Well, OK, but in part one I argue that the frames digital skeptic and digital celebrant are misleading and do not appropriately convey what is really going on as we continue to go through a huge paradigm shift: moving from a human state to a posthuman state. Here are the frames that I propose and my reason for proposing them.

As we continue to move through a paradigm shift of tectonic proportions—moving from a human state to a posthuman state—I propose that the following frames best capture this shift:

human or analog celebrant — vs — posthuman or digital celebrant

You see, both frames are celebrant frames; the key is to determine what is being celebrated. The human or analog celebrant frame celebrates people as being primarily biologically based and guided by certain innate behavioral systems such as sex, caregiving, and attachment. The posthuman or digital celebrant frame celebrates people as being primarily mechanically based and no longer constrained by innate behavioral systems of any kind. In his book The Blank Slate—The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Steven Pinker talks about how the Blank Slate movement expresses a desire to throw off the constraints of innate behavioral systems such as sex, caregiving, and attachment. In short, the Blank Slate worldview—which has infiltrated areas such as sociology, education, politics, and psychology—is part and parcel of the posthuman or digital celebrant worldview. Digital celebrants are jubilant because they see the digital age as the Grand Blank Slate. The main reason I prefer my frames is because they acknowledge the rise of the Blank Slate movement. In contrast, the Mansell frames cover over the fact that there is a huge movement—posthumanism—that seeks to deny and transcend human nature.

OK, how do my frames change McChesney’s argument that Internet monopolists will erode democratic systems and processes for both digital skeptics and digital celebrants alike? Well, McChesney believes that both digital skeptics and digital celebrants believe in a human state and, as a consequence, have an equal interest in preserving democracy. At the end of part one I argue that human celebrants celebrate human democracy because humanness (and all of the biological messiness that goes along with it) and democracy go hand-in-hand. In contrast, posthuman celebrants do not necessarily celebrate human democracy (with its connections back to biology) because as humanness continues to fade, so too the need for democratic systems and processes. Ergo, it may well be that as posthuman celebrants or Blank Slaters throw off the need for biology, they may also throw off the need for democracy. If this is true then posthuman or digital celebrants will by extension embrace Internet monopolists who are eroding human democracy (and along with it human biology) as they marketize or monetize the Internet. This is why in my book Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth I argue that the efforts of cyberneticists (e.g., Internet monopolists) are short-circuiting against the desires of posthumanists or Blank Slaters to throw off the constraints of biology. Least you think that I am pulling this thesis out of thin air, you can find this idea expressed in two books:

The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life by Richard Florida
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam

So, as promised in part one, lets do two things: 1) look at how far along we have moved toward a posthuman state, and 2) what happens when you marketize or monetize innate behavioral systems like sex, caregiving, and sex.

In an article entitled Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans by 2100, Experts Say, LiveScience.com staff writer Tia Ghose provides a snapshot of how far we have moved toward a posthuman state. Ghose writes:

In his book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking, 2005), futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that computers will be as smart as humans by 2029, and that by 2045, “computers will be billions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence,” Kurzweil wrote in an email to LiveScience.

There you go. Kurweil predicts that in 2045— a mere 32 years from now—we will meet the Singularity: the point in time when we will be able to move our human intelligence from a biologically based brain over to a mechanically based brain. Quoting Bill Hibbard, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ghose writes that even a “pessimistic guess” as to when the Singularity will occur means “it’s going to happen during the lifetime of people who are already born.”

Ghose provides the following quote by Hibbard:

Once the singularity occurs, people won’t necessarily die (they can simply upgrade with cybernetic parts), and they could do just about anything they wanted to—provided it were physically possible and didn’t require too much energy.

As you would expect, there are some Singularity Skeptics (or who I would call Human Celebrants). Consider this quote from Ghose’s article:

“I don’t see any sign that we’re close to a singularity,” said Ernest Davis, a computer scientist at New York University.

While AI [artificial intelligence] can trounce the best chess or Jeopardy player and do other specialized tasks, it’s still light-years behind the average 7-year-old in terms of common sense, vision, language and intuition about how the physical world works, Davis said.

For instance, because of that physical intuition, humans can watch a person overturn a cup of coffee and just know that the end result will be a puddle on the floor. A computer program, on the other hand, would have to do a laborious simulation and know the exact size of the cup, the height of the cup from the surface and various other parameters to understand the outcome, Davis said.

But notice what’s going on here. Posthuman celebrants celebrate the idea that some but not all aspects of humanness will make the jump to a posthuman state. Posthumans are comfortable throwing off such things as intuition, empathy, emotion, sex, attachment, caregiving, human nature, and, dare I say, democracy. As one example, if all you have to do is replace a broken part, then the need for caregiving goes by the wayside. Posthuman celebrants celebrate the merging of so-called rational or left-brain intelligence with a mechanical host. Posthuman celebrants in essence celebrate throwing off those things that many (such as neurobiologist Antonio Damasio) consider to be what defines us as human beings: biology, emotion, innate behavioral systems, empathy, etc. And even a posthumam celebrant such as Hibbard recognizes that the move toward the Singularity will be fraught with potential problems (like the ones McChesney points out). Ghose gives us the following quote by Hibbard:

There are such strong financial incentives in using technology in ways that aren’t necessarily in everyone’s interest. That’s going to be a very difficult problem, possibly an unsolvable problem.

But, again, I would suggest that Internet monopolists will use (and are using) technology in a way that will be detrimental to human celebrants (and their love of such things as biology, innate behavioral systems, empathy, human nature, intuition, etc.) on one hand, and a boon for posthuman celebrants, who wish to throw off these human trappings or frailties, on the other. When it comes to Internet monopolists, one person’s destruction is another’s rebirth. It all depends on the frame that you use. If you glean nothing more from this blog series, ask yourself, “Am I a human celebrant or am I a posthuman celebrant?” And it may well be that you’re a “model switcher” (pulling from Lakoff): a human celebrant in certain areas and a posthuman celebrant in others.

Let me end by briefly mentioning an article entitled What Can Be Wrong With Growth? by Peter Marris (contact the Foundation for a copy—used by permission). Marris talks about what happens when you marketize or monetize such things as sex, caregiving, and attachment. In essence, Marris looks at what will happen if Internet monopolists are successful. Here’s a “great” summary statement by Marris:

Attachment cannot be conceived in terms of marketable goods, any more than markets can be conceived in terms of attachments. And we have to recognize that the conditions that sustain secure attachments are often in conflict with the ideal conditions of market efficiency.

Simply, market efficiencies (which often tend toward monopolies according to both McChesney and Marris) work against those things—biology, emotion, body, empathy, insight, innateness, etc.—that principally define us as human beings. Human celebrants bemoan this fact whereas posthuman celebrants, well, celebrate. Marris gives us this “bottom line”:

Only when we confront the incompatibilities between the conditions which sustain attachments, and the conditions which allocate resources most productively, can we begin to think how to reconcile them. … The single-minded, unconditional advocacy of competitive markets [now taking up residence on the Internet] would lead ultimately to such disintegrated [human] societies that no markets could flourish.

But, again, I think what posthuman celebrants celebrate is a time in the not-too-distant future (circa the Singularity of 2045) when such things as markets, democracy, economies, work, communities, attachments, etc., will disappear. Honestly, I don’t think anyone has any idea what exactly will exist after the Singularity. Consider this quote by microbiologist Joan Slonczewski (provided by Ghose): “The question is, could we evolve ourselves out of existence, being gradually replaced by the machines? I think that’s an open question.” I’ll agree; it’s an open question, but a question worth considering. And as Francis Fukuyama argues in his book Our Posthuman Future—Consequences of the Technological Revolution, there are many signposts already visible on the road toward posthumanism. Here are just a few (notice how the market influences and drives each of these):

1) feeding young kids behavioral drugs like Ritalin and Adderall
2) designer babies
3) cloning
4) genetically modified (GM) foods
5) certain assisted reproductive technologies (such as the current search for an artificial womb to get us past the messiness and imprecision of a real womb)
6) genetic engineering

To the above list I would add the following:

1) parentifying or adultifying young children (a practice even Bowlby railed against)
2) selling to young children (see Juliet Shor’s book Born to Buy for more)
3) kids (and many adults) attaching to robots like smartphones and Facebook (see Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together for more)
4) kids not experiencing the outdoors (see Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods for more)
5) pathologizing normal grief (as talked about in the article entitled The Fight Over What Grief Means)
6) wholesale denial of human nature (see Steven Pinker’s book The Blank Slate for more)

Taken as a whole (which I would argue one must do) it is clear that we have progressed considerably along the highway toward a posthuman state. Again, human celebrants will see such movement as destruction, others (such as posthuman celebrants) will see this as rebirth.

One final thought. Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods—Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, worries that if children spend all of their time inside ensconced in digital worlds, there will be no next generation of conservationists. In essence, one will not be so motivated to conserve an environment one has had no contact with or experience of. Louv, through his organization Children & Nature Network (which our Foundation has supported in the past), tries to simply get children into the outdoors as a way of creating a pool of potential future conservationists. McChesney makes a similar type of argument. McChesney worries that if children spend all of their time effectively addicted to the Internet, there will be no next generation of democracy conservationists (my frame). In my opinion, body, biology, the natural environment, human nature, analog worlds, attachment, innateness, empathy, democracy—they’re all connected. That’s my human celebration. According to Wikipedia, “Philanthropy etymologically means ‘love of humanity’ in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, and enhancing ‘what it is to be human.’ ” I would suggest that philanthropy is inherently a celebration of humanness. Is it possible that we are witnessing the birth of philanmachina—love of machine.

Note: I’ll be taking a blogging break while I go out into the natural environment for the Memorial Day weekend break. Like the popular truck commercial, I’m going to take along my cell phone so I can celebrate the arrival of the NO SIGNAL message.

]]> http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/05/21/digital-skeptic-or-analog-celebrant-which-frame-would-you-choose-part-two-of-two/feed/ 0 http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/05/14/digital-skeptic-or-analog-celebrant-which-frame-would-you-choose-part-one-of-two/ http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/05/14/digital-skeptic-or-analog-celebrant-which-frame-would-you-choose-part-one-of-two/#comments Tue, 14 May 2013 20:00:13 +0000 Rick Leonhardt http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/?p=3897 OK, pop quiz:

Are you …

a) a digital celebrant
b) a digital skeptic
c) both a digital celebrant and skeptic
d) none of the above
e) confused because you have no clue what I’m talking about

If you answered anything but “e”, then more than likely you are familiar with the frames digital celebrant and digital skeptic. But if you answered “e”, more than likely you have never heard of these frames before. Well, until I read Robert McChesney’s 2013 book entitled Digital Disconnect—How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy, I would have answered “e”. For those of you who answered “e”, lets take a look at where these frames came from and what they’re about. In the process I’ll challenge these frames and offer up what I consider to be more accurate and revealing frames. As always, cognitive scientist (turned political commentator) George Lakoff’s work in the area of frames (especially political frames) will provide the theoretical scaffolding.

McChesney (who is a communications professor at the University of Illinois) starts out his book by looking at these two frames—digital skeptic and digital celebrant—in some detail. As it turns out these are not McChesney’s frames. McChesney credits Robin Mansell with creating these two frames after Mansell extensively analyzed literature on the Internet. Mansell wrote the 2012 book entitled Imagining the Internet—Communication, Innovation, and Governance. Once I knew what a digital skeptic was, turns out I know a lot about this frame. Allow me to explain.

Consider this list of books:

The Shallows—What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
Alone Together—Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle
The Filter Bubble—What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser

Does this list seem familiar to you? It should because I’ve been blogging about these books for some time now. Recall that back in February of 2012, our Foundation invited Nicholas Carr to speak here in Albuquerque as a part of our RYOL Lecture Series. Simply, McChesney points to these books (and others) as representing the ideology that motivates the digital skeptic frame.

OK, now I know what a digital skeptic is. Here are a few other books by digital skeptics that I have read (and blogged about) that McChesney does not mention:

The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where all of Life is a Paid-For Experience by Jeremy Rifkin
The Digital Pandemic—Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age by Mack Hicks
Hamlet’s BlackBerry—A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers
Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth by yours truly (with no apologies for my shameless self promotion)

Heck, I wrote a 14–part blog series summarizing Powers’ Hamlet’s Blackberry. I also wrote a 40–page summary of just the last chapter—Toward an Ecology of Culture and Capitalism—from Rifkin’s The Age of Access. (Contact us to request a copy of this summary). As an aside, it really is too bad McChesney does not mention Age of Access in specific or Rifkin’s work in general because Rifkin was writing about the intersection of the Internet and market dynamics way back in 2000 when Age of Access was released. All this to say that I have been reading and writing about digital skepticism for probably ten years now, and I had no idea that was what I was doing until I encounter the frames digital skeptic and digital celebrant in McChesney’s book. Considering I appear to know a little bit about digital skepticism, let me start with this frame. I think we can get a sense for this frame by looking at one-sentence descriptions of the above books:

The Shallows (Carr) – The Internet experience in general and Internet reading (or eReading) in specific have the potential to rewire the brain in such a way that we lose our ability to engage in such Executive Function (EF) skills as planning, mental modeling, focusing attention, shifting attention, perspective-taking, empathy, mental time travel, insight, critical analysis, and imagining the future.

Alone Together (Turkle) – People increasingly attaching to robots or mechanical caregivers—smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes, Furbies, tablets, etc.—provides evidence that such mechanical attachment substitutes answer the question asked by insecure attachment at the level of society: “How do I secure a sense of being connected while at the same time avoid the pain and suffering that face-to-face intimacy inevitably brings?”

The Filter Bubble (Pariser) – Cybernetic feedback loops (i.e., Facebook, TiVo, Amazon.com, iTunes, Twitter, Google, Bing, smartphones, etc.) populate the Internet in an attempt to deliver “you to you” in such a narcissistic way that self is not allowed to develop, be known, or otherwise be truly expressed.

The Age of Access (Rifkin) – We are moving from an old economic model where relationships are largely guided by owning and protecting physical property to an emerging economic model where relationships are largely guided by gaining access to digital realms where multiple selves can be created and acted out (“thespian” or “therapeutic” selves as Rifkin calls them).

The Digital Pandemic (Hicks) – As the digital age continues to emerge we will see two overarching frames: Gatherers who gather together bits and pieces of digital stuff (factoids, “likes”, MP3 songs, digital pictures, avatars, digital selves, etc.) with no real concept for how all the pieces fit together into a coherent whole, and Hunters who will “do”, that is to say, develop and enact plans of action out in the so-called real physical world.

Hamlet’s BlackBerry (Powers) – Given that technological revolutions have happened since the beginning of recorded time—agriculture, written language, printed language, wind power, machines, automobiles, TV, etc.—our goal as humans is to take the time necessary to reflect on and develop a relationship with the technology that surrounds us so that our lives are enriched and not enslaved.

Bowlby’s Battle (Leonhardt) – The rise of cybernetic feedback loops (i.e., Facebook, TiVo, Amazon.com, iTunes, Twitter, Google, Bing, smartphones, etc.) is now short-circuiting against the postmodern desire to throw off the motivational demands arising from biologically mediated innate behavioral systems such as sex, attachment, and caregiving, the arcing of which lights the way toward our posthuman future.

Wow, that’s a lot on the digital skeptic frame. Hopefully through these one sentence synopses the reader can at least get the gist behind the digital skeptic frame. Honestly, I have read very little on the digital celebrant frame. Why? Simply, I don’t believe in it. Drawing from Lakoff’s work, yes, I can passively recognize the digital celebrant frame, but it is not a frame I use actively to, well, frame my world and my worldview. But there’s a bigger problem here: I don’t agree with Mansell’s frames. I don’t think they accurately reflect what is going on as we continue to experience a huge paradigm shift—moving from a human state to a posthuman state. I’m going to pull a “Dick Cheney” here and simply state, “I don’t accept these frames.” So, what frames would I use? How about these:

Human or Analog Celebrant versus Posthuman or Digital Celebrant

Honestly, I don’t see digital skeptics as being skeptical at all. Who wants to be labeled as a “skeptic”? Even McChesney tells us that digital skeptics are often perceived as being curmudgeons. Yeow! People definitely prefer celebrants or people who celebrate something. In my opinion, I see both frames as celebrant frames. The key is to determine what is being celebrated. Simply, human celebrants celebrate being, well, human, that is to say, being biologically based beings who live primarily in analog defined worlds. In contrast, posthuman celebrants celebrate the coming of a new age where humans (or humanoids, or cyborgs, or whatever) will be mechanically based beings who live primarily in digitally defined worlds. Again pulling from Lakoff, I actively use the human celebrant frame and only passively recognize the posthuman celebrant frame. I know what the posthuman frame is but I don’t use it actively. As a result, I have not actively sought out literature on the digital celebrant frame.

Let me end this part by returning to McChesney for a moment. McChesney effectively says that neither frame—digital skeptic or digital celebrant—is really important. McChesney argues that the only frame worth considering is the “capitalist celebrant frame” (which I just made up). In other words, McChesney argues that when it comes to the Internet, capitalist or monopolist celebrants will rule the day. Capitalist Internet celebrants—Zuckerberg, Gates, the late Jobs, Schmidt, etc.—will rule our lives.

But here’s where using the wrong frames can yield spurious results: McChesney assumes that both digital skeptics and digital celebrants both celebrate being human, that is to say, being biologically based beings with innate behavioral systems such as sex, attachment, and caregiving. Yes, this assumption does describe human celebrants, but it does not describe posthuman celebrants. Why is this distinction important? Well because McChesney effectively argues that the digital age in general and the Internet in specific will ultimately undermine democracy. Well, OK, but they will potentially undermine a democracy consisting of humans. But what of a democracy consisting of posthumans? Does a concept like democracy make sense when discussions turn to the topic of posthumans? Using my frames of human celebrant and posthuman celebrant, I see the digital age and the Internet as posing a threat to human democracy but, in contrast, constituting a boon to posthuman democracy (if there can be such a thing). I would suggest that the very notion of democracy is shifting (possibly disappearing) because definitions and frames surrounding what it means to be human are shifting. These shifting sands will be the topic of part two.

In part two I’ll principally look at two articles. The first is entitled What Can Be Wrong With Growth? by Peter Marris (contact the Foundation for a copy—used by permission), and the second is entitled Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans by 2100, Experts Say by LiveScience.com staff writer Tia Ghose. Marris argues that certain things about life, like secure attachment relationships and human bonding, cannot be “marketized” or “digitized.” (Rifkin and Turkle, among others, deliver a similar message in their respective work.) The article by Ghose is a “great” synopsis of where we are as far as making the jump to a posthuman state. We’ve moved quite far along toward a posthuman state as the following signposts (from Fukuyama’s work—see below) would suggest: feeding young kids behavioral drugs like Ritalin, designer babies, cloning, genetically modified (GM) foods, certain assisted reproductive technologies, and the list goes on. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of posthumanism, I’d recommend three books:

How We Became Posthuman—Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics by Katherine Hayles
Our Posthuman Future—Consequences of the Technological Revolution by Francis Fukuyama
Representations of the Post/human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture by Elaine Graham (summary available)

Simply, it is hard to talk about the Digital Age and postmodernism without also bringing in the topic of posthumanism. The Digital Age and postmodernism both have a posthuman state as their object, which is why I see them short-circuiting against each other. The resulting arcing creates a bright light that appears to only get brighter with each passing day.

1) Syracuse University (Dr. Ken Corvo, lead researcher) – $15,000

DESCRIPTION – (From Dr. Corvo’s Full Proposal narrative) For nearly 40 years, the public policy response to the problem of domestic violence has been defined as the socially sanctioned dominance of women by men. This view of patriarchy as the sole cause of domestic violence is the underpinning for a policy/practice paradigm that has dominated the regulatory, legal, and policy discourse of the United States, Canada and other countries. In spite of a robust and rigorous literature indicating a much broader range of psychological risk factors, policies regarding the etiology and treatment of domestic violence perpetration often disregard or forbid considerations of mental health issues, particularly those with developmental antecedents. Instead, a model of psychoeducation is substituted, based upon an ideological interpretation of domestic violence as only resulting from the socially-sanctioned domination of women by men.

The literature contains numerous studies of psychopathology and neuropsychological issues in domestic violence perpetration, including perpetrator typologies, correlational studies between specific mental disorders and perpetration, links to substance abuse/dependence, and neurological deficits (e.g. traumatic brain injury). Of the probable psychological vulnerabilities or risks in domestic violence perpetration, deficits in executive function may be the least explored. Using a subject heading search “executive function”, the PsycINFO database contains over 3600 journal articles, but only 3 when keyword “domestic violence” is added. Funds are requested to undertake a synthetic review of the literature on the intersection of executive function deficits and psychopathology as they are manifested in dysfunctional violent coping in domestic violence perpetrators. Products will include an article submitted for publication to a relevant peer-reviewed professional journal and at least one national-level professional conference.

2) Union County Community Development Corporation—Project Wind For Schools – $20,000

DESCRIPTION – (From the Full Proposal narrative by Dr. Mark Van Wormer MD) The Wind for Schools program will initiate a science based curricula at Clayton High School for juniors and seniors in the science of (digital) electricity generation from the (analog) source: Wind. With the ground breaking of the Tres Amigas project in Clovis, the north, south, east and western electrical grids of the United States will be connected and controlled by a uniform power distribution network controlled by a massive superconducting server. Several high voltage transmission projects for northeastern New Mexico are already under consideration.

The students of today need more vocational job opportunities. The jobs are in the energy sector,with renewables, the technology sector, the computer and informational exchange sector.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratories in combination with the US department of Energy is sponsoring the Wind for Schools program. The Goal of the curricula is to stimulate interest in renewable energy, especially wind power, in the junior and senior levels at high schools, while providing advanced curricula to be equipped for technical institutes like MesaLands Wind College in Tucumcari, following graduation.

This proposal requires installation of a small scale wind turbine located on or near the school ground, interconnected to the schools power source,PNM, for back metering. Mesalands University will participate in the science based curricula and other areas of adult education through the hardware, software and fiber optic network now being placed by ENMR.

• The project supports advanced science and physics education in Clayton New Mexico.

• The project supports the creation of wind based vocational careers

• The project enhances our relationship with child and adult education from Mesalands community college, through improved distance learning communication facilities.

• The project places Clayton New Mexico on the map as a Wind for Schools Program under the Federal educational structure of NREL, and US Department of Energy

3) Truthout.org – $5,000

DESCRIPTION – (From a recent report by Lucy Dorick on an earlier grant) On behalf of Truthout, I wanted to express our gratitude to the FHL Foundation, Inc. for its commitment to independent non-commercial journalism and the work of Truthout. Your support of $5,000 in 2011 provided critical resources for our groundbreaking investigative journalism and commentary, including our coverage of civil liberties issues and our broad dissemination of information through our newsletter, website, and social media to 8 and a half million readers per year across the country.

We are supported through our readership and key foundations such as the FHL Foundation. We are very grateful for your support as it allows Truthout to provide an independent, substantive, and accurate portrayal of key civil liberties issues that impact our lives and our communities without being tied to funders with special interests and agendas. It is our hope that you will consider continued support for Truthout in 2013.

In the past year, Truthout has zeroed in on the human faces behind the headlines. We exposed the misconduct of agribusiness giant Monsanto; investigated the effects of fracking and its development in new parts of the country; documented the deportation, poverty and racism in border towns; explored the impact of civic engagement in Occupy Wall Street; looked deeply into the roots of random shootings and our growing gun culture, and published up-close accounts of the horrors of Guantanamo. We have also published vibrant commentary from such important voices as Thom Hartmann, Laura Flanders, Henry A. Giroux, Mike Ludwig, Richard Wolff, William Rivers Pitt, Nomi Prins, Noam Chomsky, Tom Engelhardt, Ellen Brown, Dean Baker, Bill Moyers, Kathy Kelly and many more.

Congratulations to our spring 2013 grant recipients. If you have a comment concerning any of the above grants, please feel free to leave a comment in the comment box. As always, if you have any questions concerning these grants, feel free to use the Contact Us link above.

On page 85, Hicks presents the reader with a table that succinctly summarizes the key characteristics that largely define the analog–digital divide. I so enjoyed this summary table that I contacted both Dr. Hicks and his publisher (New Horizon Press). I asked for and received permission from both to recreate this table for my blog readers. Here’s the permission notice:

Reprinted from The Digital Pandemic: Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age by Mack R. Hicks, Ph.D. Copyright © 2010. Reprinted with permission of New Horizon Press. Permission given by the author and Dr. Dunphy—Publisher.

In this blog post I simply wish to present Dr. Hicks’ summary table for your consideration. Again, if this table piques your interest, grab a copy of The Digital Pandemic. To set the stage a bit, Hicks presents his table as a way of showing how screen and machine media use (left side of the table) will affect such analog things as face-to-face relationships and traditional forms of education (right side of the table). As the debate over how to improve schools and education rages on, I think it best to keep this type of summary table in mind. Enjoy – Rick

Notes: 1) My editorial additions are in brackets, and, 2) the information Hicks presents tracks the information Nicholas Carr presents in his book The Shallows—What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (a book I have blogged about extensively).

To further whet your appetite, here’s a quote by Hicks (on page 85) as he describes a few of the elements summarized above:

Speed and immediate rewards are necessary to elicit stimulus–driven responses [e.g., mid-brain, object–dominated responses]. In electronic entertainment, earning rewards comes quickly, precisely and logically. In human interaction, even in the classroom, interactions are at variable rates. Person-to-perosn learning sets a mixed tempo [which is also true of secure attachment relationships]. People speak quickly, then slow down or stop altogether. Face-to-face social learning is epitomized by the old army saying: “Hurry up and wait!”

Rewards are usually delayed in the face-to-face condition. This delay actually helps learning because one can’t rely on quick outside reinforcement and must develop an inner motivation to persist. It also aids in the development of frustration tolerance and the postponement of self-regulation [key EF elements].

One last note. The above agrees with the information that Eli Pariser presents in his book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. According to Pariser’s research, the Internet uses cybernetic feedback algorithms designed to know your mind better than you do. These algorithms attempt to “deliver you to you” in perfect narcissistic ways. Work by attachment researcher Peter Fonagy (and his colleagues) suggests that perfectly contingent relationships (such as those mediated by the Internet) prevent one from knowing one’s own mind, to become “psychologically minded” as it were. Because in the digital world one does not have to wait to know one’s self, one’s self is never known. What authors like Carr, Hicks, and Pariser are trying to tell us is that the cybernetic algorithms of the Internet are making it increasingly hard for one to “know thy self,” for the self to, in essence, emerge. Increasingly the Internet is forcing us to live life out of the object-dominated mid-brain (a condition I have blogged about before in the context of presenting work by EF expert Elkhonon Goldberg).

OK, so what? What exactly do we give up if we live a digital life? We give up those things that the upper brain affords: reflection, perspective-taking, insight, empathy, planning, mental modeling, time travel, futurity, delaying gratification, cooperation, and the list goes on. It may be a bit extreme but what we give up is being fully human. Equally extreme, that may be the point as we continue to move toward a posthuman condition.

Interactive Whiteboards by PolyVision

We have never invested as much in public education as we should have. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, these are our children. We have to break through our private idea that children belong to their parents, or children belong to their families, and recognize that children belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, we start making better investments.

This PSA ignited a bit of a firestorm. Glenn Beck “eviscerated” the promo (as did other conservative pundits) while liberals defended it (see this New York Times Online blog for an example).

I found the MSNBC PSA interesting because it uses what cognitive linguist turned political commentator George Lakoff calls a “relief frame.” I’ll leave the political bickering to the pundits. In this blog post, I’d like to present a tale of three relief frames: child, nerd, and tax. I’m not an expert in cognitive framing. However, I’ve been a student of Lakoff’s work for some time now. In my amateur cognitive scientist opinion, the MSNBC PSA uses the frame of “child relief.”

To get us up to speed on the relief frame I’d like to present an excerpt from my executive summary of psychologist David Anderegg’s 2007 book Nerds—Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them. (Contact the Foundation for a copy of this executive summary.) This excerpt describes both the nerd relief and tax relief frames. After this excerpt I’ll try to make the case that at the core of the MSNBC PSA we can find the child relief frame. To conclude I’ll try to make a point that Lakoff often makes: these frames are about trying to change people’s cognitive models and are not necessarily about presenting facts or even science. As Lakoff tells us in his work (see his 1996 book Moral Politics for an example), we use frames to think with, not facts.

— o O  Begin Anderegg Summary Excerpt  O o —

• Anderegg mentions a book by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson entitled Metaphors We Live By (1980, University of Chicago Press). Anderegg talks about metaphors to make two points: 1) we tend to think about the world using metaphors, and, 2) the terms “nerd” or “geek” are, in fact, complex metaphors. To introduce us to the idea of a complex metaphor, Anderegg uses the example “tax relief” (a complex metaphor that Lakoff deconstructs in his latter political work). Simply put, tax relief suggests that there is an ailment or affliction—in this case, taxes—and, further, people desire to be relieved from this ailment or affliction. This is the core of the complex metaphor. Then there are the characters who play certain roles in the complex metaphor. According to Lakoff’s analysis, liberals, by imposing taxes, create an affliction or ailment. They are, in essence, the bad guys in the complex metaphor. Conservatives, by providing relief from the burden of taxes, are the good guys in white hats riding to the rescue. Anderegg deconstructs the nerd complex metaphor in a similar way:
  • Thinking, or being good in math and science, is hard, it’s a burden, an affliction.
  • People desire to be relieved from the burden of hard thinking.
  • Math and science people—people of reflection (say, those people who talk about global warming by mentioning 15^th century climatology (i.e., Al Gore))—impose the burden of hard thinking on others.
  • Tough burly people—people of doing (say, those people who cut trees and brush on their farms with a chainsaw as a form of relaxation (i.e., George Bush)—are the ones who ride in and rescue us from the burden of hard thinking.

Anderegg finishes this section on metaphors by suggesting that to change the nerd complex metaphor, we must first deconstruct the metaphor (in the same way that Lakoff deconstructs “tax relief” for us), and then create new metaphors that cast nerds (or whatever the new term will be) as heroes and not villains. Anderegg does allow that this will be no easy feat. Again, Anderegg points out that the nerd metaphor has been with us since the dawn of recorded time. As the mythologist Joseph Campbell points out in his work, the story of Cain and Abel is essentially a nerd story. Cain is a man of action because he is associated with cattle ranching. Abel is a man of reflection because he is associated with sheepherding. We can see the Cain and Abel theme reflected in the 1953 movie Shane starring Alan Ladd (who, throughout the movie, is torn between a life of reflection—settling down on a sheep farm with family and friends—and a life of action—continuing his isolated and lonely life as a gunslinger). [editor's note: for more on this theme, see my April 3rd, 2013, post Hunters and Gatherers Go To the Movies.]

— o O  End Anderegg Summary Excerpt  O o —

Again, if the above Anderegg summary excerpt piques your interest, contact the Foundation for a copy.

OK, allow me to take a stab at putting the MSNBC PSA into a relief frame using the above examples as a guide. In specific, I am here arguing that the PSA uses a “child relief” frame. Here’s how that frame would play out:

Simply put, child relief suggests that there is an ailment or affliction. In this case childrearing or providing care to children within the private environments of family and home would be the ailment or affliction. Further, parents or families desire to be relieved from this ailment or affliction, to be relieved from their isolated and private environments. This is the core of the child relief complex metaphor. Then there are the characters who play certain roles in the complex metaphor. According to my armchair analysis, conservatives, by forcing parents and other caregivers to provide care within the confines of private environments (like homes and families), create an affliction or ailment. They are, in essence, the bad guys in the complex metaphor. Liberals, by providing relief from the burden of childcare, are the good guys in white hats riding to the rescue. Liberals provide relief by funding and providing access to such public spaces as day care, pre-K, public education, Head Start, etc.

So, that’s the child relief frame as I see it. If you have a different take, please leave it in a comment. Again, this frame was constructed and delivered to change people’s cognitive models. This particular child relief frame takes a negative view of anything private, and privileges anything public. It privileges the so-called WITT model—We’re In This Together—and demonizes the YOYO model—You’re Own Your Own. Liberals tend to use the WITT model whereas conservatives tend to use the YOYO model. They’re fundamentally different ways of viewing the world. There is nothing intrinsically good or bad about either model. They’re just different models. That’s why frames are designed to drag one model down while bolstering another. This “one up and one down” motion is what drives the story told by any good frame. It tells us what the ailment is, what the form of relief is, who’s imposing the ailment, who will provide the relief, and what form relief will take. Think about it, that whole story is told when frames like tax relief, nerd, or child relief is used. Quite amazing eh? Equally amazing, these frame stories often play out unconsciously (a fact often exploited by survey takers and pollsters).

I’d be remiss if I did not point out that the child relief frame is not new. As a matter of fact, it has been around since at least the turn of the last century. Consider this quote by conservative social commentator Christopher Lasch (from his book The Culture of Narcissism) on the auspicious beginnings of the social work profession back at the turn of the last century:

Ellen Richards, founder of the modern profession of social work, argued: “In the social republic, the child as a future citizen is an asset of the state, not the [private] property of its parents. Hence its welfare is a direct concern of the state.”

Notice the similarity between the quote by Richards and the MSNBC PSA quote above. A bit further along we hear Lasch cite another early social worker, Miriam Van Waters, as Lasch gives us this “showstopper” quote:

This “incurable loyalty of children to unworthy adults” [where loyalty is being used as a derogatory reframe of attachment], although it was “the despair of the social worker,” nevertheless suggested that a child’s “own home gave him something [i.e., a primary attachment figure] that the mere kindness and plenty of the foster home could not furnish, and that all the social workers in the world would fail to supply.”

Simply, social workers have been trying to pull kids out of private places for a long time now. However, the process of placing kids in public places involves constantly fighting against the natural inclination of kids (and adults) to attach to a very select few primary attachment figures (in most cases mother). It’s times like these that we should recall failed “private to public” experiments from the past. Here are two such examples.

Here in New Mexico memories of the disastrous Indian Boarding School System (which was set up in the late 1800s and ran through the early 20th century) are still fresh in our minds. This program was set up by the US government to remove Native American children from their families and communities, and to place them in boarding schools where they would learn (so the public policy went) the ways of white culture.

In Britain, John Bowlby cut his teeth by advocating against WWII evacuation policies that pulled young children out of private homes in the cities (which were being bombed regularly) and then sent them to the countryside. Bowlby and others (like child psychologist Donald Winnicott) argued (with little real success) that kids would fare better psychologically if they stayed with their parents as opposed to being sent to (in many cases) strangers. Today we know that many of these kids were ultimately sent to places like Australia and Canada only to be received and subsequently abused by certain religious groups.

Today, to their credit, Britain, Australia, and Canada have begun the process of redressing these “private to public” wrongs from the past. Sadly, the redress process has not significantly started here in the US. In my view, this is a place where I’d like to see funding dollars flow. (As an example, a philanthropist has recently made a $10M gift toward restoration efforts at Jefferson’s mansion, including the slave quarters.) A few years back, Judge Thorne—a Native American appellate judge from Utah—reminded his audience at a national attachment conference in Salt Lake that the US’s current foster care system is patterned after the old Indian Boarding School System.

Ergo, before we embark on new “private to public” experiments, lets take some time to learn the lessons of those from history. And surely there have been failed “public to private” experiments. Placing hard-earned dollars into a private savings account of some kind only to see those funds effectively evaporate because of “bubble or Ponzi scheme du jour,” is but one simple example. If you can think of others, please leave them in a comment.

So, how does the child relief frame square with science, in particular Bowlbian attachment theory. Well, as it turns out, conservatives have taken a look at this very issue (as you would expect). The Lasch example above hints at this process. Here’s another take.

In his article entitled The Fractured Dream of Social Parenting—Child-Care Policy Lessons and Losses, conservative social commentator Allan Carlson puts it this way:

The psychological evidence is overwhelming, and still mounting, that children in extended day care—even very good day care—are on average more aggressive, less sociable, and less emotionally secure: traits that, ironically, undo the key socialist goal of enhanced human cooperation.

Carlson’s article appears in a special issue on childcare entitled The Child-Care ‘Crisis’ And Its Remedies (Family Policy Review, Fall 2003). The evidence that Carlson points to comes from attachment researchers such as Jay Belsky. Even Sir Richard Bowlby (John’s son) has spoken out against use of poor and/or extended day care (i.e., more than 20 hours per week). (Contact the Foundation for a summary of the talk that Sir Richard gave up in Canada back in 2005.)

Sure, we can relieve parents of their private burden of raising kids by delivering said kids to all manner of public spaces, but at what cost? I for one appreciate that secure attachment provides the foundation upon which EF (executive function) rests, the same EF needed for such things as empathy, perspective-taking, Gestalt forms of thinking, cooperation, and metacognition. Likewise we could get rid of all taxes (and, as a result, all public spaces), but at what cost? I for one enjoy roads, police departments, fire departments, parks, and public works departments. We could do away with all nerds, geeks and hard thinking, but, again, at what cost? Are you willing to do away with the STEM sciences? If so, you also better be willing to give up your smartphone, computer, Facebook, Google, all social media for that matter. And you can wave good bye to hopes that the US will achieve any prominent global position.

The thing to keep in mind when any battle of frames erupts is this: one person’s relief is another’s burden. Frames are always about “one up and one down.” Frames tend to privilege one worldview at the expense of others. Frames ask us to enter and take up residence in a particular worldview or compartment, say, the public system compartment or the private system compartment. I’d like to see relief from compartmentalized thinking, but that may well be a very tall order.

Public–private partnerships are all the rage in philanthropy. But to truly get to a place where private–public partnerships can become a reality, we’re going to have to check our frames at the door at least long enough for us to sit down and take a look at some hard cold facts. As I have written about before, technical camps and adaptive camps will have to learn to get along for there to be true change. In the final analysis, true leadership will end up being the key ingredient. For more on this theme, see the article Leading Boldly in the Winter 2004 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review.

]]> http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/04/16/child-nerd-and-tax-relief-a-tale-of-three-frames/feed/ 0 http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/04/03/hunters-and-gatherers-go-to-the-movies/ http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/2013/04/03/hunters-and-gatherers-go-to-the-movies/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:33:01 +0000 Rick Leonhardt http://fhlfound.securesites.net/wordpress/?p=3767 Back in February, 2013, I wrote a two-part blog series entitled What’s So Social About Machine Media? In this blog series I mentioned a 2010 book by psychologist and social critic Dr. Mack Hicks entitled The Digital Pandemic—Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age. In his book Hicks spends a lot of time talking about two overarching personality types: Gatherers and Hunters. Here’s how I described these two personality types in my blog series:

Throughout his book Hicks defines and describes two overarching personality types: Hunters and Gatherers. Simply, Gatherers are linear and left-brain oriented (e.g., comfortable with precision, certitude, and reliability); Hunters are holistic and right-brain oriented (e.g., comfortable with approximations, guesses, and hunches).

In my blog series I suggested that one can find an almost archetypal struggle between Hunters and Gatherers in the 1950s western movie Shane. As movie critics have pointed out, Shane is essentially a remake of the Cane and Abel story from the Old Testament. As mythologist Joseph Campbell often told his audiences, Abel was associated with sheep farming while Cane was associated with cattle herding. Simply, Abel was a Gatherer and Cane was a Hunter. Psychologist David Anderegg (in his book Nerds) describes Gatherers as people of thought, and Hunters as people of doing. Both Hicks and Anderegg suggest that President Obama embodies the Gatherer mindset with its focus on mental worlds, and the second President Bush would be a Hunter, a doer out in the physical world.

In the movie Shane, we see Alan Ladd (who plays Shane) struggle with his desire to leave behind his Hunter life (he was a gunslinger) for a more pastoral or Gatherer existence (living with a family of sheep farmers). Sadly, Shane is not able to throw off his Hunter history and rides off into the proverbial sunset with a young (impressionable) farm boy chasing along yelling, “Shane, come back Shane!” What the Old Testament and Shane stories tell us is that the struggle between the Hunter and Gatherer archetypes has been with us from the beginning of recorded history and persists even today.

Several of you have emailed me asking for more examples of Hunters and Gatherers in the movies. Thanks for your comments and interest in comparing and contrasting the Gatherer and Hunter personality types. In the rest of this post (by popular demand) I’ll look at what happens when Hunters and Gatherers go to the movies. In the interest of time I’ll be pulling these descriptions mostly from memory (which is always risky), so forgive me if the details are a bit off. You bet, Wikipedia and IMDb will be my friends here. Lets go to the movies.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) – Given that this is a WWII movie set against the backdrop of the Normandy invasion, it tips decidedly in the direction of the Hunter archetype. But one of the many subplots focuses on the struggle between the Gatherer and Hunter personality types. There’s a character in the movie who I have dubbed Map Man. He’s Corporal Timothy Upham, who was a translator (he speaks fluent German) and map reader. Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) is ordered to find Private Ryan (played by Matt Damon). When Miller meets Map Man for the first time, it’s clear that Map Man has gathered together a number of maps but has never had to use them in any significant “doing” way. We also see that Map Man is rather clumsy and fumbles a lot. Miller cuts to the chase and asks Map Man to provide him with the map (out of many) that will help him find Private Ryan. Then Miller orders Map Man to come along and venture out into the land of Hunters. It is clear that Map Man is very reluctant to leave behind the security of his Gatherer existence and face the perils of being a Hunter.

What follows is Map Man’s tumultuous transition from Gatherer to Hunter. Along the way Map Man is duped by a German soldier. (The german soldier persuades Map Man to let him live by playing on Map Man’s heart strings.) This ends up being a pivotal event for Map Man as we will see. The climax of the Gatherer versus Hunter conflict for Map Man comes toward the end of the movie when Miller’s men have to defend a small town against advancing Germans. Suffice it to say that during this climatic scene bullets are flying and bombs are exploding everywhere. It’s mayhem. Map Man is given the sole task of carrying ammunition and delivering it where it is needed most. He fails in this Hunter task. Because he is not able to deliver ammunition in a timely fashion, several of his comrades die. Map Man ultimately freezes and crumbles into a shaking mass at the bottom of a set of stairs. I would suggest that this represents Map Man’s inability to move up from Gatherer to Hunter. In this crumbled and defeated state, a german soldier (who has just killed American soldiers waiting for Map Man’s ammunition delivery) walks by Map Man, pauses as if to ask himself, “Should I kill him?” and walks off as if to say, “No, this coward is already dead.”

Although Map Man fails and soldiers die as a result, both the town and Private Ryan are saved. But Map Man’s transition is not yet over. He encounters the german soldier who earlier had duped him. Once again the german soldier begins to dupe Map Man by pleading for his life. Map Man is tired of being duped and used, and ends up killing the german with a sense of newly acquired conviction. We can visibly see Map Man change from Gatherer to Hunter. His face changes, his body changes, he’s more erect, his whole essence and presence changes. He’s now a Hunter. He seems to have clear purpose and direction, not unlike putting a north arrow on a map. Pulling from mythology once more, in Map Man we see Parsifal (the holy fool) as he moves from being a foolish boy to being a wise and discerning man.

The Die Hard Series (1988, 1990, 1995, 2007, 2013) – The first Die Hard movie, starring Bruce Willis, came out in 1988. I would suggest that the first Die Hard movie was almost exclusively a Hunter movie with only hints of anything approaching a Gatherer sensibility. The first Die Hard movie is probably not a good place to look for any take on the Gatherer versus Hunter conflict. However, I would suggest that the Die Hard series itself goes through a transition and by movie number four—2007’s Live Free or Die Hard—a strong Gatherer sensibility enters the scene.

Live Free or Die Hard pairs together the Hunter character of detective John McClane (played by Willis) and the Gatherer character of Matt Farrell (played by Justin Long). Farrell is a young computer whiz kid and hacker extraordinaire who ultimately falls for McClane’s daughter. The main plot of the movie centers on tracking down an Internet terrorist. Ergo, there are now actual bombs and digital bombs blowing up. I would suggest that this installment of the Die Hard series is the first to acknowledge that Hunters (represented by McClane) will have to learn to work with Gatherers (represented by Farrell). For most of the movie Farrell gathers the necessary technical information required to track the Internet terrorist while McClane does the heavy lifting (e.g., kicking butt). Here we see the back worker McClane working with the brain worker Farrell. But there’s a twist. Like with Map Man above, in order for Farrell to transition to the world of the Hunter he has to kill one of the bad guys. In the movie we witness an actual death. However, in archetypal or even psychoanalytic terms, I would suggest that this is some form of killing the Gatherer personality so that the Hunter personality can flourish.

Before I end I’d like to point out that many popular TV programs today depict Hunters and Gatherers working together in relative peace and harmony. Here are a few examples:

• NCIS – Gibbs, Ziva, and DiNozzo are the main back work Hunters while Abby and Dr. Mallard are the main brain work Gatherers. McGee is the bridge person who equally embodies both worlds.
• NCIS: Los Angeles – Basically the same charter distribution as NCIS above. For example, Callen and Hanna handle most of the heavy lifting while Beale and Jones “man” the computer terminals.
• Elementary – This present day version of Sherlock Holmes presents Holmes as a very capable Gatherer who is able to hold his own in the world of the Hunter. (As a general observation, I see many modern versions of Sherlock Holmes—most notably Robert Downey Jr.’s version—moving Sherlock in the direction of Hunter.) However, when push comes to shove, Holmes has no problem allowing either Captain Gregson or Detective Bell handle the heavy lifting. Dr. Watson tends to embody both worlds.
• The Mentalist – Clearly Patrick Jane is a clever (although somewhat manipulative) Gatherer who allows Lisbon, Rigsby, and Cho to do most of the heavy lifting. Van Pelt often embodies both worlds.

If you have a media example of Gatherers and Hunters working side by side, please feel free to leave them in a comment. As a general suggestion, as you watch any media—TV, movies, web episodes—see if you can recognize the Hunter and Gatherer archetypes. Further, observe how they are depicted interacting with each other. Finally, see if you can recognize any so-called “right of passage” from one to the other. As the Saving Private Ryan and Die Hard examples above point out, it would seem that the passage is generally one-way—from Gatherer to Hunter—and involves killing. Why might this be? To conclude I’ll take a stab at answering this question.

I would suggest that the killing associated with the one-way transition from Gatherer to Hunter often depicted in movies reflects a fear that machines might one day win the right to make life and death decisions for us. This is the basic fear expressed in the Terminator movie series. I would further suggest that this is the same fear often expressed when conversations turn to the subject of systems engineering. People are worried, with good cause, that the so-called kill decison is now being systematically turned over to systems engineers—Gatherers. For example, consider the following two articles (the second offers commentary on the first):

With Drone Warfare, America Approaches the Robo-Rubicon

Death by Algorithm Is the Ultimate Indignity Says 2 Star General

Recent reports (see the first article above) that the White House has authorized use of drones against US civilians only serve to concretize fears over the possibility that robots will receive the kill decision. Consider this quote by Latiff & McCloskey (authors of the first article above):

The problem is that robotic weapons eventually will make kill decisions on the battlefield with no more than a veneer of human control. Full lethal autonomy is no mere next step in military strategy: It will be the crossing of a moral Rubicon. Ceding godlike powers to robots reduces human beings to things with no more intrinsic value than any object.

When robots rule warfare, utterly without empathy or compassion, humans retain less intrinsic worth than a toaster—which at least can be used for spare parts. In civilized societies, even our enemies possess inherent worth and are considered persons, a recognition that forms the basis of the Geneva Conventions and rules of military engagement.

Susan Faludi, writing in her book Stiffed, and Lt.Col. Dave Grossman, writing in his book On Killing, both point to the rise of systems engineering and the passing of the kill decision from man to machine (starting with the Vietnam War) as constituting a huge pshycological blow to people in general and to the Hunter mindset in specific. I wonder if we as a society are now allowing a young stage of development—mechanical gathering—to now become manifest at the level of adult society. As systems engineering meets the Gatherer (now allowed to become an adult), we encounter the machine (mechanical Gatherer) in the machine (systems engineering). Once these two worlds meld or short-circuit against each other, machines acquiring the kill decision will not be far off. Stories of transition from Gatherer to Hunter via some type of killing process (i.e., Saving Private Ryan and Live Free or Die Hard) express hope that machines will never acquire the kill decision. Again, drones overhead will serve to dash these hopes. For more on this theme, request a copy of my executive summary of Carl Jung’s final book (published in the late 1950s) Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. You may wish to take another look at my reprint of Jay Nelson’s article entitled Robots, Robots Everywhere (March 19th, 2013).

One last suggestion: Keep the frame “death by algorithm” in mind because I believe it will come to increasingly define days ahead. If you happen to come upon a group of teenagers sitting around a table at a restaurant furiously tapping away on their screens not paying any attention to each other (or, for that matter, the people around them), think Death by Algorithm. If you happen to read MIT researcher Sherry Turkle’s 2012 book Alone Together—Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, think Death by Algorithm. Or if you happen to hear that over a billion people are now on Facebook, think Death by Algorithm. Hmmm … maybe that’s why the zombie and vampire archetypes have reemerged with a vengeance (especially in the movies).

by Jay Nelson
February 2013 issue of SWCP Portal
(reprinted with the kind permission of the author)

What follows is a reprint of an article by Jay Nelson that appeared in the February 2013 issue of Southwest Cyberport Portal Newsletter. Southwest Cyberport is the FHL Foundation’s IP or Internet provider. Their newsletter appears in our invoice statement each month. Given that SWCP is very much a digital technology company, I am impressed by how much they regularly write on such issues as how technology affects us not only as individuals but also as a society. The following article is just one example. I asked for (and received) permission to reprint this particular article because I myself have written extensively on what automation is doing to our society, especially our economy. In short, pundits (like economist Jeremy Rifkin, more on Rifkin below) regularly point to automation as a chief cause of our high levels of un- or underemployment. I am always heartened to see that others are also looking at this issue. When I called Jay, he told me that the TV news program 60 Minutes ran a piece on automation back in January, 2013. I did a Google search and, indeed, the title of the piece is, Are Robots Hurting Job Growth? Jay told me that the 60 Minutes piece offers up a more gloomy picture than the one he paints in his article. I’ll offer up a few additional gloomy observations of my own following this reprint of Jay’s article. For now, enjoy this reprint of Robots, Robots Everywhere. And thanks Jay. (My editorial comments will be in brackets.)

— o O  Begin Reprint  O o —

Robots, robots everywhere

by Jay Nelson

There’s something disturbingly different about the Great Recession. The current economic recovery, such as it is, is not bringing back jobs. And that’s just the start of what could be not very good news for the foreseeable future.

Most of these jobs haven’t been lost to foreign workers but to others that also work long hours, get no benefits, and pay no taxes – robots. A recent analysis by the Associated Press concludes that the future that science fiction long foretold “when we would be architects of our own obsolescence, replaced by our machines … has arrived.”

The numbers are indeed grim. In the US, half of the 7.5 million people who lost their jobs made from $38-68,000, but only 2% of the 3.5 million jobs that have come back pay as well. The trends, even worse in Europe, are clear: most of the jobs lost are never coming back, and surprisingly, they’re not just in manufacturing but also in the service sector, where two-thirds of all workers are now employed.

Economic downturns have always resulted in new, more efficient technologies being adopted. But always before they have led not just to more productively and efficiency, but entirely new businesses. Yet it seems only software developers are now thriving. Technology is eliminating far more jobs far faster than it can create them. Entire categories such as secretaries and travel agents are disappearing.

Experts say this is just the beginning. AP has found that the efficiencies mechanization has brought to manufacturing for the last three decades are now being increasingly unleashed on all kinds of office work and retail sales.

The most vulnerable citizens of this brave new world are anyone doing repetitive tasks. Accountants, office managers, even sports writers and paralegals are already being replaced, and as software becomes more sophisticated, those who supervise and juggle things will be also.

It’s happening everywhere, too: big corporations, small businesses, schools, medical facilities, non-profits [my emphasis], the military. It seems that no one is safe. Jobs based on programmable tasks will last only as long as human workers remain cheaper than machine replacements.

There will be fewer of those every day. But it means that workers who can use machines to be more productive but can’t be replaced by them, such as artists, may prosper. Ironically, the lowest-paying jobs will also linger. Hotel maids may keep their jobs long after managers lose theirs.

Economics of obsolence

Back in the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes pointed out a “new disease” he called “technological unemployment.” This means not only the replacement of human labor but that technological progess would outrun how quickly new uses for old workers could be found. But he was generally optimistic, predicting that by 2030 there would be only a 15-hour work week. The problem of economic scarcity would be replaced by one of filling all that leisure time.

The revolution began quietly by putting machines in dangerous or mind-numbing situations and that is still going on. The Air Force may lose three times as many drones as planes carrying pilots, but the savings of cheaper aircraft and not risking human crews are irresistable.

Unmanned trains are already here, and Google and Toyota are working on cars that can drive themselves. Experts predict delivery drivers, cabbies, and truckers will be obsolete in a few decades. Even staid libraries turn to “bookbots” to shelve paper instead of librarians just as hospitals are looking to robots and not nurses to deliver medicines.

What makes this possible is not just making individual things smart but linking them. Google’s self-driving cars depend not just on its sensors but on constant connections to Google’s online maps. And the sensors feed their information back into the system making it ever smarter. [editor's note: This is an example of a cybernetic feedback loop.]

The Internet, and especially cloud computing, have drastically sped up these developments. Computer analysis of huge volumes of data, much too complex for any human to comprehend, allow organizations to not only understand their customers but the operations of their own employees. This allows them to get more out of workers, whether it’s planning more efficient school bus routes despite driver layoffs, or using time-saving software that allows cops to file crime reports directly from their cars.

That leader in innovation, Amazon, recently bought Kiva Systems, a company that makes automatic inventory movers for warehouses, allowing same or next day order fulfillment. Other tech leaders are even more automated. Google’s new half a billion dollar data center employs less than 200 people, Facebook’s only 55. [editor's note: See my December 1st, 2011, blog post for more on how Apple's new huge data center in North Carolina only employs 50 people.]

Indeed, the giants of high technology today are not like the economic powerhouses of old. Apple, Google, and Facebook combined have 64,000 fewer employees than General Motors – and GM has less than a quarter of those it had in the 1970s, while making more cars than ever.

Software is getting smarter all the time. New industries will not be labor-intensive but digital. It may not be possible for many workers to develop the skills necessary to stay ahead of this overwhelming tsunami of change.

Tools that think

Looking back over the history of humanity, the rise of the robots seems as inevitable as it is unstoppable. Perhaps, as in 2001: A Space Odysssey, it was somehow inherent in the first ape’s discovery of the power of tools.

Though there is no hard and fast definition of just what constitutes a robot, there is a general consensus. A robot replaces human labor, so many are based on human forms and functions, but it does not have to be humanoid.

In fact, just as not all machines are robots, not all robots are even mechanical. Much software, especially self-regulating stand-alone programs, can be considered robotic.

While most machines that mimic people in activity or shape are recognized as robots, what is more crucial is agency. A robot must have some ability to perceive data or objects in its environment, and process that in response to stimuli. A device as simple as an automatic door could be considered a robot, but a 787 jet, despite its onboard computers would not be, as long as it’s flown by pilots.

Thus there is something resembling a human being in a robot, either physically or mentally. And that is what gives them both their great potential and fills us with unease.

Welcome to the machine

Mechanical servants have been imagined for thousands of years. Possibly the first were the bronze handmaidens that assisted the lame Vulcan, god of the forge, while the first actual designs were dreamed up by Leonardo da Vinci for a mechanical knight, and may have actually been built.

The word “robot”, from a Czech term for a coerced worker [my emphasis] implying drudgery, first appeared in a play by Karel Capek in 1920. R.U.R, for “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” the company that manufactures them, is a very strange play, notable not only for the term but the first prediction that the masses of slaves would one day inevitably rise against us.

In this drama, mankind first stops reproducing even before the revolt because people are no longer needed. Then governments turn the robots, here biological androids, into soldiers to put down human resistance. They rebel and kill all. Thus the earliest speculation about robots shows several ways they could lead to humanity’s demise.

Perhaps the historical experience of slavery is what has so soured modern expectations. Even the Romans realized that slavery not only degrades the slave but the master as well. Robot slavery, however, does not have to be brutal. It may be possible to program the machines to prefer their servitude. The result might not be much better. Instead of being hunted, humanity could be loved to death.

Are the Terminator or Wall-E the only alternatives available? Of course not. The experts AP consulted did not even consider those, though they could not come to a consensus whether the robot revolution would lead to an age of bounty for all, for a tiny elite like in Metropolis that run everything, or massive, persistent unemployment. The latter possibility at the moment seems all too likely, because nobody has come up with a workable solution.

Industry leaders, however, remain optimistic, one manufacturer’s group claiming factory automation will create millions of high-skilled, higher-paying positions in the near future. Perhaps, but a bold new vision is still needed for long term prosperity, a new economic model beyond old ideas of scarcity and even the value of labor. One that would be geared to free all humanity from tedium for genuine creativity and greater living. We’re not there yet, and the road may be rough. But everyone at least agrees on one thing: There’s no profit in making endless cheap goods if no one can buy them.

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Rick’s editorial comments:

Let me start by saying that this is a great piece. Kudos to Jay.

I’d just like to add an excerpt from my executive summary of Jeremy Rifkin’s book The End of Work—The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era (1995, Tarcher Penguin). I wrote this summary back in November of 2008. I think my observations dovetail nicely with the one’s that Jay presents above. Contact us if you would like a copy of my Rifkin summary. Today when I’m asked what the top three issues are facing philanthropists, I often list them as follows: automation, automation, and automation. Again, my editorial comments are in brackets.

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• Here’s a startling statement by Rifkin: “Permanent joblessness [brought on in large part by automation and mechanization] has led to an escalating crime wave in the streets of America’s cities and the wholesale disintegration of black family life.” At this point in his book, Rifkin briefly talks about Norbert Wiener, arguably the father of cybernetics or the study and development of mechanical feedback and self-regulating systems (like those used to guide missiles). According to Rifkin’s research, Wiener predicted that “the automatic machine … is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor” (quoting Wiener here). Wiener continues his thought thus: “Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.” Rifkin chimes in by pointing out that, “not surprisingly, the first community to be devastated by the cybernetics revolution [ushered in by Wiener and his colleagues] was black America.” Here’s Rifkin’s “bottom line” on cybernetics: “The cybernation revolution has been brought about by the combination of the computer and the automated self-regulating machine.” I’d be remiss if I did not point out that John Bowlby, arguably the father of attachment theory, was very much aware of cybernetics and its focus on mechanical feedback and self-regulating systems, but consciously decided to use an organismic approach to living open systems as a backdrop to his attachment theory. (In contrast, cybernetic systems, by design, are closed and externally determined.) Rifkin notes that even Robert Oppenheimer, arguably the father of the atomic bomb, worried that the opening of the atomic age could spell the end of human labor as we know it.
• Rifkin allows that “America’s underclass, which is still largely black and urban, is likely to become increasingly white and suburban as the new thinking machines relentlessly make their way up the economic pyramid, absorbing more and more skilled jobs and tasks along the way.” Rifkin continues, “A near-workless world is fast approaching and may arrive well before society has sufficient time to either debate its broad implications or prepare for its full impact.” Even Wiener (as mentioned above, a central architect of cybernetics) worried that his brainchild might turn out to be a monster. Wiener writes: “If these changes in the demand for labor [e.g., a decrease in demand brought on by automation] come upon us in a haphazard and ill-organized way, we may well be in for the greatest period of unemployment we have yet seen.”

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PS – Back in November of 2009, the FHL Foundation was instrumental in bringing author Jeremy Rifkin to New Mexico. Rifkin spoke at the annual conference of the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers. Our Foundation made a grant to NMAG to cover the cost of bringing Jeremy to New Mexico to talk about his (at that time) new book Empathic Civilization. As you would expect, Rifkin also spoke about his book End of Work. It was this experience that led us to create the Foundation’s RYOL Lecture Series. Click on the link above for more information on the RYOL Lecture Series.

PSS – I think you can draw a straight line between the largely failed Occupy Movement and Rifkin’s statement: “America’s underclass, which is still largely black and urban, is likely to become increasingly white and suburban as the new thinking machines relentlessly make their way up the economic pyramid, absorbing more and more skilled jobs and tasks along the way.” In my November 15th, 2011, blog post on Frankenstein’s Monster, I make the point that even though banks are being cast in the role of the imagined monster, the real monster is in fact automation. One reason the Occupy Movement largely died out is because the movement failed to identify and draw attention to the real monster. As I stated back in November of 2011: “Bottom line: people are attacking the nerd, the monster, the brainworker because they themselves are worried—with good reason—that they will not be able to make the jump to an economy focused on information processing.”

Moving from an analog to a digital environment is certainly a paradigm shift not unlike moving from a flat world to a round world. With any paradigm shift, there is great social, economic, and political upheaval. Welcome to the Shift. I call on funders and service groups alike to take the time to understand and addresses the myriad issues that are arising (and will certainly continue to arise) from the Shift. Jay’s article is a great resource. I’d also recommend Rifkin’s book End of Work, which scarily predicted this Shift way back in the mid-1990s (executive summary available). And don’t forget Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows—What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (which I have blogged about extensively). Two other resources: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser, and The Digital Pandemic: Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age by Mack Hicks. Oh yeah, William Powers’ book Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (which I summarized in a multi-part blog series). Hopefully that should get you started. Leave a comment if you know of a good resource on the Shift.

… primate research was sparked by John Bowlby, who encouraged him to set up a colony of rhesus monkeys. In addition to training and supervising a whole generation of primate fieldworkers, Hinde had a great influence on primate behavior research with his own work on mother-infant relationships in rhesus macaques. … [F]or decades [Hinde] was one of the most articulate propoents of the conceptual integration between biological and psychological approaches to the study of behavior.

It’s too bad but most post-Bowlbians have all but forgotten the close connection between ethology and attachment theory. “What exactly created this split or separation?” you may well ask. Here’s what I wrote back in 2011:

Maestripieri reveals that one very important factor “was the rapid progress of biological disciplines such as genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience and the growing popularity of scientific reductionism.” Maestripieri gives us this “bottom line”: “[T]he success of neuroscience led to the optimistic view that many important questions about behavior would eventually be answered by studies of brain anatomy and function, thus rendering [naturalistic] behavioral research less necessary.”

Simply, scientific reductionism has created a rift between attachment research and ethology, a rift that I do not imagine will ever be repaired. But as the following YouTube video reminds us, it’s almost impossible to study the attachment behavioral system without also studying not only animal behavior but also animal–human relationships. And these naturalistic studies cannot be carried out within the artificial confines of a brain scanner.

As you watch this video, notice one thing: the overarching continuity of the attachment relationship over an extended period of time (in this case, five years). It is that continuity, that attachment relationship that is the “body model” upon which EF or executive functioning is built. While EF is so much about the explicit future, Bowlby’s Inner Working Models of attachment are about the implied future (its loss the central fuel of mourning). Scientific reductionism does many things, but it does one thing very well: it strips body out of the equation. It’s a video like this that reminds us how important body is to the attachment behavioral system and its focus on the implicit future. Simply, from an evolutionary perspective, body implies future.

Enjoy! (This video profiles work being done by the Aspinall Foundation.)

By Rachel Ny | U.S.News & World Report LP – Mon, Mar 4, 2013

Just a quick comment concerning the above article by Rachel Ny (which I viewed via Yahoo News) entitled Student Must-Haves for Scholarship Success. I focused on this article because I would suggest that it supports my claim (in earlier posts) that EF or executive function plays a large role in not only school preparedness but also school success.

According to Ny’s article, a group called NerdScholar conducted a survey to determine the ingredients needed for scholarship success. The results of the survey suggest that students will need three things:

1. Transcripts
2. Essays
3. Letters of Reference

Transcripts are self-explanatory.

Now, here’s what the article says about essays:

Often these essays inquire about goals for the future, what students would do with the reward money, general personal statements, or questions on a topic relating to the organization [making the scholarship].

As I have written about in earlier posts, a big piece of EF centers on the future. In other words, we need EF in order to not only imagine the future, but to also make plans based on that future vision. Simply, successful essays will depend on successful EF skills.

Here’s what the article says about letters of reference:

[L]etters of reference are another way of getting to know a student, but through someone else’s eyes. A community leader or teacher vouching for a student means someone of strong standing in the community is willing to put their reputation on the line for this student.

What is being talked about here is another big piece of the EF picture: mind-in-mind. So, not only do scholarship organizations wish to know something about the applicant, they wish to know the applicant through the minds of others. In order for an applicant to request letters of reference that will have the most impact, they must know something about how others look at them or “keep them in mind.” These mentors have a robust model in their minds of the world the applicant wishes to study and, one day, enter. It is these same mentors, using their EF skills, who can comment on whether there is a match between the world the applicant imagines, and the real world that awaits them. I would suggest that these mind-in-mind processes are at the heart of letters of recommendation.

The article goes on to offer up some tips for scholarship applicants. Some of these tips require EF skills. Lets take a look.

Here’s a tip concerning essays:

They require often introspection and citation of real-life examples that reinforce your perspective. If all you’ve done is bury your nose in a book and sit in front of a TV, you won’t have many experiences to build off of. What are you interested? Join a club at school and get involved in extracurricular activities.

Again, introspection is part and parcel of EF skills. But this tip goes a bit further. In essence it says that making a plan of action is one step; carrying it through to action is another. Sure, planning for the future is one big part of EF, but an equally big part is putting that plan into action. Here’s an example of where you need both Gatherer (collect information) and Hunter (act on that information) skills (to use frames by Dr. Hicks talked about in my last post series). So much of EF is about knowing what information to collect so that a reasonable plan can be formulated and accomplished. It’s one thing to plan to join a club; it’s another to actually do it.

Here’s a tip concerning letters of recommendation:

It is not manipulative to target teachers or counselors and build a relationship with them; a letter of recommendation is only a side benefit to how these people can support your growth. These leaders are invaluable to have on your team because they can provide mentorship and opinions as you make critical decisions about your future. This may be a difficult task for the shyer students, but remember your teachers, counselors and community leaders are there to help.

I won’t go into all of the details but this tip points to one of the biggest EF skills of all: Know when and how to tap into the EF skills of others, especially those who have EF skill sets that are more well-developed—like teachers, counselors and community leaders. To use imagery pulled from cognitive science, you need to know when to access the PFC (prefrontal cortex) of others. There is nothing wrong with seeking out surrogate PFCs or surrogate minds if you will. Trust me, seeking out other minds will help with mind-in-mind. I hate to say it but asking Google or Siri a question is not a form of seeking out other minds and developing mind-in-mind. Trust me, it won’t go over big if you submit a letter of reference from Google or Siri (tongue firmly planted in cheek).

Here’s how the article by Ny concludes:

These organizations want to get to know you as an individual. Remember to express what you believe makes you unique, and ask for letters of recommendation from others who know you are unique.

Great advice. And you’ll need EF skills to carry it out. You will need other people who have your mind in mind. Go out and find them. As the saying goes, “Pick their brains.”

Out of all the media that have existed for thousands of years why do we frame digital machine media as being “social?”

Here are two follow-up questions:

• Where has this “social” frame come from?
• Why has the social frame been so widely, readily, rapidly, and unreflectively accepted?

Lets get started. If you have not read part I yet, I would suggest that you do so first. But if you only read part II, you’ll get the gist.

Dr. Hicks effectively argues that machine thinking fits closely with gatherer thinking—they’re both linear, logical, technical, certain, and object oriented to the exclusion of such things as context, ambiguity, conflict, gestalts, etc. On page 138 of his book The Digital Pandemic, Hicks writes, “[M]aybe in the future, the lonely, sensitive [nerd, autistic spectrum] kid who can’t trust others will go to video game avatars instead of teddy bears.” In a short article profiling her work entitled Human–Robot Relations: Why We Should Worry, MIT researcher Sherry Turkle observes, “People used to buy pets to teach their children about life and death and loss. We are now teaching kids that real living creatures are risky, and robots are safe.” Hicks continues by lamenting (in a pro-hunter way), “Not exactly a step forward, I’d say.” He gives us this “showstopper” observation: “Gatherers … are already predisposed to machines.” In essence, gatherer thinking fits nicely with machine thinking. So, here’s my key point:

Machine thinking becomes social if and only when machine thinking is used to normalize the gatherer way of life and worldview.

Don’t get me wrong; all politics is about normalizing a particular way of life or worldview. All leaders, whether benevolent or malevolent, share one thing in common—they all wish to normalize a particular way of life or worldview. Maybe an example will help out here.

Not too long ago I attended a workshop on (the soon to disappear diagnosis) Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers is often described as a high functioning version of autism. The presenter told us (echoing Florida’s message) that Aspergers forms of creativity are on the rise. The presenter suggested that the following captains of industry have Aspergers: the late Steve Jobs (of Apple fame), Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame), Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook fame), and Jerry Yang (of Yahoo fame). What the presenter said next stunned me (and I paraphrase): “Mark Zuckerberg is clearly on the autism spectrum—probably Aspergers—and his brainchild, Facebook, is his attempt to normalize the world and experiences of persons on the autism spectrum.” The presenter then asked the following question, which tracks my questioning above (still paraphrasing): “What is going on in our society that hundreds of millions of people the world over wish to join Zuckerberg in his attempts to fuse people thinking with machine thinking in largely autistic ways?” Again, the “social” frame being used in a concept such as “social media” is a frame that conveys the idea that fusing together people thinking and machine thinking is good and desirable.

Is this being social? I would say no. If anything, it’s an entirely new form of what it means to be social. It’s people and machines being social (“machine culture” as Hicks calls it). The correct frame should be “human-machine media” or simply “machine media.” But why are we seeing so many people embracing and attaching to machine media or machine culture? Well, Hicks gives us a clue above when he talks about “lonely, sensitive [nerd, autistic spectrum] kid[s]” who are increasingly turning to the company of “video game avatars instead of teddy bears.” Turkle (mentioned above) in her book Alone Together looks at this trend in detail.

Turkle effectively tells us that machine thinking and machine media are perfect answers to the question asked by Bowlbian insecure attachment:

How do I secure a feeling and experience of being connected to others while at the same time not risk the pain that face-to-face, human-to-human intimacy inevitably brings?

Simply, the machine world along with its machine thinking and machine relating, offers up the promise of normalizing the insecure attachment experience. Hicks reminds us (at page 137) that “[s]timulus-bound and mesmerized, young minds are vulnerable to the machine’s control.” Locked in the object-orineted, stimulus-bound middle brain (which I have blogged about before), young kids fall in love with their machines as a way of normalizing their experience, their way of life. In essence, falling in love with machines is a good enough answer to the question that insecure attachment asks. To quote Hicks (again, at page 137)

Even though we usually talk about the stimulating and rewarding graphics found in electronic games, one of the things we relish is the control we think we have over these [digital] monsters. Being supposedly more reliable and predictable than human kind, we don’t have to worry about seemingly irrational surprises that hurt us [and disappoint us]. It’s the age-old [attachment] dilemma between trusting and taking a chance of being hurt and disappointed, or pulling back where it’s safe albeit limited and lonely.

So, social media should be correctly framed as “normalizing insecure attachment” media. That’s an ungainly frame but it’s probably fairly accurate. Using Lakoffian framing theory, there’s probably a much better, pithier frame out there. I can’t think of one offhand. If you can, leave a comment. It was Bowlby who effectively argued that the self-esteem movement (which picked up steam back in the 1970s) was chiefly about normalizing insecure attachment at the level of society. Even way back in the 1970s Bowlby recognized early attempts, such as self-esteem, resiliency, and self psychology, as attempts to normalize insecure attachment. And I would argue (as I do in Bowlby’s Battle) that Bowlby—who was there at the birth of the natural versus cybernetic systems conflict—prophetically recognized the potential danger inherent in the possibility that human thinking would become fused with machine thinking. Bowlby died in 1990. He missed seeing the self-esteem movement short-circuiting against the digital machine revolution. If he had witnessed this short-circuiting, he probably would have muttered, “Told you so.” So, yes, I would make the following comparisons:

Gatherers = Bowlbian insecure attachment
Hunters = Bowlbian secure attachment

If I had to guess I would say that Bowlby was pro-hunter. Heck, Bowlby started out as a geologist (naturalist) and did a stint in the Royal Navy on the HMS Royal Oak. When I heard Sir Richard Bowlby (John’s son) speak in Canmore, Alberta Canada back in 2005 (executive summary available), he talked about how his relatives (on his mother’s side) were big game hunters in areas of Canada not far from Canmore. It would appear that the Bowlbys were hunters both literally and psychologically. As I hint at in Bowlby’s Battle, Bowlby’s theory of attachment has fallen on hard times because most post-Bowlbians or neo-Bowlbians are gatherers. We can see the gatherer influence in such areas as “the neurobiology of attachment.” In an earlier post I wrote the following (with my additions in brackets):

Why did research funds stop flowing to an interdisciplinary [hunter] area such as primatology (which played such a huge role in the development of Bowlbian attachment theory)? [Primatologist Dario] Maestripieri reveals that one very important factor “was the rapid progress of [gatherer] biological disciplines such as genetics, molecular biology, and neuroscience and the growing popularity of scientific reductionism [the mainstay of gatherer thinking].” Maestripieri gives us this “bottom line”: “[T]he success of [gatherer] neuroscience led to the optimistic view that many important questions about behavior would eventually be answered by studies of brain anatomy and function, thus rendering [naturalistic, hunter] behavioral research less necessary.”

Is it still Bowlbian attachment theory if gatherers take it over? Outside of my brief treatment in Bowlby’s Battle, I’m not sure anyone has looked at this question. OK, wait, Jungian analyst (and one of Bowlby’s advisees) Anthony Stevens does look at this topic in his book Archetype Revisited—An Updated Natural History of the Self. I’ll refer the reader to Stevens’ book.

One final comment from my perspective as a philanthropist. There probably is not a month that goes by that I do not receive a survey asking me (or our Foundation) to what extent are we using social media to connect with the people and groups we work with. Yes, we have a web site, and, yes, we have this blog site, but that’s as far as it goes. So, I guess I could take a page out of Dick Cheney’s playbook and simply respond to these surveys by saying, “I don’t accept the ‘social media’ frame.” If you take nothing else from this post series, take this: don’t easily, readily, and unreflectively accept the social media frame. Try using frames like “machine media” or “human–machine media” or “machine culture.” Do we use machine media at our Foundation? Yes, but we try to use it in a conscious way, to consciously enter into human–machine relationships (as Powers suggests in Hamlet’s BlackBerry). So, taking a page out of Lakoff’s book on framing, question all frames. Know what they are really saying, what worldview they support and promulgate. If you desire to fuse machine thinking and human thinking, then “social media” is a good and effective frame. But if you wish to keep these two forms of thinking apart, then, simply, I don’t think the necessary frames exist. You could try “human.” Now, there’s a question I’d like to see on surveys: “How much do you use human media to connect with the people and groups you work with?”

OK, one last question: You may be asking, “Where is all this uncertainty and insecurity coming from that’s driving kids (and many adults) to fuse human thinking with machine thinking?” This is a topic that is not often looked at. The best book on the subject is probably still social commentator Peter Marris’ book The Politics of Uncertainty—Attachment in Private and Public Life (executive summary available). Another good book is economist Jeremy Rifkin’s book The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-market Era (executive summary available). You may wish to consult social commentator Francis Fukuyama’s book Our Posthuman Future—Consequences of the Technological Revolution (partial summary available). Or even Niel Postman’s book Technopoly—The Surrender of Culture to Technology (executive summary available). Here’s a partial list of the types of causes these authors point to:

• automation
• job insecurity
• un- or underemployment
• globalization
• the rise of cybernetics (i.e., Internet, Google, smartphones, iTunes, Netflix, etc.)
• high divorce rates
• biotech
• genetic engineering
• women moving into the job market
• crumbling families and communities
• reductionist science
• poor economy
• failing schools
• parentified kids (even Bowlby railed against this one)
• various bubbles (housing, student debt, health costs)

When you take all of the above causes together as a whole, it is no wonder that people wish to become posthuman by fusing their human thinking with machine thinking.

Postscript—just before this post went live, I came across an article that talks about how the Obama administration wishes to approve $3 billion dollars to in effect throw a bunch of people into MRI brain scanners. The idea is to create a Brain Activity Map (not unlike the Human Genome Project). Here’s the article: Why Some Scientists Aren’t Happy About Obama’s $3 Billion Brain Research Plan. I won’t go into my reasoning but suffice it to say that, in my opinion, this is a great example of attempts to normalize the gatherer way of life and worldview. I think philanthropists would be well served by reading Hicks’ book and gaining an understanding of the gatherer worldview versus the hunter worldview. Trust me when I say that gatherer philanthropy is much different than hunter philanthropy. In many cases, the two worlds simply collide (not unlike the current “sequestration” collision in Washington). And it’s too bad because as Hicks points out, both worlds should ideally work together. When they don’t, gatherers become more susceptible to being manipulated and controlled (e.g., easily duped) while hunters become more cutthroat and cunning. Welcome to the world of bubbles: economic, housing, medical, education, etc.

Postscript II – I should mention that Hicks does put President Obama in the gatherer category. Interestingly, he puts Governor Romney in the gatherer category as well. In essence, the last presidential campaign featured two gatherers, and clearly President Obama is the better gatherer. Hicks tells us that there have been only two presidents in modern times who could embrace and join together the gatherer and hunter worlds: President John F. Kennedy and President Bill Clinton. Hicks (correctly) suggests that a true leader must be able to embrace and join together the gatherer and hunter worlds. Lets hope that such a leader appears before the next presidential race.

(Feel free to contact the Foundation for a copy of any of the executive summaries mentioned in this post series.)