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At the exit - Reflections after heaving learned we're being watched |
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< | -- By KristofferRakner - 08 Dec 2016 |
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> | -- By KristofferRakner - 14 Feb 2017 |
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Introduction |
| | In my mind this quote is illustrative of an important point. There is an important connection between speech and autonomy when it comes to driving the collective human intellect forward. The freedom to speak to share ideas helps others build on these ideas to create, and share once more. True autonomy exists only when one can create free from influence and control of the speech to listen to when creating. |
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< | There is a sucker burn every minute, how about a genius? |
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> | There is a sucker born every minute, how about a genius? |
| | There have been conducted scientific studies that indicates that smartphones may have a severe impact on our attention span. It is not a leap to imagine that the Einsteins, Newtons and others that have made discoveries vital for a society, may be farther apart due to an average decline in attention span. More crucial to our way of life and human ingenuity may however be the surveillance of human behavior enabled by our connectivity.
At outset surveillance at the outset nothing more the being observed. Thus, the attitude that the privacy-battle is reserved for the few may be understandable. However, the detriment of surveillance may follow the collection of behavior that, more often than not, compliments the observation computers make of our swiping, clicking and typing. Warehousing of collected behavior itself does little damage and can be useful e.g. in criminal cases and economic studies into mass behavior, the later may in turn lead to solutions to a more efficient society.
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| | The dramatic effect of being deprived of the next Newton maybe high, however the connectivity of youth and young adults may lead to a collective homogeneity of thinkers. This may in turn lead the public as a whole to become docile, allowing the agenda to be set by a presidential Twitter-feed. I imagine this is why Snowden is warning about indifference to privacy. |
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< | Conclusion - Slaughtering Howl
Maybe a 2016 Allen Ginsberg looking on his peers tweeting instead of writing the next American classic would write a different version of Howl: |
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> | Conclusion - The Moloch of our day
In part I of the 1955 three part poem Howl, the Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg observed that “the best minds of [his] generation [were being] destroyed by madness”. Ginsberg figuratively attributed the demise of the best minds of his generation to “Moloch” in Howl part II. |
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< | I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the Facebook-feed at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to Snapchat in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed sat up Tweeting in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, ... |
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> | Ginsberg uses Moloch, “the Biblical name relating to a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice” , as an image of the social forces, government and capitalism that is destroying society and its young minds. Ginsberg references both “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery” and “Moloch whose blood is running money” as he depicts how Moloch destroys society.
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< | Luckily, “Die Gedanken sind frei” and the average person can exercise his or her fundamental right to vote for political leaders free from covert targeted influence and control.
If it is at the exit, there is no need to try to make it better, I suppose. I would correct the typo in the second heading, at any rate. And maybe the success is not getting the essay to the point where Ginsberg can be pastiched, but to figure out what the difference is between what he means and what you are using him to say.
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> | Howl is obviously not written with neither social media, nor the internet, in mind. But could not Ginsberg just as easily have labeled social media and the internet as “pure machinery … whose blood is running money”? It is not a stretch to imagine that a Ginsberg in 2017 would look at Facebook’s ability to influence election, and the collection and manipulation of behavior via the net and conclude that internet and social media is the Moloch of our day. |
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> | However, Ginsberg himself might of course have said that he got it right in 1955 and that there is no need to update Howl in 2017. Ginsberg might argue that capitalism is still Moloch in 2017, just as it was in 1955. Capitalism has just acquired a more effective tool to create madness and destroy the best mind of the generation. |