Now, there’s a reason why privacy is so craved universally and instinctively. It isn’t just a reflexive movement like breathing air or drinking water. The reason is that when we’re in a state where we can be monitored, where we can be watched, our behavior changes dramatically. The range of behavioral options that we consider when we think we’re being watched severely reduce. This is just a fact of human nature that has been recognized in social science and in literature and in religion and in virtually every field of discipline. There are dozens of psychological studies that prove that when somebody knows that they might be watched, the behavior they engage in is vastly more conformist and compliant. Human shame is a very powerful motivator, as is the desire to avoid it, and that’s the reason why people, when they’re in a state of being watched, make decisions not that are the byproduct of their own agency but that are about the expectations that others have of them or the mandates of societal orthodoxy.This realization was exploited most powerfully for pragmatic ends by the 18th- century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, who set out to resolve an important problem ushered in by the industrial age, where, for the first time, institutions had become so large and centralized that they were no longer able to monitor and therefore control each one of their individual members, and the solution that he devised was an architectural design originally intended to be implemented in prisons that he called the panopticon, the primary attribute of which was the construction of an enormous tower in the center of the institution where whoever controlled the institution could at any moment watch any of the inmates, although they couldn’t watch all of them at all times. And crucial to this design was that the inmates could not actually see into the panopticon, into the tower, and so they never knew if they were being watched or even when. And what made him so excited about this discovery was that that would mean that the prisoners would have to assume that they were being watched at any given moment, which would be the ultimate enforcer for obedience and compliance. The 20th-century French philosopher Michel Foucault realized that that model could be used not just for prisons but for every institution that seeks to control human behavior: schools, hospitals, factories, workplaces. And what he said was that this mindset, this framework discovered by Bentham, was the key means of societal control for modern, Western societies, which no longer need the overt weapons of tyranny — punishing or imprisoning or killing dissidents, or legally compelling loyalty to a particular party — because mass surveillance creates a prison in the mind that is a much more subtle though much more effective means of fostering compliance with social norms or with social orthodoxy, much more effective than brute force could ever be.
“Panopticon” by Jeremy Bentham – The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3. Licensed under Public domain viaWikimedia Commons.
Well — it’s worth saying again: All technology is assistive technology.Honestly — what technology are you using that’s not assistive? Your smartphone? Your eyeglasses? Headphones? And those three examples alone are assisting you in multiple registers: They’re enabling or augmenting a sensory experience, say, or providing navigational information. But they’re also allowing you to decide whether to be available for approach in public, or not; to check out or in on a conversation or meeting in a bunch of subtle ways; to identify, by your choice of brand or look, with one culture group and not another.
Making a persistent, overt distinction about “assistive tech†embodies the second-tier do-gooderism and banality that still dominate design work targeted toward “special needs.†“Assistive technology†implies a separate species of tools designed exclusively for those people with a rather narrow set of diagnostic “impairmentsâ€â€Šâ€” impairments, in other words, that have been culturally designated as needing special attention, as being particularly, grossly abnormal. But are you sure your phone isn’t a crutch, as it were, for a whole lot of unexamined needs?
3. If you give a girl a puzzle
I hold a vision of being an “anti-princess dad” but I haven’t met my daughter yet and I’m of the belief she’ll let me know what kind of dad she needs me to be.
Attack the media and marketing that sell girls short, yes. Challenge a generation of parents who fail to think critically about the media and toys they provide their children. But let’s back off the attacks on girls and how they do girlhood.
There is a difference between a girl-centric business using “girl power†as a marketing gimmick and a business centered in authentic girl empowerment. May I suggest we think twice about bashing the intellectual capabilities of girls who play with Barbies, enjoy fashion and glam, or who by genetic lottery fit the beauty norm? None of those things are mutually exclusive to also liking or being good at STEM pursuits.
My Friends, fashion dolls are not the hill you want to die on. While definitely an imperfect toy that require parents to assist with unpacking messages, insisting fashion dolls are the root cause of the Failure of Girls demonstrates a profound lack in understanding how girls really play and think.
EVERY GIRL has a scientist inside of her. Girls are not the problem, we are. We’ve forgotten how to draw the curiosity out of her, we’ve stopping expecting it from her, and we’ve stopped giving her opportunities to explore it, experiment with it, and expand on it. We’ve listened to what the media wants us to believe about our troubled girls, and bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Girls know better, they are waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
4. Robot Deer Outsmart Illegal Hunters
If only Africa had the funds to deploy some robot decoy rhinos or gorillas…
Officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission are using realistic-looking robotic deer to catch poachers hunting illegally or during closed season.
The decoys can take as many as 1,000 shots before they need to be replaced according to officials, and operators are able to control their ear, tail and head movements from up to 50 feet away.
The Miami Herald reports that one man was arrested this weekend after shooting a robotic deer that police had set up as part of an operation targeting road-hunting activity.
“He crossed a ditch and walked up toward the fence carrying a rifle,” states an FWC report. “He placed the rifle on the fence to steady himself and shot at the replica.”
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” – Chesterton