, namely escaping the depression and self-loathing of information addiction. Cutting yourself off to make a change is one thing; cutting yourself off because you need to is quite another.

Here, then, we find the real problem emerging out of it all. The feeling of wanting to escape the info-sphere, to switch everything off, to go on an ‘information diet’ – this is the realm of disengagement. Sometimes we need to disengage our brains and do something different – it can be very liberating, spiritually and intellectually – but some issues are too important for us to willingly, and with exhaustion, disengage from.

I cited Brexit previously. This is a massive issue for my country right now. Trump if you are American, Le Pen if you are French, and countless other things I am – ironically – ignorant of, these are all important issues we as citizens need to be engaged in. In these past few weeks I have wanted to disengage, to stop reading articles and listening to commentary and talking to colleagues, but I’ve desperately tried not to. Most of what I read and hear and so on I consider meaningless, copious noise, but I still listen.

Sometimes it’s good to get away from it all – especially if you feel like you’re drowning – but sometimes you’ve got to suck it up (pardon the pun) and try to keep going.

How was your weekend?

I have recently come to re-evaluate my opinion on those often described as ‘professionally offended’. I think there is an assumption – or, at least, I assumed – that this group of individuals who seem to always care to the point of outrage were a new, online phenomenon. However, I now believe this is unkind.

There is a news segment on the BBC called Newswatch, a feature where the editors of BBC News can be challenged to answer questions about the quality of the service fielded by members of the public (almost always referred to as License Fee payers, as if to add legitimacy to their concerns, but more on that later). I think the show is a good idea, and I think there is often cause for some discussion. I have also come to realise that there exist a great many people who seem outraged to the point of inconveniencing themselves over the most trivial of things.

Of course, what I consider trivial is subjective and possibly miscategorised, but still my opinion holds. There simply are, and always will be, people who revel in being offended. This is my re-evaluation; that the concept of the professionally offended is not a new thing, but merely a human condition. This, I believe, is very interesting.

Why do people so regularly place so much importance on trivial mishaps? By trivial I include the occasional shitty day at work, missing the bus by a few seconds, delayed service in a restaurant, buying the wrong sized garment in a store – what might be considered, ‘first world problems’. My thesis is this; people place importance on minor mishaps because when you’re sailing on a quiet ocean you notice and acknowledge the most minor of ripples. Mishaps – which oft turn into storied compliant in the appropriate company – embellish an otherwise uninteresting set of events. They make our lives more interesting not only by increasing variety but by adding, or at least suggesting, strife that we must overcome. Ultimately, this makes the banal feel more valuable.

I have three ideas about the rise of the professionally offended in the more contemporary sense, the third of which I add only for the purposes of showing an objective viewpoint, without which I feel my thesis would suffer.

Firstly, I suggest the emergence might be due to that previously discussed; that we use outrage or offense as a way of embellishing otherwise forgettable events. The changing medium – from newspaper articles and news segments to online forums and comment sections – merely reflects the changing structure of a person’s life and reflects their access to media. Though this argument is not without some merit, I would suggest that these people, no matter how technologically cosmopolitan they claim to be, would still encounter the events I have previously discussed, and should still, therefore, respond accordingly with coffee table debates and plastic cup politics. If anything, their wider exposure to technology should lead to more compliant and outrage.

This leads me onto my second proposal; that in a world of regular compliant and outrage, the social norm has changed so much that it is now banal to be outraged, and as such one must be even more offended to punch through this paradigm and into the realm of noteworthy. This is an argument that should offend some people, because it is essentially implying some sort of superiority complex, or, I guess – as some might say – that those who get offended are merely ‘special snowflakes’.

As an aside, I think calling someone a snowflake is unfair, because framing the debate in that way implies it is the person at fault, and not the new social norm. After all, outrage and offense is built upon some perceived violation of a social covenant, implying the offended occupies some sort of moral high ground. In that sense – at least in terms of elevation – they are superior.

My third reason; that there is simply more to be upset about, and that the rise of the professionally offended is due to the greater access of information that the Internet has enabled. Furthermore, the apparent rise in the number of people offended can also be attributed to greater access to virtual soapboxes that the Internet has provided. The problem with this argument is one I have previously mentioned; that some people will think something is very important, whilst others will think it’s trivial.

It is here a distinction should be made, because a difference of opinion both in how to deal with a problem but also whether a problem is a problem is what makes us all individuals. The issue many people have, in my opinion, is that the professionally offended do not care about the issue, they care about the outrage. This is a whole different type of debating style, and one that reinforces the concept of ‘special snowflake’. It also introduces the aforementioned idea of legitimacy.

Think about it; ‘professionally offended,’ does not specify any cause or set of beliefs about the person the term is being applied, merely that they are offended. Furthermore, the word professional evokes parallels with work, suggesting the purpose of the offense is not in response, but by requirement, and interestingly for the benefit of the offended. Ultimately, they care not for the issue, but for themselves, and this means they lack legitimacy.

In the UK, though I suspect other places around the world have similar set-ups, there are regular Saturday-and-Sunday-morning debate shows. For the purposes of objectivity, the panel will almost certainly be made up of people from all different sides of the argument, all, in a kind of cringe-inducing way, forced to sit intermingled amongst each other.

This, as an aside, is clearly an attempt to show the person making the argument can be transcended so that only the argument, not the person, is being scrutinised and criticised, but anyway…

In the TV graphic that will appear maybe 2-3 seconds after the individual enters the frame (primarily as a none auditory way of introducing this person) will be a small detail or subtitle area which provides context to the person in question. The relevance of this to this piece as a whole is the following; regularly, and by regularly I mean weekly, there will be an individual whose detail box has fantastic word economy by only referring to them as, ‘activist’.

Now, there is some logic to why a person might be a professional activist. Firstly, they may care passionately for a cause that is ongoing (causes that come to mind are minority rights, but I’m sure there are other equally valid campaigns) and thus it becomes justified that they – the activist - become defined by that subject matter. If this is the case, why not dispense with the word economy somewhat and call them, for example, ‘civil rights activist’? Secondly, they may work as part of a group that provides logistical and/or other services to would be campaigns. I assume many protests require a number of professional skills, and that groups would form to meet these needs. If this is the case, why not say that? Both solutions would add context to the view and better represent the speaker. Therefore, I must conclude the only purpose for the vague description is by some unknown (at least to the viewer) design and as such intentional.

I acknowledge this is possibly tangential, and potentially more of a reflection of the production company behind the TV show and less a reflection of those who would be branded, ‘activists’. I also acknowledge I am now embodying that license fee payer previously discussed by communicating my grievance with what I see on television, which perhaps adds, unintentionally, credence to my point. However, I do believe the perpetuation of this classification – calling someone an ‘activist’ – implies that many of those classified are OK with it, which does add to the thesis of this piece.

Skin in the game matters. There is a non-discussed but totally required need to caveat some debate with reference to the devil; the purpose of this is to acknowledge that you have no skin in the game, and that the debate exists for its own sake. Lack of skin in the game – as might be suggested by calling yourself merely an activist – has the same effect as playing the Devil’s advocate. However, the difference is without the caveat of, ‘I agree, but I’m now going to disagree,’ the argument becomes at best muddled and at worst lost. Again, it becomes about the person, the snowflake, rather than the matter at hand.

This is the same issue that those described as professionally offended face, however those who occupy online forums and comment sections and blogs (I acknowledge the irony, now may we move on?) lack even more legitimacy, for at least the ambiguously named, ‘activist,’ is still being named as something, by someone. Behind the scenes, whatever that means, they – the activist – have done something to warrant their presence on the show. Whether validation from a TV network is good becomes irrelevant here – though many will believe this is all that matters – because at least this validation is not open to everyone. There is an expectation of exception, and that’s a powerful thing.

Platform, rightly or wrongly, provides legitimacy. The grace that the Internet has given is that everyone has a platform; the issue that has evolved from this is now economic, that of excess supply, with relatively unchanging demand. Further complicate this situation with the ripple on the ocean adage – the desire to embellish and escape the banal – and it becomes obvious how online forums can quickly reach a critical mass of outrage. This is a problem, not because people are talking and debating and (maybe) caring, but because no one is listening. Commentary without legitimacy is like screaming at a brick wall; mass commentary without legitimacy is just more screaming.

Of course some people are listening, but often they’re listening to their own words coming out of another person’s mouth. Sonically, the screaming becomes similar, and thus audibly understandable. So yes, I have re-evaluated by opinion of the professionally offended. They are not a new phenomenon. The Internet is not to blame for their emergence. But they raise an interesting idea in the context of the online world nevertheless, namely, how to we listen to each other when everyone is talking?

Prosthetic Head

Amazon Go may represent an event horizon. The idea of a cashier-less supermarket does sound wonderful to some. Though there will be nay-sayers who, I suspect, will suffer the same fate as all who stand in the way of technology’s relentless march. That is to say they will be branded backwards and fearful.

Amazon’s idea should not have been a surprise; I doubt it was for many. The inherent cannibalising nature of cities has enabled, in what really is a very short period of time, the digitisation of the Western world (if not the East also). It is easy to forget that Amazon Go falls apart if consumers do not have an internet capable device and access, whilst on the go, to the internet. Both of these limitations seem like old concerns; alas, looking back on great leaps we might confuse them with barely lifting our feet.

The technology involved in Amazon Go cannot be denied its commercial use. Indeed, it’s already here. Similar advances will come along very soon (I am not foolish enough to put a date on it, equally I am not going to underestimate its timeline). Driverless cars, for example, have the capacity to save the world by reducing personal vehicle ownership and thus emissions.

The issue, of which I cannot be the first to point out, is that such advances impact on peoples’ employment, not merely their convenience. The arguments surrounding barriers to entry are real, though I do believe ultimately futile; it is the cost to human labour that we must remember.

It is easy for us to forget the role people play within systems once they have been removed from the system. For those who benefited – often the majority – the pain of this separation is an acceptable trade-off for the efficient gains. Amazon Go is not the first example of this separation, nor will it be the last, but when that majority become a minority and gains become, in a way, losses, conflicts will arise.

Such conflicts are emerging already. And as much as I take issue with the phrase ‘metropolitan elite’, such a brand exists for a reason; there’s a disconnect between those we call ‘professional’ and those who inhabit the ‘WalMart economy’ (though perhaps that needs a rebrand). Technology has not necessarily caused this divide, but as screens replace faces and faces become redundant, this divide will grow.

Mark Carney of the Bank of England has spoken recently about the risk to jobs from automation. This threat would imbue rage amongst many if only we were not part of the automated paradigm already. We cannot go backwards, and as such we must redefine the economy and the role of people in it. Or, should I say, we must remember there are people in it.

This sounds like a sound bite, in many ways because it is. To substantiate it requires almost existential questioning. Amazon Go, or something similar, will one day rule the high street. The question for our digital world is can we evolve with technology, or can we only adopt and become reduced to ones and zeros?

The Invention of the Soul

In a YouTube video I recently watched, the creator spoke of how it had been so long since she’d ‘logged out’ of anything. This is an interesting idea, but it becomes even more meta when we consider this video was a vlog – a word presumably derived from the combining of the words video and log – and as such was a snapshot of the content creator’s life at that moment.

There is something of an ironic postmodernist element to broadcasting online the phenomenon of existing offline. Laurence Scott writes in ‘The Four-Dimensional Human’ about the internet existing within a new dimension – the fourth, amazingly – and how human beings are continuing to occupy ever more space within this new frontier. It’s from this angle that the vlogger’s perspective becomes understandable; it is weird to ‘log out’ when part of ourselves occupies the 4D world.

Of course, we cannot be plugged in all the time. At some point there is sleep and showering and lunches that require us to be present in the physical realm. In the days when the internet flowed through telephone wires concepts of the digital world such as Tron or fantasy tropes such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe offered reasonable parallels to the physical disconnect between ourselves and the online space.

Today such ‘doorways’ do not seem to exist, and the internet in the form of Wi-Fi surrounds us constantly. Maps to the digital Pangea exist as phones in our pockets; the skull and grey matter need not be the cage of a stray thought. It is easy, therefore, to believe we are as much an online entity as we are an offline entity.

However, unlike the words video and log, we cannot combine with our online selves, no matter how similar we believe them to be, as there still exists a sacred disconnect between our physical 3D bodies and the 4D space. When we click that almost defunct ‘log off’ button, we remind ourselves of the doorway we must step through each time we wish to enter the virtual world, a doorway you might think vanished through frequency of use and ease of access.

The nature of the online space is inherently self-centred. That’s not necessarily a problem, as it makes the scale of the internet more manageable and the content available tuned better to us. However, it also engrains a belief that our logging off creates some sort of irrevocable void in the social media streams of our online companions. This sense of self and self-importance is not helped by the extension of account names and passwords to almost every service on the web, which in turn cultivates a sense of ownership.

The feeling of absenteeism when logging off not only speaks to the self-centeredness of our online systems; it speaks volumes when considering how little is perceived to be of import in the real world. I find myself thinking of the notable disconnect between finance and the ‘real’ economy, but that’s not for debate here.

Because it is our 3D selves logging off, and because we cannot truly be one with our 4D variant, we are inclined to feel the world is cut off from us. Of course it is really we who are cut off from that world - the online one - whilst the 3D world and ourselves remain in the same state as we were moments before clicking that ‘log off’ button. My question is what is our 4D self when three of those dimensions have decided to depart for a while?

A word that has fallen out of fashion on the web is avatar. In the earliest days of online communication, it was not irregular for one to be represented by an avatar – some sort of digital icon that could be used to uniquely represent you. This avatar’s design was limited by the coding of whatever site the avatar was being built on. Still, a sense of self must have made its way into the pixelated figure.

Since the days of the avatar this blurring of lines has become a tearing of pages; the online world functions and encourages us, not avatars, to populate it. Facebook and Twitter are no longer tools for fun or back-up communication; they are a crucial part of our social identity, which very much extends into the ‘real’, physical world.

To be branded as weird for not having Facebook is as much a statement of one’s social ineptitude as it is one’s technological. ‘Logging off’ is even worst; it is to choose to abandon the 4D self, rather than to merely not have 4D replica to begin with. In the days of the avatar this was not an issue, as the avatar was merely a token of you in the online space, with limitations in coding restricting how accurately the avatar could represent the ‘real’ self. When it is ourselves occupying the 4D world abandonment – or logging off – might be considered some kind of self-lobotomy.

The sacred disconnect between the 3D body and the 4D entity is gone. The internet has invented a soul for each of us. The mobile phone has become a vital organ of the human body – is it not a component of you that you carry wherever you go, that is never shut off, that you would hate to lose? As Baudrillard writes, “From a classical (even cybernetic) perspective, technology is an extension of the body.” The only flaw in this argument might be the disposable nature of a mobile phone (and technology) when an upgrade is readily available.

But this flaw adds credence to the 4D self being representative of the 21^st century soul, for no matter what phone or computer or tablet you own, those accounts and passwords that grant ownership will still be used to access your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, your 4D self. This self does not leave you in part because of the permanency of data online, but in part because of the social requirement to carry it with you.

Is there a weight to this soul? An argument for ‘logging off’ might be to seek relief from carrying it around constantly. But I think this is unlikely. Firstly, it leads us into dark, Faustian parallels that I think are unjustified. Secondly, this idea suffers from the same lack of understand that a film such as Tron, in hindsight, is guilty of.

The internet is not really a new frontier, but a product of human creation. This creation continues; indeed, the internet might represent the single largest infrastructure project ever undertaken by man. To treat the 4D soul as something that, over time, may become malign, is to forget that the image we craft of ourselves online is as much the image we craft of ourselves in the mirror every day. The reason avatars were effective, but ultimately unsatisfying, is they could not be truly representative, and added to the belief that the internet was an alien world, which it is not.

Like we might withdraw from the world after a day at work or a party, so too might we withdraw from the online space. In recent years, so called down time has revolved around going online, but as the internet evolves and the presence and importance of the 4D self develops into something that is not alien but in many aspects human, ‘logging off’ might become some sort of paradoxical respite from the noise and traffic of the 4D world.

Stepping back from the 4D space need not be rejection of the fourth dimension, but instead an opportunity to check in with the other three dimensions that are just as valuable to the soul. The 4D soul is, after all, simply a projection of ourselves in the 4D space. It has always existed, but where the physical world and our physical selves make the soul hard to see, the online world and our physical selves contrast, and the soul appears.

As such, to ‘log off’ is not to abandon the 4D soul, but to merely consider the entity of self within its other dimensions.