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T H E J O U R NAL OF ADVA NC I NG TECH NO LO GY
Volume Eight | Summer 2008
The Rise of Surface Technology | A World Wi
thout Oil? | The Battle Over Social Media
|
The Canonization
of Philip K. Dick
bbyy RRiicchhaarrdd BBeehhrreennss
Summer 2008
A Publication of the University of Advancing Technology
© Copyright 2008. University of Advancing Technology
All rights reserved. Authors are solely responsible for the content of their articles
in this publication. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily shared by
this publication or the University of Advancing Technology. But we’re glad the
authors have something to say.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way, stored in a retrieval
system of any type, or transmitted by any means of media, electronic or
mechanical, including, but not limited to, photocopy, recording, or scanning
without proper permission in writing from the publisher.
University of Advancing Technology
ISSN 1554 - 4591
www.uat.edu/JAT
2625 W. Baseline Rd. > Tempe, AZ 85283
Phone 800.658.5744 > Fax 602.383.8222
www.uat.edu
The
JO U RN A L O F
A D V A N C IN G
T E CH NO LO GY
Volume Eight | Summer 2008
2
Letter from the Editors
3
About This Issue
4
CIRCA 2008: The Rise of Surface Computing
GREG KIPPER
8
A-Life’s Hybrid Child: DNA Computing
HAROLD KIMBALL
14
The Project Tactical
JOE MCCORMACK
20
THINKING ABOUT THINKING: Towards a Taxonomy of Thinking
DOMINIC PISTILLO
24
EDITORIAL: Are We Losing the Ability to Think Abstractly?
RON FLOYD
30
The Coming Merger of Virtual Reality and Video Games
MICHAEL GAMBRELL
35
In the Kingdom: Searching for the Right Mixture of Technology and Culture
AL KELLY
40
The Logos Arrives in Berkeley: Philip K. Dick’s Four Novels of the 1960s
RICHARD BEHRENS
50
Kunstler’s World Without Oil: Speculative Fiction, Serious
Gaming and Understanding Future Crises
KATHLEEN DUNLEY
56
The Battle Over Social Media
CRAIG BELANGER & DARCEE ESPELIEN
65
Grass Roots Online: A Guide to Internet-Based Advocacy and Activism
DARCEE ESPELIEN & CRAIG BELANGER
68
The Evolution of Distance Learning
MIKE ERWIN
76
Call for Submissions
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ADVISORY BOARD
Craig Belanger
Dave Bolman
Alan Hromas
William Maxwell
Chrys Pistillo
Jason Pistillo
Sue White
Rebecca Whitehead
Robert Wright
TECHNICAL EDITOR
Shelley Keating
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Darcee Espelien
E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA N T
Cheri Skinner
A Publication of the University of Advancing Technology
l e t t e r
f r o m
t h e
e d i t o r s
Summer 2008
In 1995,construction was completed on the LakeWashington home of Bill Gates,the Microsoft wunderkind
whose star in the technology world had been ascendant for several years.The 1990s were Gates’ time in the
spotlight and, in the public’s imagination, his home was a model of good living, reflecting both his fame and
his nerdiness, with ubiquitous computing the order of the day:Walls that changed color depending on who
was present in a room, artworks that alternated on screens depending on personal
preference of guests, sensor pads that kept tabs on the whereabouts of residents, and a technology
infrastructure built for maximum geek pleasure. A perfect home for an era of hundred-dollar glasses of
scotch and post-Yuppie self-congratulation.
But times are hard and things have changed in the new millennium, especially our sensibilities.A “home,” as
you and I understand it, does not sit lakeside, the artwork never changes (because nice pastoral prints from
Target never do), and the only thing “smart” about our homes are the residents. In the 1990s, Gates shared
the boom time of stock tips, hundred-dollar glasses of wine and ironic, post-Yuppie self-congratulation. But
that was then. In 2008, you can buy several cases of Two-Buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s for a hundred dollars,
and you truly deserve a pat on the back if you haven’t been forced to dip into your 401k to just to keep up
with gas and food prices. It’s shakedown time everywhere, so there seems little room for excuses when it
comes to ostentation. Instead, it’s conservation time.
2
The good news, however, is that our technology is catching up with our needs and the era of the smart, if
modest, pleasuredome has arrived, with the added benefit that anyone’s home in 2008 can be made smarter
than Gates’ Xanadu 2.0 by the simple fact that we can generate our own energy and save ourselves a little
money along the way. ITM Power in Great Britain, for instance, has created low-cost electrolysers (which
use water and electricity to produce hydrogen) that can operate homes and vehicles. Such technology could,
if adopted, make any home as sustainable and non-polluting as a modern home can, and should, be.
Developments outside the home are even more interesting. New marvels in sustainable urban development
are cropping up in unlikely places. Masdar City, located in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and scheduled for
completion next year, intends to be the world’s first “zero-carbon, zero-waste” city in the world.As planned,
it will be home to 50,000 residents whose carbon footprint will be very low as a result of an energy
infrastructure based on hydrogen, solar and wind power and a ban on motor vehicles within the city (an
obvious irony considering the source of the wealth that will build this city). Half a world away from Masdar
is the town of Greenburg, Kansas. Greenburg was nearly removed from the map by a tornado last year, but
this year plans are afoot to rebuild the entire town as a model of sustainability that educates residents and
businesses in the power of green technology. At worst, such initiatives will serve as test cases for later
attempts in other parts of the world. With any luck—or even better, if they work and they can make a
better world—these developments will become the gold standard of what we mean by “good living” in the
future.
Share your own conservation-through-technology stories with us at [email protected].
The Editors
a b o u t
t h i s
i s s u e
This issue features a wide array of emerging technology topics. Greg Kipper contributes his thoughts on
the coming marketplace acceptance of surface technology. Harold Kimball returns with an examination
of DNA Computing, which he believes can extend the consequences of artificial life sciences. Michael
Gambrell examines the possibilities of a merger of interest between virtual-reality-ware and video
gaming. Joe McCormack introduces a new technology project management process. Building on his
experiences in the Middle East, Al Kelly describes the changes afoot in Saudi Arabia as the Kingdom
grapples with the technologically inevitable. Mike Erwin offers a look at the past and present condition
of distance education, and suggests where this increasingly common educational delivery method may be
headed in the future.
We also feature two editorials this issue.The first, from university founder Dominic Pistillo, calls for the
establishment of a taxonomy of thinking to engage the world in better and more effective thinking
curricula (this is also our inaugural “Thinking About Thinking” column), while the second is from artist
Ron Floyd, who offers his thoughts on the manner in which technology may be affecting abstract thinking skills among GenerationY students.
We also proudly feature in-depth book reviews of works by Philip K. Dick and James Howard Kunstler
from Richard Behrens and Dr. Kathleen Dunley, respectively.And finally, companion pieces on the
battle over social media and the use of social media inweb-based grassroots efforts from JAT editors Craig
Belanger and Darcee Espelien round out this issue.
Call for Papers… and Short Fiction
The JAT is seeking works for our Ethics in Technology issue to be published in November, 2008.This issue
will coincide with the 3rd Annual Ethics in Technology Symposium to be held on campus at the
University of Advancing Technology during the biannual Technology Forum event. The theme of the
symposium will be Future Do-Over. In the future, what would you do over to make things right today?
No matter your area of interest in technology, the notion of ethics comes into play, and we’d like to hear
from you. See pages 68-69 for more details on submitting your work to the JAT. Inquiries, please email
[email protected].
We are also seeking short fiction related to emerging technology for an upcoming Short Fiction Special
Feature in the JAT. If, like most writers and editors, you are sitting on a gold mine of unpublished fiction
at home and would like to find a nice home for it, we would like to see it.
3
CIRCA 2008
Greg Kipper
Paraben Corp.
The Rise of Surface
Computing
4
In many respects, Surface is the
next iteration of the graphical
user interface (GUI), which itself
was revolutionary, opening up
computers to millions of people
who otherwise might never have
used them.
In my role as Director of Forensics for Paraben
Corporation, I have been asked to deliver presentations
on the topic of future technology trends in the field of
digital forensics. In these presentations, I have chosen a
somewhat direct and systematic approach to this topic,
examining several emerging and future technologies,
and specifically those my research suggested had the
highest probabilities of manifesting and creating
considerable social change. These include Google
profiles, wireless virtual communities,intelligent agents
and surface technology. I have discussed the social
impacts that these technologies will have and,
ultimately,how they will affect crime and crime fighting
in the future. Of those technologies, I will herein
address the emergence and adoption of surface technology—touch and multi-touch interface—in the marketplace and ultimately into society.
What is “Surface”Technology?
Surface technology at its most basic is simply a touch
screen.We’ve had them for years now in mall kiosks,
ATM machines and other such devices. What’s
interesting about Surface is that it’s a reinvention of the
old, and in that reinvention there are some significant
new implications.Today, Surface tech isn’t just a touch
screen; it also allows the user to move, grab, resize and
overlay objects. And with that, a great many new
possibilities present themselves. The most famous
example of Surface computing is from the movie
Minority Report, which gave viewers an example of how
someone might interact with a computer in a whole
new way (not to mention creating some serious
monitor envy).
In many respects, Surface is the next iteration of the
graphical user interface (GUI), which itself was
revolutionary, opening up computers to millions of
The Rise of Surface Computing
5
people who otherwise might never have used them.
Now that computers and, especially, cell phones have
become part of our common infrastructure, as critical
as paved roads and electricity, the new paradigms for
computers are on their way.
Much like GUI advances of the past, Surface computing is concerned with new ways of interacting with
existing technology and information. Surface
computing will make this interaction much more
intuitive by adding a kinesthetic element to the
experience. In the mid-1990s, multimedia went mainstream, giving users the ability to experience
information and entertainment with sight, sound and
motion.Surface computing will add one more element
to these advanced types of multimedia by engaging
users’ physiology and movements in the same way they
may otherwise interact with physical objects.This will
naturally reduce the learning curve for new computer
operators and open up whole new possibilities for
those who use computers on a regular basis. (And then
there’s the next generation and the possibilities they will
in turn create as more advances to this technology are
made...)
Surface computing, at its core, represents the potential
for large-scale blending between the physical world and
the virtual world. And it is this point in particular that
occupies much of my thought, especially as an avid
trend watcher and futurist-in-training. Let’s look at a
small, but well known, representation of Surface
technology that has taken the market by storm: the
iPhone. Since its release, it has become the ultimate
21st-century object of desire; it has also captured a nice
chunk of market share, due in no small part to its
unique and usable multi-touch interface. If we consider
the iPhone and the iPod Touch as the tip of the Surface
technology iceberg, it will be interesting to see what
things will look like if Surface computing expands to
desks, tables, kitchen counters and wall spaces everywhere. In the extreme, Surface-like computers could
6
literally surround us, creating, in a sense, a very rough
version of almost every Star Trek fan’s dream: a
Holodeck.
(and occasionally throw the controller through the
television). Surface computing games have the
potential to actively engage players in a way that could
get them moving with the same level of skill and
concentration as any outdoor sport, especially if the
How Will Surface Computing Be Used?
After the unveiling of Microsoft Surface,
Microsoft Corp. claimed to receive more than
We will also see some exciting new
2,000 inquiries from companies in 50 countries
and 25 different industries with what has been applications that haven’t been
described as “overwhelming excitement.” This dreamed of yet, much like those
level of response is, to me, confirmation that offered by the Nintendo Wii.
Surface computing can safely be considered a
new category of computer technology—
computers with Surface-like software and applications game is spread across multiple Surface computers.
will appear in places where people haven’t even seen Education and productivity will also change and
computers before.We will also see some exciting new improve in some drastic ways, creating new
applications that haven’t been dreamed of yet, much collaboration opportunities, as well as the ability to
like those offered by the Nintendo Wii, another virtually construct or deconstruct almost anything from
commercial success that was unprecedented in its molecules, from buildings to bodies. Surface
ability to get users to stand up, swing and move around technology will empower people with a richness of
The Rise of Surface Computing
information that has yet to be experienced en masse.
Surface computing will,of course,have a huge presence
in the commercial space. Some likely uses will be
virtual retail space, which will give the user a new retail
experience; for example, in a virtual furniture showroom, rather than walk through large floor display
samples, customers will have the option of seeing
hundreds of styles and thousands of combinations as
part of their shopping experience. After establishing a
foothold in the commercial space, Surface computing
will inevitably make its way into the home. Once this
happens, it will create a wide range of marketing
possibilities—companies could deliver specific
messages or special offers directly to the Surface computer in every customer’s living room, for instance. Or,
rather than flip through a paper catalogue that arrived in
the mail, people will be able to “flip through” that very
same catalogue on their Surface coffee table, as well as
place orders, get real-time offers with rebates good for
the next 10 minutes, and so on.
As I mentioned earlier, Surface computing represents
the large-scale blending of the physical and the virtual.
What we are being shown today is the clumsiest and
most awkward this technology will ever be. Currently,
the biggest real problem for Surface is that it does
nothing new. Right now, it’s a new twist on an older
idea, but there isn’t a power app for Surface computing
that tips the scales and creates a critical mass... yet. But
it’s coming.And soon.
Presently, Microsoft and other companies are pushing
to have Surface computing in commercial venues and
conference rooms around the world by 2010. By 2012,
this type of technology may be as common as the iPod.
Then there’s Surface 2.0, 3.0, etc. Just imagine all the
new technology that could be incorporated with
Surface—3D video technology, super large monitors
and the eventual perfection and adoption of nano-paint.
I imagine a child born in 2010 who begins to play with
her first Surface computer on her 2nd birthday. I can
only imagine how her perception of information will be
so very different than mine. It’s exciting to imagine
what it will be like when an entire generation of
children grow up using this technology, evolving with it
and creating new applications and uses that would never
have occurred to its inventors.To say the least, it will be
interesting.
Did I mention holodecks?
References
Reimer, Jeremy (September 30, 2007) A day on the
Surface: a hands-on look at Microsoft’s new com
puting platform Retrieved: April 5, 2008 from
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/surface.
ars4
Fried, Ina (November 8, 2007) Bumps on the road to
Microsoft’s Surface Retrieved: April 5, 2008 from
http://www.news.com/Bumps-on-the-road-toMicrosofts-Surface/2100-1041_3-6217673.html
Fried, Ina (May 31, 2007) Gates reveals where ‘Milan’
is headed Retrieved: April 5, 2008 from
h t t p : / / w w w. n e w s . c o m / G a t e s reveals-where-Milan-is-headed/2008-1041_36187823.html
iMac MultiTouch Concept Retrieved: April 5,2008
from http://thedailymac.com/imac-multitouchconcept/
Griffaw, Roy (June 11, 2007) How Microsoft’s
Surface Computing Will Change The Rent to Own
and Leasing Industry Retrieved: April 5, 2008
from http://www.rtoonline.com/Content/arti
cle/Jun07/MicrosoftSurfaceComputing061107.asp
Scratching the Surface of Microsoft’s New Table PC
(June 4, 2007) Retrieved: April 5, 2008 from
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.
Tech.2.07/BE8D0C58313E453E9E8BD443BE
6E1D
About the author
Greg Kipper (CISSP) has been involved in the field of
security and information assurance for 13 years.
Through his experiences in the security sector as a
systems engineer, security analyst and consultant, he
moved into the emerging field of digital forensics.The
last seven years of his career have been spent working
on forensic investigations studying the future of
technologies and the forensic impact of that data to the
process of evidence. Some of his notable works include
Investigator's Guide to Steganography; Wireless Crime and
Forensic Investigation;Techno Security's Guide to Managing
Risks for IT Managers, Auditors, and Investigators; and the
upcoming Proactive Forensics as well as a Congressional
report outlining technical methods of reducing the risk
of insider threats. Greg continues to actively contribute
to the fields of security and digital forensics by giving
lectures annually at DoD Cybercrime,TechnoSecurity
and TechnoForensics.
7
A-Life’s Hybrid Child:
DNA Computing
Harold Kimball
Enabling Technology, Inc.
A-Life’s Hybrid Child
The field of Artificial Life, or A-Life, makes extensive
use of massive parallelism, distributed processing and
interacting information structures, all of which are key
elements, if not the very foundation, of DNA
computing. But why stop there? It is apparent that
interacting with DNA at the molecular level is a very
time-consuming, expensive and difficult task. While
researchers are still attempting to solve the basic
input/output (I/O) challenges of molecular
computing, others could be developing an open
framework or development environment for
molecular computing simulation. In short, another
page needs to be borrowed from Christopher
Langton’s book on A-Life.
its overall objective is not one of solution generation
but rather one of observing dynamics, an applied
virtual) systems theory, if you will. While this is a
fascinating field of study, it is difficult for many with
backgrounds in the logic fields (e.g., engineering,
mathematics and computer science) to fully embrace,
because those disciplines revolve around solving
problems.
Just as Chris Langton merged two distinct fields into a
new paradigm called A-Life, Leonard Adleman
combined the core, biologically inspired concepts of
A-Life with computational goals to conceive a DNA
computing paradigm. In 1994, Adleman introduced
the world to a proof-of-concept liquid computer on
which interacting molecules performed computations
to solve mathematical problems. With this
development, DNA computing had arrived (Adleman,
1998).
The term “artificial life,” or A-Life, is the label given to
a broad range of paradigms that all have their roots in
biology.The field of A-Life was formalized by Langton,
a biologist, in the late 1980s when he coined the term
and organized the first A-Life conference.The impetus
behind this field of study is a desire to study
naturally occurring phenomena by syntheThis “in-silico” life provides A-Life
sizing and observing that phenomena in
scientists the opportunity to study
artificial media.While a traditional biologist
the interactions of synthetic life
might study life under a microscope or out
forms and the apparent complex
on the Serengeti, A-Life scientists have an
expansive domain of study conveniently
behavior that exists and emerges
located at their fingertips—in the
through those interactions.
computers that house their synthesized life
forms. Living in their artificial media, these virtual At the time, Adleman, whose background was in
organisms have varying ranges of complexity; they can mathematics and computer science, was working with
be as simple as two-dimensional cellular automata or as the AIDS research community but finding it difficult to
complex as synthesized DNA replication. This “in- communicate his ideas. In order to improve his
silico” life provides A-Life scientists the opportunity to communication skills with his colleagues, he began
study the interactions of synthetic life forms and the studying molecular biology.As his research progressed,
apparent complex behavior that exists and emerges he came to the conclusion that the study of biology was
through those interactions. “For A-Life systems, the transforming: “[B]iology was now the study of
ongoing dynamic is the behavior of interest, not information stored in DNA-strings” and “the
necessarily the state ultimately reached by the transformations that information undergoes in the cell”
dynamic” (Langton, 1987).
(1998).
This paradigm is in stark contrast to the field of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in which the goal is to
create intelligence or intelligent behavior. AI bases its
methodology on the computational paradigm, whereas A-Life “attempt[s] to develop a new computational
paradigm based on the distributed processes that
support living organisms. AL uses insights from
biology to explore the dynamics of interacting
information structures,” which are often quite
massively parallel (1987).
Although A-Life’s core constructs (distributed
processing, massive parallelism and interacting
information structures) are computational in nature,
DNA is made up of four bases—adenine, thymine,
guanine and cytosine, represented by the letters A,T,
G, C respectively.There is a strict pairing of these bases
in that adenine will only bond with thymine (A-T) and
guanine will only bond with cytosine (G-C).
Adleman’s major breakthrough came when he read
about DNA polymerase in James D.Watson’s text, The
Molecular Biology of the Gene. DNA polymerase is
equivalent to a complementary copy function in
computing terms; “DNA polymerase produces a
second ‘Watson-Crick’ complementary strand, in
which every C is replaced by a G, every G by a C, every
A by a T and every T by an A” (1998). Adleman
realized that the process taking place in a cell was very
11
similar to the Turing machine, a conceptual computer
invented by Alan M.Turing in which “one version of his
machine consisted of a pair of tapes and a mechanism
called a finite control, which moved along the ‘input’
tape reading data while simultaneously moving along
the ‘output’ tape reading and writing other data”
(1998). It was at this point that Adleman recognized
the potential computational power in the cell and that
DNA could be used to solve problems.
10
single strands, and these new strands are then annealed
to the existing strands. This cycle is repeated many
times to exponentially amplify/replicate the DNA. In
order to view the results of the amplification, a
technique called gel electrophoresis is employed.This
technique involves placing the DNA in a slab of agarose
gel and applying a current to the slab. DNA is
negatively charged and the strands will migrate across
the slab to the anode, with shorter strands moving
faster, effectively separating the DNA by base-pair
length.The results of this process can then be viewed
by ultraviolet (UV) translumination as dashes on a
slide, indicating the individual groups of amplified
DNA strands.
Adleman continued to research the mechanisms
involved in the cell at the molecular level, further
revealing tools that would be essential in creating a
DNA-computing device. Obviously, the DNA strand
itself and its inherent properties are key elements for
data storage and manipulation. DNA strings naturally With these tools in hand, Adleman set out to identify
want to form bonds with complementary DNA strings and tackle a computational problem that could
in a process called annealing.This effectively provides a “demonstrate the potential of the novel method of
means to link or combine information and data computation” he had devised. (1998). He selected the
structures. As mentioned earlier, DNA polymerase Hamiltonian path problem, which had “been
provides a mechanism to create a complementary extensively studied by computer scientists” but had not
DNA strand.This copying mechanism is controlled by yet developed an “efficient (that is, fast) algorithm”
a “start signal,” provided by a primer—a short piece of (1998).The problem state is as follows: given a set of
DNA annealed to the subject DNA strand (1998). cities, with pre-determined paths between them, find
DNA polymerase will use the primer to signal its a path that will commence at the start city, end at the
starting location and commence generating a destination city and pass through every other city in the
complementary DNA strand. DNA fragments that are problem set only once.
in proximity will be bonded together by an enzyme
(catalyst) called ligase, which is also used to repair After Adleman identified the problem he wanted to
breaks in DNA strands. The final naturally occurring pursue, he had to find a way to structure the problem
molecular mechanism used by Adleman for his DNA so that it fit the mechanisms available in the DNA
computer was nuclease. Nuclease cuts—it searches computer. He assigned a unique DNA sequence to
along a strand of DNA seeking a string of base-pair each city, giving each city a first and last name. He also
sequences and, when found, will sever the
DNA strand at the point just beyond the search
Nevertheless, the proof of constring.
cept worked, and Adleman had
created a new field of study—
molecular/DNA computing.
In order to make the DNA computer
complete, Adleman needed to provide some
type of user interface.The system needed I/O:
Adleman had to have a way to control what was input
into his DNA computer. For this, he used DNA
synthesis, a procedure to convert a string of bases (A,
T, C, G) into a DNA molecule.The idea was to write
the sequence down, send it to a synthesis lab and
receive the desired molecules. This solved the input
problem, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
coupled with gel electrophoresis solved the output
problem. PCR is a procedure used to amplify or
replicate DNA. The subject DNA is exposed to
temperature cycling; the higher temperature cycle
denatures (unwinds) the DNA double-helix strands
and the lower temperature cycle provides an
environment where DNA polymerase makes
complementary copies of the separated template DNA
created a unique DNA string that represented the
DNA flight number (path) that existed between the
cities. For example, if a flight existed between Atlanta
and Boston, the DNA flight number would be the
complement of the last name of Atlanta and the
complement of the first name of Boston.The naming
convention was carried out for every city and flight
path that existed in the problem set.This enabled the
annealing process to connect the cities together by
DNA flight number and rapidly solve the Hamiltonian
path problem utilizing distributed processing, massive
parallelism and interacting information structures—all
of which are core A-Life concepts. Adleman’s DNA
computer was able to solve the Hamiltonian path
problem in about one second. Retrieving and verifying
the solution was the time-consuming task; this
illustrates one of the obstacles of molecular
computation, the O portion of I/O.
Adleman’s success inspired others (not to mention
himself) to further investigate the possibilities of this
new molecular computing field. In 1996,Adleman and
several of his colleagues proposed “A Sticker Based
Model for DNA Computation” (Roweis, et al, 1996).
This proposal presented “a new model for molecular
computation,” which still used DNA strands to
represent information, but also provided a set of
operations (combine, separate, turn on and turn off) to
act on that information, random access memory and a
“specific machine architecture for implementing the
stickers model as a microprocessor-controlled parallel
robotic workstation” (1996). This sticker-model
proposal presented a significant theoretical
advancement in the fundamental capability of
molecular computing, acknowledged many of the
theoretical advances that were being made in the field
and at the same time recognized the obstacles and
challenges that would still need to be overcome to
ensure the success of DNA computing.
Roughly ten years after Adleman’s initial success, the
field of DNA computing is still considered to be in its
infancy, as scientists continue to pursue the creation of
a DNA computer that is both programmable and
universal (Lovgren, 2003). In 2002, an Israeli scientist
“unveiled a programmable molecular computing
machine composed of enzymes and DNA molecules”
(2003). The molecular computer was capable of
performing “330 trillion operations per second” but it
could “only perform rudimentary functions” and it had
“no practical applications” (2003). The computer was
recognized by the GuinnessWorld Records as “the smallest
biological computing device ever constructed,” though
it still suffered from many of the challenges that
plagued earlier DNA computing devices; primarily,
that visualization of the computed output required a
significant amount of human intervention. Fortunately
that changed the following year with the introduction
of MAYA.
MAYA was introduced in 2003 as the first interactive
“game-playing DNA computer,” and it was the first
DNA computer that was capable of displaying its
output organically (Hogan, 2003). MAYA was a
molecular computer that played tic-tac-toe.The game
board consisted of nine wells, each containing a
molecular computer. The human player has access to
nine different strands of DNA, each strand
representing a different square or well on the board.To
make a move, the human player drops a DNA strand
(indicating the human player’s move) into each of the
wells so that all of the molecular computers know the
move.The molecular computers in each well process
13
the DNA strands and then one well indicates the
molecular computers’ choice by glowing green. This
simple game demonstrated significant advances in the
capabilities of interacting with molecular computers.
The end-user was able to provide input to the DNA
computer in the form of a DNA strand and receive
output from the DNA computer in the form of a green
glow. (Granted, this is not a keyboard, mouse and 19”
flat screen, but it is a start.)
12
emerging scientific fields require such blended skill
sets, and, as breakthrough technology continues to
emerge, it often takes time for a pool of researchers to
develop the necessary compilation of skills needed to
advance the technology. It is at this juncture that the
DNA-computing paradigm needs to borrow more
from the concepts of A-Life.
Langton eloquently pointed out the major stumbling
block in dealing with DNA when he said that
“biomolecules are extremely small and difficult to
work with, requiring rooms full of special equipment,
While some researchers were focusing on interactivity
and computation, other researchers were attempting
to tap into the inherent storage
capabilities that exist in
molecular computers. One
The DNA molecules found
such proposal involved building
a molecular computer to be
in the nucleus of all cells
used as a semantic net or
can hold more information
knowledge base. The data
would be stored in DNA strings
in a cubic centimeter than
with the potential to be linked
a trillion music CDs.
together in a manner similar to
that used to solve the
Hamiltonian path problem.The
premise behind the proposal
was to use DNA self-assembly
or annealing to retrieve data
from the molecular database
based on a query formed from a
DNA input query molecule.At
its simplest form, some DNA
strands would represent
objects, while others would
represent attributes and still
others would represent values. All of these DNA replete with dozens of “post-docs” and graduate
strands would be encoded so that objects, attributes students willing to devote the larger part of their
and values that should be linked would possess professional careers to the perfection of electrocomplementary parts of their strands so that they pheretic gel techniques” (Langton, 1987). He went on
would anneal to form the relationships needed for the to state that “computers provide an alternative medium
semantic net (Tsuboi,Ibrahim & Ono). The amount of within which to attempt to synthesize life”—DNA in
data that could be stored in these DNA computers is this case—and that “computers should be thought of as
massive: “the DNA molecules found in the nucleus of an important lab tool” (Langton, 1987). One way to
all cells can hold more information in a cubic continue to advance the DNA computing paradigm is
centimeter than a trillion music CDs” (Lovgren, to move its functionality to computer simulations
2003). However, as promising as all these theoretical while the I/O aspects are being developed. This will
proposals and developments sound, the technology to effectively accomplish two things: it will create a largeffectively and efficiently interface with molecular er pool of researchers, hobbyists and scientists who
have access to DNA-computational tools (they would
computers has yet to reveal itself.
no longer be confined to the molecular biology lab),
Since the advent of the first molecular computer and it would also allow for alternative computational
nearly fifteen years ago, tremendous advances have methods, thinking and experimentation to be carried
been achieved, yet many challenges still remain. out quickly and efficiently in-silico. Such an effort
Attempting to merge multiple disciplines (e.g., could bridge the gap and advance the computational
molecular biology, mathematics, logic, computer paradigm as the DNA computing field waits for better
science) into one field of study is an extremely molecular interface techniques to be developed and perfected.
demanding undertaking. However, many of the DNA computing can revolutionize the computing
A-Life’s Hybrid Child
industry in many areas, such as power, storage, and
parallel and distributed processing, but only after the
I/O obstacles have been resolved and the molecular
computer is truly a programmable and universal
computer.The DNA computing paradigm is screaming
for an in-silico simulation to move the computational
aspects of the paradigm forward; the software and
hardware (raw computing power) to form the
foundation for a framework are readily available, with
much of the software being either free or open source.
And, since both Perl and Python are supported on
Linux and each have methods for utilizing the Open
Message Passing Interface (Open-MPI), Linux clusters
can be constructed to provide the distributed
processing and massive parallelism inherent in DNA
computing. These functions could be extended to
provide capabilities and mechanisms similar to those
mentioned previously, such as ligase, annealing and
nuclease. These mechanisms could then operate on a
sea of DNA strings swimming in computer memory.
Such an implementation would provide a platform or
virtual machine if you will, to build and manipulate
interacting information structures.
Clustering and the MPI provide scalability to the
simulation, allowing it to more accurately model or
represent the tremendous amount of data that will be
needed for the in-silico simulation. Initial applications
could duplicate the first DNA computing attempts
made by Adleman and others as a tribute, as well as a
way to measure performance of the framework.
Once the obligatory “hello world”application is accomplished, the goal of creating an in-silico DNA universal
computer should commence.By embarking on such an
effort, it is probable that the computing aspect of DNA
computing can make great strides and continue to
advance outside of and parallel to the efforts taking
place in the molecular biology labs. This endeavor
would only strengthen the molecular computing field
by allowing a larger community of scientists to contribute to the DNA computing body of knowledge. It
almost seems too obvious that these problems (molecular I/O and universal computing) should be worked
in parallel in their respective domains and later merged
together to create a truly universal and programmable
DNA computer.
As technology continues to advance and new fields
emerge, there is continued sharing, borrowing and
blending of concepts across disciplines.At its core “[ALife] amounts to the practice of synthetic biology…
[and] the attempt to recreate biological phenomena in
alternative synthetic media will result not only in better theoretical understanding of the phenomena under
study, but also in practical applications of biological
principles in industry and technology” (Langton,
1987). Although the A-Life paradigm is not necessarily concerned with computing a solution to a problem,
most of its core concepts are exceptional building
blocks for a computational paradigm. DNA computing
is based on many of the core concepts that comprise ALife, but the majority of the effort is still focused in the
molecular biology lab.The DNA computing paradigm
needs to borrow one more mechanism from A-Life,insilico simulation. In doing so, a parallel field focusing
on the computational aspect of DNA computing can be
created continuing to move forward, making advances
to benefit both the synthetic and natural DNA computing paradigms.
References
Adleman, L. (1998). Computing with DNA. Scientific
American,August, 34-41.
Hogan, J. (2003, 18 August). First game-playing DNA
computer revealed. Retrieved 18 April 2008, from
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4063first-gameplaying-dna-computer-revealed.html
Langton, C. (1987). Artificial Life. Retrieved 18 April
2008 from http://www.aec.at/en/archiv_files/
19931/E1993_025.pdf
Lovgren, S. (2003, 24 February). Computer Made from
DNA and Enzymes. Retrieved 18 April 2008,
from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news
/2003/02/0224_030224_DNAcomputer.html
Roweis, S.,Winfree, E., Burgoyne, R., Chelyapov, N.,
Goodman, M., Rothemund, P., et al. (1996, May).
A Sticker Based Model for DNA Computation.
Retrieved 18 April 2008, from http://www.cs.
toronto.edu/~roweis/papers/stickers.pdf
Tsuboi,Y., Ibrahim, Z., & Ono, O. DNA Computing
Approach to Semantic Model. Retrieved 18 April
2008,fromhttp://www.tmrfindia.org/ijcsa/
V2I29.pdf
About the Author
Harold Kimball is the Software Development Manager
for an engineering services company supporting U.S.
Air Force Special Operations. He is currently enrolled
at UAT seeking a master's degree in Artificial Life
Programming. Harold recently co-founded Enabling
Technology Inc. to pursue development of situational
awareness technology to support disaster relief efforts
and first responders.
15
The
Project
Tactical
14
Joe McCormack
In almost all organizations, the managerial pyramid
consists of three levels.The top management level deals
with strategic planning (up to ten years in the future)
whereas middle management, such as department
heads, deal with intermediate planning (up to two
years in the future). Finally, lower management deals
with operational planning (up to one year in the
future). Middle and lower management are the two
tiers which determine the outcome of a project
(whether it is successful or a failure). Most of the time,
lower management will bear the most responsibility
and need to have the greatest degree of skills to carry a
project to completion.
In order for a project to be successful, the project
manager and project lead must be able to work with
other individuals to achieve the objectives, get the most
out of limited resources and balance effectiveness and
efficiency. Key to ensuring a project will be completed
as mandated or approved are the skills of the project
manager and project lead, including technical skills
(e.g., expertise; problem solving; imagination and
creativity; clarification of goals and objectives), teambuilding skills (e.g., coordination and cooperation;
team problem solving; directing and coaching; being
receptive to insights) and drive (e.g., performance
standards, control of details, energy). While Gantt
charts, scheduling, PERT complex scheduling or other
tools may be useful to middle and lower management
in monitoring, communicating and reacting to
the evolution of a project, those tools are not
very beneficial to individuals who have been
tasked with taking a project from
conceptualization to reality in a technology
environment.
to maintain or update in the future. In other cases, a
lack of concise communication and collaboration about
the project from middle and lower management to
those tasked with creating the project may also lead to
the same unfortunate end. While the skill and
experience pool of individuals that actually create the
project can alleviate some of the unforeseen issues that
will undoubtedly arise during the lifetime of a project,
those individuals nonetheless remain largely useless
against taking a project to its fullest potential when
provided with marginal information, patchy
communication or collaboration, or lack of support.
As a result of those observations and project
evaluations, I devised a scalable, middle- and lowermanagement project framework to ensure vital project
details are addressed and not left to verbal conveyance
or individual interpretation. This is known as the
Project Tactical.The Project Tactical is a combination of
the strategic interests of a project (as realized by top
and/or middle management) and systematic (tactical)
considerations of those interests, producing an indepth and concise project document that are to be utilized not only by middle and lower management, but
also utilized equally amongst the individuals who will
take the project from concept to reality.
The ProjectTactical is comprised of four main sections:
Process Shortcomings
In the past, I have been involved in many ITbased or technology-dependant projects and
have noticed, to varying degrees, shortcomings
of processes that decrease the efficiency in
development and release of such projects. Due
to complexity, or lack thereof, not all projects
possess the same shortcomings, but in
hindsight the fundamentals of what makes a
Figure 1.The four components of the Project Tactical
project successful become known by
comparing those different projects and where
they were weak. In most cases, “feature creep” occurs; the Abstract, Participants, Requirements Assessment
this inevitably extends the deadline of a project and can and Technical Specifications (see Figure 1).
often result in the release (or completion) of a project
littered with design/programming shortcuts to meet Abstract
the deadline.This type of release often has unintended The abstract section is the foundation of the Project
consequences, both because it contains security holes Tactical. It serves to provide the basic building blocks
that may be exploited (purposefully or accidentally that the remainder of the Project Tactical is derived
through use of the product) and, through shortcuts or from (see Figure 2). The following describes each
patchy design/programming, will be more expensive component of the Abstract:
17
Purpose discusses what the project will accomplish
and why.
Scope discusses how the project will accomplish its
purpose.
Audience served specifically identifies the audience
that the project will serve.
Duration identifies, in working days, how long the
project is expected to take to complete.
Start date identifies the first day that work on the
project will begin.
Multimedia lead is the expert regarding the
multimedia (such as digital equipment) that the project
will utilize. Include same data as listed under Project
manager.
Participants
The Participants section, as recalled from Figure 1,
serves specifically to identify who will be contributing
to the project and what their responsibilities are as (see
Figure 3).
Hardware staff provides a clear and concise list of
the individuals who will be responsible for the
Conceptual material provides the network
location or URL (and credentials, if any)
individuals may access.
Programming workflow provides the
network location or URL (and credentials, if any)
to programming design workflow material,
programming logic diagrams, bubble charts and
other material that will guide programmers and
developers.
16
Collaboration provides individuals with the
opportunity to collaborate (share project notes,
etc.), aside from physical meetings, as the project
develops.An example of this is a wiki.
Allocated budget identifies how much
funding has been dedicated to the project.
Project manager is commonly a middle or
lower manager for the project. Specifically, the data to
include under this section includes the following: is
member an employee or third party?; member
position; member position in this roll; member name;
business address/phone/fax/email; member
responsibilities; member project status: full time, part
time, contract; estimated number of hours of
participation.
Figure 2:Abstract of the Project Tactical.
hardware aspects of the project. Specifically, the data to
include under this section includes the following: is
member an employee or third party?; member
position; member position in this roll; member name;
business or personal address/phone/fax/email;
member responsibilities; member project status: full
time, part time, contract; estimated number of hours
of participation.
Project lead is commonly a lower manager for the
project and is directly exposed to the project on a daily
basis. Include same data as listed under Project
manager.
Software staff provides a clear and concise list of the
individuals who will be responsible for the software
aspects of the project. Include same data as listed under
Hardware staff.
Software lead is the expert regarding the software
that the project will utilize. Include same data as listed
under Project manager.
Alpha testers provides a clear and concise list of the
individuals who will be responsible for the alpha test-
Hardware lead is the expert regarding the hardware
that the project will utilize. Include same data as listed
under Project manager.
Multimedia staff provides a clear and concise list of
the individuals who will be responsible for the
multimedia aspects of the project. Include same data as
listed under Hardware staff.
ing of the project. Include same data
as listed under Hardware staff.
Beta testers provides a clear and
concise list of the individuals who will
be responsible for the beta testing of
the project. Include same data as
listed under Hardware staff.
Requirements Assessment
The Requirements Assessment
section, as recalled from Figure 1,
serves to specifically identify the
Figure 3: Participants of the Project Tactical.
development the environment of the
software cost,supplier name/address/phone/fax/
project (i.e., hardware and software that are required email, supplier contact name.
and recommended), as well as the hardware and
software requirements (and recommendations) of the Audience software recommended includes the
audience that the project will be serving (see Figure 4). following: software name, software version,software -
Development hardware required includes the
following: component name, component part
number,componentcost,suppliername/address/
phone/fax/email, supplier contact name.
Development hardware recommended
includes the following: component name, component
part
number,
component
cost,supplier
name/address/phone/fax/email, supplier contact
name.
Development software required
includes the following: software name,
software version, software license,softwarecost,softwaresupplier name/
address/phone/fax/email,software
supplier contact name.
Development software recommended includes the following: software
name, software version, software license,
software cost, software supplier
name/address/phone/fax/email, software supplier contact name.
license,software cost,supplier name/supplier name/
address/phone/fax/email, supplier contact name.
Technical Specifications
The technical specifications section, as recalled from
Figure 1, serves to specifically identify the operating
development and production environment of the project (see Figure 5).This section will be subject to change
as the project progresses; for example, while database
names, tables or stored procedures may not be known
at the time the project begins, those details will surface
Figure 4: Requirements Assessment of the Project Tactical.
Audience hardware required includes the
number,component cost,supplier name/address/
Audience hardware recommended includes the
number,component cost,supplier name/address/
Audience software required includes the following: software name, software version, software license,
over time and should be placed into the technical
specifications for reference by other individuals
involved in that aspect of the project as well as for
future maintenance and evaluation. Other areas, such
as RDP, VPN, FTP, Web Services to employ (if any),
existing documentation, programming languages to
use, and so forth should already be known before (or
shortly after) the project begins.
Development: Data Points
> Database server name, database server OS and
version, database software components, database
19
server network location (database name, database table
name(s), database stored procedures, database stored
procedures purpose).
> Internal RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)
information needed to connect to database server from
within network.
> External VPN (Virtual Private Network)
outside network.
> Internal method to connect to database server from
within network (if RDP will not be used).
18
Development:Web Service Points
> Web server name, web server OS and version, web
server network location, web server URL.
> Web server secure certificate type, certificate
provider, certificate renewal date, certificate cost.
> FTP client type (SSH client, or standard client),
remote FTP starting directory, login, password,
authentication type, access port.
information needed to connect to web server from
within network.
> External VPN (Virtual
PrivateNetwork) information
The Project Tactical is designed to comple- needed to connect to web servment existing project management tools by er from outside network.
providing a highly detailed framework for > Internal method to connect
project individuals to increase efficiency, to web server from within netsuch as a UNC path (if
effectiveness and synchronized collabora- work,
RDP will not be used).
tion and project knowledge.
> External method to connect
to web server from outside
> External method to connect to database server from network (if VPN/RDP will not be used).
outside network (if VPN/RDP will not be used).
Development:Programming Points
> List of programming languages that will be utilized
Development:Web Service Points
to complete the project executed on the client.
> Local service component name, local service > List of programming languages that will be utilized
component network location, local service component to complete the project executed on the web server.
programming language compatibility.
> List of web server software components needed for
> Local (or URL) web service SDK (software project.Physical directory structure and purpose of
development kit) repository location, login directories. Special permissions / machine accounts
Information needed to access SDK (if needed).
needed for project code to operate correctly and
> Remote component name, remote component locations where permissions / machine accounts need
connection URL, remote authentication key (needed to be applied.
to interact with remote service), remote authentication account (needed to interact with remote service), Production: Database Points
remote authentication password (needed to interact > Database server name, database server OS and
with remote service).
version, database software components, database
Figure 5:Technical Specifications of the Project Tactical.
server network location (database name, database table
name(s), database stored procedure, database stored
procedure purpose).
within network.
outside network.
> Internal method to connect to database server from
within network (if RDP will not be used).
> External method to connect to database server from
Production:Web Service Points
> Local service component name, local service
component network location, local service component
programming language compatibility.
> Remote component name, remote component
connection URL, remote authentication key (needed
to interact with remote service), remote
authentication account (needed to interact with
remote service), remote authentication password
(needed to interact with remote service).
Production:Web Server Points
> Web server name, web server OS and version, web
server network location, web server URL.
> Web server secure certificate type, certificate
provider, certificate renewal date, certificate cost.
List of web server software components needed for
project.
> Special permissions / machine accounts needed for
project code to operate correctly and locations where
permissions / machine accounts need to be applied.
Physical directory structure and purpose of
directories.
> FTP client type (SSH client, or standard client),
remote FTP starting directory, login, password,
authentication type, access port.
within network.
outside network.
> Internal method to connect to web server from
within network, such as a UNC path (if RDP will not
be used).
> External method to connect to web server from
Conclusion
As you have seen, the Project Tactical is a combination
of the strategic interests of a project (as realized by top
and/or middle management) and systematic (tactical)
considerations of those interests, producing an
in-depth and concise project document that is to be
utilized not only by middle and lower management,
but equally amongst the individuals who will take the
project from concept to reality.The Project Tactical is
designed to complement existing project management
tools by providing a highly detailed framework for
project individuals to increase efficiency, effectiveness
and synchronized collaboration and project
knowledge.
About the Author
Joe McCormack, instructor and alumnus of UAT, has
been a web developer for over ten years from small
websites to eCommerce platforms. Joe has published
two books relating to web programming and
academic articles from web-based B2B data sharing to
behavioral intelligence systems. He has also developed
systems certified by Authorize.Net and Paypal.
21
THINKING ABOUT THINKING
Toward a Taxonomy
of Thinking
Dominic Pistillo
Toward a Taxonomy of Thinking
Thinking provides the foundation for human culture
and civilization. It’s a trait, true and it is also a skill, but,
more importantly, it is a gift. We are born with this
natural ability and we accept that it can it be developed
or improved, but why do our systems of education not
invest more substantially in their development? The
answer to this may lie less in the motivation to do so
than the perception of the availability of the means.
Effective thinking allows us to appreciate, understand,
absorb and even shape the world around us. In doing
so, effective thinking defines our reality. In everyday
life, we are expected to think, reason, analyze and solve
problems. Throughout grade school, high school and
college, we are explicitly taught a variety of
competencies to aid us: mathematics, science,
language, history, law and many more besides. In fact,
United States legislation requires the acquisition of
certain skills and their verification through
standardized testing. Many teachers and students alike
might say that we are born with certain general
thinking abilities, yet it is not apparent that any
consideration is given to the teaching of those general
thinking beyond the ubiquitous “critical thinking”
courses at the secondary and postsecondary level; but
to specifically teach thinking skills would aid us greatly
because thinking is a skill that can be taught, nurtured
and developed. It is essential and fundamental to
everyone.
using Roman numerals. Equations were written out in
words, a painstaking process that limited mathematical
advancement. But in the 13th and 14th centuries, a
lexicon and language for expressing mathematics
began to evolve, thanks to the pioneering work of
Fibonacci, who brought to Europe the Indo-Arabic
system.The notational system that developed allowed
complex mathematical ideas to be compressed and
expressed clearly between people of every language.
This liberated the field, and, subsequently, new
paradigms were developed leading to quantum leaps of
understanding (a similar thing happened at about the
same time in Italy with the standardization of musical
notations). Can that same analysis be applied to the
field of thinking? There are innumerable philosophies,
processes and disciplines for thinking, but very little
common vocabulary exists to describe the full range of
what we mean by “thinking.” This virtual vacuum
stymies the communication and scholarly development
of the most human of all functions. “What is thought”
Will Durant once asked. “It baffles description
because… it is the last mystery of our being. Its
appearance is the great turning point of evolution”
(Durant, 2002, p. 8).
But that mystery may be changing.As a young Rhodes
Scholar, Dr. Edward de Bono recognized the necessity
of developing an alternative understanding of what it
means to think. His research led him to develop the
concept of “Lateral Thinking,” which is commonly
referred to today as “thinking outside the box,” a
concept that has radically altered the ways that not only
individuals, but also organizations and corporations,
think about the world around them and the problems
and opportunities they encounter on a daily basis. De
If competent thinking is so necessary to societal
performance, success, coping, integration and life
enrichment, then why does skillful thinking not play a
more prominent role in our educational curricula?
Perhaps the reason has less to do with a disbelief that it
can be taught than the fact that no
regimen for the comprehensive
There are innumerable philosophies,
teaching of thinking has yet been
processes and disciplines for thinking
generally developed in Western
but very little common vocabulary exists
society; but there may be an even
to describe the full range of what we
more fundamental reason: that no
mean by “thinking.”
systematized western thinking
taxonomy yet exists.
Bono’s task is monumental for the reasons mentioned
Pythagoras and other great thinkers of our ancient by Durant. But he initiated several deliberate processpast, particularly musicians and mathematicians, es for generating ideas, and he is widely considered to
possessed a keen sense that codified language (and be the best-known thinker internationally and he is one
mathematical symbology) was essential for human of the very few people in history who can be said to
advancement. Without a descriptive, commonly have had a major impact on the process or tools we use
agreed-upon language, human beings are severely to think.
handicapped in developing and communicating ideas
and, more importantly, cannot record and effectively Early on, Dr. de Bono recognized the need to teach
build upon previous work, knowledge or thinking and has dedicated his life to this endeavor. He
understanding. In the early days of the Renaissance, has been hired as a consultant by many of the major
mathematics was still limited by cumbersome notation corporations of the world to teach thinking to their
23
contingents and to solve problems that resembled the
mythical Gordian knot. For example, he taught oil
companies working in the North Sea off Norway that
they could save $250 million by drilling laterally. Dr. de
Bono has written over 60 books on the subject of
thinking,but more pertinent to my thesis,he has begun
to develop a lexicon for the description and
communication of thinking ideas. He is the first person
in modern times to coin a thinking word and have it
included in the Oxford Dictionary: “Lateral Thinking.”
He has coined numerous other words to describe
thinking disciplines such as Parallel Thinking and
Vertical Thinking, but our descriptive vocabulary is still
far from complete.
22
There are more movements afoot to continue this kind
of work and to make thinking a recognized field of
human understanding. Five years ago the Leonardo da
Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking was founded as
a non-profit foundation and “think tank” for thinking.
Dr. Edward de Bono was named its Honorary Chair in
2005.The following years have seen several other great
thinkers who have made a broad impact on our world
join the ranks of the da Vinci Society: Dr. Margaret
Wheatley, systems thinker, author and founder of the
Berkana Institute; Dr. Fritjof Capra, eminent physicist,
ecologist and author; Dr. Michio Kaku, physicist, string
field theorist, author, and so-called “Popularizer of
Science;” and, in 2009, Dr. Raymond Kurzweil,
futurist, cyberneticist, author and so called
“Singulatarian,” or proponent of a coming
technological singularity.The prime goal of this Society
at the University of Advancing Technology is to
underscore the need for perceptive thinking and clear
understanding through the efficacious teaching of
thinking skills.The Mission of the Society is to “advance
the study of thinking by engaging the greatest thinkers
in the world, creating and fostering new knowledge in
the study of thinking, and to encouraging great
the teaching of thinking. Consider some of the thinking
language (albeit limited) that exists today:
> “Reductionist” or “Mechanistic Thinking,” which is
seeing reality through observation of a subject’s
individual parts, that may then be tested through
argument and clarified through analysis. This type of
thinking provides objective information about our
universe.
> “Creative Thinking,” or “Lateral Thinking,” which
allows us to move our vantage point laterally and see
reality from a different perspective.
> “Systems Thinking,” which endeavors to understand
the relationships between elements of systems, such as
the changing climate of the rain forest, or the
interacting gravities and orbits of planets within a solar
system (or atoms, quarks or leptons within molAs it fulfills its mission, the Da Vinci ecules), and allows us to zoom out and
Society seeks to arm the next gener- better understand how our world operates and
ation of citizens and leaders with “cooperates” with itself.
these adept thinking capabilities, > “Parallel Thinking,” which is the deliberate
enabling them to become the skilled ordering of our collective thinking processes to
minds towards a particular end or group
designers and stewards of the future leverage
consensus.
scholars as well as young people in the study and > “Metaphysical Thinking,” which transcends the
development of thinking as a universally relevant theories of any particular science and allows us to
contemplate concepts that lie beyond the
endeavor.”
physical world.
One of the Society’s aspirations is to substantially add
to the work started by Dr. de Bono in development of The members of the Leonardo da Vinci Society for the
both a taxonomy of and a lexicon for communicating Study of Thinking, believe that each new thinking
thinking concepts—and thus liberate and empower practice, once appreciated, would allow the individual
Toward a Taxonomy of Thinking
to come one step closer to seeing this world and
universe more clearly.While we may never in this life
be able to accurately and completely observe reality in
all of its intricate glory, each diverse thinking skill, once
gained, allows us to perceive of yet more facets, each
one adding depth, clarity and texture to our
perception and understanding.The aspiration of adding
to Dr. de Bono’s contributions will define our work
over the next decades.
Clearly, thinking allows us to add clues and nuance to
what is the most common of all thoughtful pursuits,
understanding our world and this life: why are we
here, what are we here to do and what does this life
mean? Thinking is a skill that can be learned, developed
and honed, and as the tools and language are developed
through work of the members of the Leonardo daVinci
Society, as well as many others, we hope they will be
brought to the forefront of our educational system.As
it fulfills its mission, the da Vinci Society seeks to arm
the next generation of citizens and leaders with these
adept thinking capabilities, enabling them to become
the skilled designers and stewards of the future.
Throughout the next few years, the Journal of Advancing
Technology will be acting as host to the ideas of many of
today’s greatest thinkers. Society members such as
Drs. Edward de Bono, Margaret Wheatley, Fritjof
Capra, Michio Kaku and Raymond Kurzweil, along
with future members, will be contributing their
knowledge for your intellectual enrichment. Each
paper will be a conduit to another view of our intricate
reality.Take them as such and allow these writings to
move you, help you question your assumptions and
break away from old paradigms. Hopefully, they will
also teach you to think in new ways.
References
Durant, W. (2002). The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All
Time (Vol. 33). New York: Simon and Schuster.
About the Author
Dominic Pistillo is the president and founder of the
University of Advancing Technology and is the founder
of the Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of
Thinking. Mr. Pistillo has studied at several colleges and
universities throughout the world, including Harford
West Germany, Arizona State University and the
University of Arizona, majoring in Computer Graphics
Programming and minoring in Business. After eight
years service in the Air Force and seven years as a
Division Manager for Litton Industries, Dominic
founded and managed several successful companies.
He founded and was President of CAD Southwest
Corporation, a computer aided design and engineering
consulting firm, and CADShare, a computer aided
design service bureau; and he was founder and
director of research and development for
Megasystems, a high-end computer-hardware
manufacturer. Mr. Pistillo was Inc. magazine’s
Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in both 1991 and
1992. Mr. Pistillo is a regular speaker for several
educational organizations in the fields of learning
models, organizational leadership and systems
thinking. He is a faculty member for the Leesburgh
Leadership Institute.
25
EDITORIAL
Are We Losing the
Ability to Think
Abstractly?
Ronald T. Floyd
Are We Losing the Ability to Think Abstractly?
Is technology is creating a decline in visual imagination?
Students claim that the world is better off with
technology. Certainly, without technology, there
would be also be no video games, cell phones, iPods or
even the Internet. This increased dependency upon
technology is not problematic for students; rather, it is
actually seen by most students as a necessity. Much as
the automobile, the telephone and the microwave oven
impacted previous generations of teens, today’s
technology is creating dependencies—technological
comfort zones—beyond the anticipated benefits. And
because of this, it appears that the ability to create
abstract thought is becoming a vanishing commodity
among the college-age population.
Such dependency on technology has created an oracle
of entertainment and knowledge that runs deep into
the cultural foundation of the everyday lives of
students. It is robbing students of their ability to think
abstractly, destroying social interaction, and creating a
false sense that all problem solving revolves around
Google. Such a mentality creates a cycle that pushes
technology down to the pre-school level and creates
even younger dependencies, restricting and altering
abstract reasoning at the earliest ages.The outcome is
that our technology-structured world is impacting the
ability of our children to handle problem solving and
abstract thinking.
scalded and defoliated by a kind of cognitive Agent
Orange, depriving them of moral agency,
imagination and awareness of consequences. (2008)
Greenfield is emphatic about the consequences of this
for teenagers:
the substitution of virtual experience for real
encounters; the impact of spoon-fed menu options
as opposed to free-ranging inquiry; a decline in
linguistic and visual imagination; an atrophy of
creativity; contracted, brutalised text-messaging,
lacking the verbs and conditional structures essential
for complex thinking. Her principal concern is how
computer games could be emphasising what she
calls “process” over “content”—method over
meaning—in mental activity. (2008)
This inability to generate abstract thought is simply
illustrated by a recent assignment given to a
sophomore drawing class.The assignment consisted of
creating an abstract drawing that included elements of
perspective and chiaroscuro. The assignment was a
relatively loose and manageable exercise, but elicited a
predictable reaction from students. Students requested
instructions on how to create an abstract drawing.The
discussion that ensued ranged from how to think
abstractly to actually questioning the need for creating
abstraction.The assignment was a major challenge for
most of the students, not because of a lack of drawing
skills, but because they lack the ability to think
conceptually.
Contemporary technology creates a private,
controlled environment of comfort for students. Such Is there hope among the debris of technology? I am an
a comfortable world rarely calls for abstract reasoning optimist, and the mere thought that students question
or theoretical thought; in my
experience, being presented with
It is robbing students of their ability to
assignments that force them into
think abstractly, destroying social interacunfamiliar thinking is petrifying
tion, and creating a false sense that all
for them.Their everyday existence
is structured and predetermined.
problem solving revolves around Google.
They are taught to survive by button-selection education. When pushed outside that the need for abstraction signals that both reasoning and
structured order, their inability to reason or think questioning are occurring.This thought-creep does not
abstractly readily becomes apparent.
mean we are doomed as a thinking society. In trying to
better understand the concept of abstract thought, I
Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield of Oxford turned to the Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus.The
University has also voiced some pretty significant definition given defines abstract thought as the process
concerns about the future (Cornwell, 2008). or power of thinking (Oxford University Press, 1997).
Greenfield predicts that the current teenaged Another definition revolved around the terms of a
generation is headed for a “mass loss of personal faculty of reasoning. These definitions were found
lacking as they did not readily apply to the concept of
identity,” which she terms the “Nobody Scenario”:
By spending inordinate quantities of time in the abstract art.
interactive, virtual, two-dimensional, cyberspace
realms of the screen, she believes that the brains of Professor Allan Randall has stated that “by definition,
the youth of today are headed for a drastic alteration. the ‘abstract’ must have no mass, shape, size and color,
It’s as if all that young grey cortical matter is being and almost all works of art are definitely concrete”
27
(Martins de Oliveira & Rochado do Amaral, 2001) In
examining an original painting, the result grows “from
an initial abstract conception of the artist’s mind, from
which he built a certain image and then painted it.
Thus, [the artist’s] work became concrete, because it
has mass, color and dimensions”(2001). Interaction
between the artist, the visual consumer and the
abstract conception is part of the missing link of
socialization among students.
Declining social skills and infrequent interaction
between peers are, by their very nature, destructive
forces on abstract thought. Students bury their faces in
illuminated screens, often instead of making human
contact. Schools and parents enforce this idea by
insisting on rubrics that spell out exactly how students
will be graded. In an effort to cater to this growing
phenomenon, colleges are instituting more online
classes, insisting that everything must be black or white
and technology-driven. Technology for technology’s
sake is becoming the standard mantra.
In the adolescent days of consumer electronics, the
common joke was that no one over 30 could program
their VCR to the correct time, and the blinking light
where the correct time should be displayed was a sign
of being technology-challenged. Looking back, society
missed the early-warning signs of the VCR and
dismissed this as a generation gap issue—the VCR was
the first device causing a shift in the thought process,
and one of the first big consumer products that did not
work intuitively.
Intuitive reasoning was replaced by an instruction
manual.The prearranged world of technology left little room for thinking, room
which was taken up by consumer-electronics conformity.
The use of such items as TV
remotes, cell phones or even
MP3 players imply in their
operation a predetermined
course of events. Everything is
defined by a set of instructions.
Students are well-adapted to
comply with these rules of
operation, but they find
unstructured
assignments
extremely difficult—they stare
blankly out into space, unable to
conceptualize, struggling to
understand the lack of
structure. In the technologydriven world, students expect
predetermined
outcomes,
because self-imposed boundaries do not exist.
We missed the message that the
VCR was sending us, so we
need now to be cognitive of the
disruption of abstract reasoning
associated with the increased
usage of technology.The key to
not losing our humanity
depends on educators using
technology to foster learning
rather than relying on technology to push content to students.
Facebook and YouTube may be the most recent
obsessions moving into education—in the sense that
they offer ways for educators to tether themselves to
the world their students are living in—but technology
only creates the learning environment, not the
content. Online classes that utilize this new
technology must not fail to reinforce the loss of
thought, allowing students to just fill in blanks and
communicate in chat rooms. Students will use the
technology in their lives to get the correct answer as
quickly as they can. Educators must reinvent the path
to the answer using technology as a source tool for
building on reasoning skills.
In our rush to make everything digital, are we taking
the “human” out of humanity? Students don’t think,
they produce work like machines, and it is happening
in lower and lower grades.Getting students to stand up
in front of their peers and share an opinion is seen as
predetermined outcomes with the requirement for
unknown consequences.The danger in technology lies
in allowing it to do our thinking as opposed to
allowing technology to help us think.The real question
is how to best use the technology of today and in the
future. Do we betray our own intellect by creating
products, such as virtual worlds and digital toys, that
foster less abstract thought? Or do we reverse the
trend and use technology to the benefit of future man?
There may be some hope on the horizon. One technology trend that fosters abstract thought and even
advances creativity is beginning to emerge.
Visual technology seems to be one of the
Educators must reinvent the path to most promising of the new technologies;
the answer using technology as a such a trend may alleviate an otherwise
source tool for building on reasoning inevitable Orwellian moment we may
encounter somewhere down the road.
skills.
Visual technology is designed to take complex data and place it into three-dimencruel and unusual punishment. Children are diagnosed sional imagery. This technology, which emerged at
with anxiety disorders, and they get special labels that Tufts University’s Center for Scientific Visualization,
excuse them from stressful thought-building exercises. has the ability to enable “researchers to translate the
Furthermore, the “stress” of interaction, discussion and most abstract, complex scientific concepts into clearer,
debate are being allowed to disappear. A recent local more precise 3-dimensional images than conventional
youth group discussion panel I attended exemplifies visualization” (Visual Technology Enables Brain To
how technology is being allowed to replace discussion. Learn In New Ways, 2008).As the author states, quite
Questions on dating and marriage were text-messaged correctly, “[v]isualization is built on the age-old premto the speaker, and the whole discussion was centered ise… that pictures say as much as, or even more than,
on answering texted questions, with no dialogue or words” (2008):
The human brain has a powerful, often
discussion taking place. The speaker then questioned
underutilized capacity to process visuals, noted
the loss of human interaction and real human
Robert Jacob, computer science professor and
discussion and the point was made that, in doing this,
co-principal investigator on the project. A large
the audience had been robbed of an important aspect
portion of the brain processes visuals, and
of communication: the other humans in the
visualization technology puts that ability to work.
conversation.
“The brain absorbs a lot more information when it’s
presented in pictures rather than in stacks of data
It seems that society is allowing technology creep to
from a computer,” Jacob said.This, he says, enables
occur at the earliest stages of human development,
researchers and students to recognize things more
when interaction with others helps form personalities.
quickly and also develop insights about what’s going
Children’s art supplies are being developed that require
on with the data. (2008)
less abstract thought processes. Preschool children are
presented with markers that require no discipline in
reasoning and can be used anywhere without thought. This ability to develop insights through visualization is
A combination paint bottle, paintbrush and a shake- a key component of abstract thought and could be a
and-paint approach have replaced the need for separate real benefit as we move to lessen the impact of the
art supplies. With such toys, children no longer have technology negatives on abstract thought.
the choices selecting a brush, loading it with just the
right amount of paint, blending colors and applying There are other movements afoot as well. In 2000,
paints using different-sized brushes to produce various Semir Zeki “theorized about the ‘visual brain’ and
effects on the paper. The thought process has been development of spatial awareness, abstract thought,
and what he called ‘neuroesthetics’—the study of the
replaced by a predetermined set of guidelines.
What is being lost here? Well, at some point in the neural basis for perception, creativity, and
future, man may lose the ability to think abstractly. achievement” (National Education Association, 2001).
Society, and especially educators, must replace The development of neuroesthetics is based on
29
stereotyping neural processes of individuals. From my
own perceptions of teaching, I can see differences in a
classroom of technology students and a classroom of
visual art students. As the NEA columnist described,
“[t]heir thought processes and sequences are distinctly
different.The presentations that are effective for each
group differ markedly” (2001).
Another intriguing technology product that could help
swing the technology pendulum deals with abstract
thought within the rudimentary PowerPoint presentation system used in college classrooms nationwide.
Technology is taking the PowerPoint presentation to
another level—one that can increase a student’s ability
to be more engaged in learning. Tests have been
conducted using experimental software that enables a
28
Professor Resnick believes that technology
can engage children in thinking through difficult
topics. [He] has developed new “computational
construction kits” that children use to build and
program their own robotic “creatures.” As children
work on these projects, they learn about feedback
and control concepts that are normally considered
advanced [abstract thought processes]. “If you give
kids the right tools and toys, they can start
exploring these concepts immediately,” he says.
(National Science Foundation, 1998)
Likewise, in a project called Beyond Black Boxes, children design not only their own science experiments
but also the equipment needed to run the experiments. “The idea is for children to investigate personally meaningful questions, not just
some recipe” (1998):
We are the keepers of our future and the follow
Resnick’s research group has
preservers of abstract thought must be an developed“programmable bricks”
integral part of that destiny
(LEGO bricks with computer
chips) to help children build sciprofessor to mark up PowerPoint slides from a tablet
entific instruments. One pair of girls (10 and 11
during a presentation while, at the same time, students
years old) decided to investigate the eating habits of
can watch the presentation to write on the slides or
birds. They built a new bird feeder equipped with
mark answers using a wireless tablet. Lectures can be
sensors, a camera and programmable brick.When a
imported into the software
bird lands on the feeder, the sensor sends a signal to
in a wide variety of formats, including PowerPoint,
the brick, which turns on a LEGO mechanism,
Word, Photoshop, and many others. Other
which presses the camera shutter to snap a picture.
material can include textbook contents from a CD,
(1998)
a typed document, or an Internet site.The software
converts the content into pages, then presents it in Technology is morally ambivalent, capable of good or
scrollable windows, allowing the instructor to add evil depending on how it is used. It may be self-serving
notes by drawing on or marking up any screen. to consider the potential loss of abstract thought as the
(Briggs, 2008)
evil side of technology. Yet the creation and use of
The academic world is not the only area of society that technology figures prominently into our evolution and
is being impacted by positive innovations in what and how we use the technology will have
technology that will help to foster abstract thought implications as far-reaching as we can imagine. No one
processes. MIT professor Mitchel Resnick is working envisions a scenario like The Matrix actually happening
to engage students in hands-on technology projects. to mankind (well, almost nobody), yet, to avoid this,
we must manipulate the technological path and nurture the social conscience to foster abstract thought
with innovations.We are the keepers of our future and
the preservation of abstract thought must be an integral part of that destiny.
References
Briggs, L. L. (2008, March 19). Homegrown Software
Boosts Interactivity at Community College.
Retrieved April 28, 2008, from Campus
Technology: http://campustechnology.com/arti
cles/59947/
Cornwell, J. (2008, April 27). Is technology ruining
children? Retrieved April 28, 2008, from Times
Online: http://women.timesonline.co.uk/to1/
life_and_style/women/families/ar ticle
3805196.ece
Martins de Oliveira, J., & Rocha do Amaral, J.(2001).
Abstract Thought. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n12/opiniao
/pensamento_i.htm
National Education Association. (2001, December).
Thriving in Academe: A Rationale for Visual
Communication. Retrieved April 28, 2008, from
National Education Association:http://www2.nea.
org/he/advo01/advo0112/feature.html
National Science Foundation. (1998, January). Playing
with Our Future: High-Tech Toys as Teaching Tools.
Retrieved April 28, 2008, from National Science
Foundation:http://www.nsf.gov/news/fron
tiers_archive/1-98/1techtoys.jsp
Oxford University Press. (1997).The Oxford Desk
Dictionary & Thesaurus:American Edition. NewYork:
Berkley Books.
About the Author
Ron Floyd is a professor at the University of Advancing
Technology and also serves as the Art Associate Editor
for Umbrella Publishing. Ron founded and serves as
president of the Chandler Art Guild, which is a
non-profit arts organization composed of nearly 250
artists from 20 cities.Among his recent exhibitions are
the “Underwater FantaSEA" exhibition at the Arizona
Youth Museum, and commissions with the City of
Phoenix and the Copper Corridor of Southern
Arizona, and exhibits at galleries around the state of
Arizona. Ron holds a BFA and an MS from the
University of Tennessee.
31
The Coming Merger of
Virtual Reality & Video
Games
Michael Gambrell
Gulliver Preparatory School, Miami,Florida
The Coming Merger of Virtual Reality & Video Games
demonstrated that a human could become totally
Virtual reality (VR) and video games are both vital,
immersed in a remote environment through the
fascinating areas of technology. However,VR went into
eyes of a camera. (n.d.)
a decline during the same period in which the video
game industry gained in prominence at an exponential This model was further modified by then-Harvard
rate. Is it possible that they can merge somehow? The professor Ivan Sutherland and his student Robert
evidence that they can do so effectively is there. Here, Sproull, although it too had its limitations:
The first such computer environment was no more
I take a look at the possibility of using tools from one
than a wire-frame room with the cardinal
sector—VR—to boost the product value of the other
directions—north, south, east, and west—initialed
sector—video games. Specifically, the use of VR
helmets within the video game
industry could result in these The helicopter experiments demonstratindustries working closer together to ed that a human could become totally
bring about a more realistic video
immersed in a remote environment
game experience. I believe that the through the eyes of a camera
thriving video game industry can revion the walls.The viewer could ‘enter’ the room by
talize the VR industry and bring about a highly acceptway of the ‘west’door and turn to look out windows
ed product, a technology merger that could benefit
in the other three directions.What was then called
both industries.
the head-mounted display later became known as
History of VR
VR. (n.d.)
According to Wikipedia, “virtual reality… is a
technology which allows a user to interact with a We would have to wait a few years to get a less cumcomputer-simulated environment, be it a real or bersome model.
imagined one” (Virtual reality, n.d.). Despite a period
in the late 1980s and 1990s when VR was considered The strength of the VR industry was the realism that it
to be the next big thing in human-computer interface, offered to users. It allowed one to get fully immersed
it is actually a much older field than that. Beginning in into the projected environment; there were, however,
the mid-1950s with the work of Morton Heilig on the a few weaknesses that became associated with VR
Sensorama, a “multisensory virtual experience… helmets in early stages. One, of course, was the size of
[combining] projected film, audio, vibration, wind and the apparatus; another was the limitations in the
odors, all designed to make the user feel as if he were computer-side performance which created boundaries
actually in the film rather than simply watching it” in the virtual performance.Also there were a number
(Carlson, n.d.). Heilig also worked on a head- of users of the head-mounted device that were getting
mounted display (HMD) that “used wide field of view sick and feeling nauseated from the VR experience.
optics to view 3D photographic slides and [featured] The rise of VR and video game industries
stereo sound and an ‘odor generator’” (n.d.), a device The VR industry created an enormous buzz when it
whose design was furthered in the 1960s by Charles was first being seriously discussed in the 1970s and
Comeau and James Bryan of Philco Corporation.Their 1980s. The technology and culture allowed for its
Headsight
immediate popularity, but the main reason for its
featured a single CRT element attached to the success was the outstanding marketing it was receiving:
helmet and a magnetic tracking system to
VR’s appeal has largely been due to its marketing. It
determine the direction of the head.The HMD was
proposed a paradigm shift: that computers can be
designed to be used with a remote controlled closed
‘reality generators,’ not just symbol processors.This
circuit video system for remotely viewing
shift allowed VR to become associated with a far
dangerous situations (n.d.)
broader range of cultural tropes than computers
had been before. (Chesher, 1994)
Bell Helicopter Company continued this chain of
perfecting HMDs with a unit for pilots that added
functionality to previous models: their version
received input from a servo-controlled infrared
camera, which was mounted on the bottom of a
helicopter. The camera moved as the pilot’s head
moved, and the pilot’s field of view was the same as
the camera’s. This system was intended to give
military helicopter pilots the capability to land at
night in rough terrain.The helicopter experiments
As one student of VR in the early 1990s wrote,
Games have had an important role in the develop
ment of human-machine interfaces and the intro
duction of I/O [input-output] devices to the public.
Games have been a force in making computer
peripherals affordable to the general public.There is
a huge demand for video and computer games, and
the competition between companies continuously
pushes technology. (Burton, 1993)
33
It is this type of thinking that makes me believe
a merger of video games and VR is the next
logical step for the video game industry. Over the past
decade, the video game industry has soared in sales,
bringing in billions of dollars every year, but they too
were not always that profitable and had to start
somewhere.
32
That same student nicely summed up the evolution of
graphics in video games and the challenges they faced.
With early video games, such as Pong,
engagement was low, and there was no sense
of presence. The point was to not let a blip on
the screen pass your paddle. Next in the arcades was
Space Invaders and Asteroids. The biggest
improvement in these was the orientation changed
to avoiding getting killed. Engagement was iproved
by the natural reaction to protect your life instead of
watchinga blip go by… Next came the first game
that I would consider Virtual Reality… Battle Zone.
This game achieved a good sense of
presence byvery carefully controlling the amount
of the environment that had to be simulated and still
be believable. (1993)
It also offered players a decent enough level of
engagement to command follow-up creations by game
makers.
The main strength of the video game industry is its
popularity, which has resulted in a billion-dollar
industry. The projected “global video game industry
sales [will] almost double in size from $25 billion in
2004 to $55 billion in 2009”(Media to grow ever
faster, 2005). The 2006 console software sales were
$6.45 billion, up 6% from 2005.This growth was predicted to continue in 2007 with a growth of 17%
expected (NPD February Up 28% as Wii, DS
Dominate hardware Sales, 2007).
The video game audience has expanded to include
more than young kids: “The average age of a
computer or video game player is 29 years old.While
games are almost ubiquitously played among children
and teenagers, the more hard-core gamers tend to be
older”(Jenkins,2003).Video game culture has not only
expanded to include an older fan base but it has also
expanded across sexes to include more games for
women:
There was a huge push about 5 or 6 years ago to
develop a female market for games. There was an
economic motive besides the political motive to
target women as the young women’s market
was underdeveloped as compared to the young
men’s market. A lot of start-ups began, run by
women who felt frustrated about the lack of
enough games for young women, particularly
around PC games, and that created a huge
debate around gender... There are growing signs
that even senior citizens may soon constitute a
significant group of players in the gaming space.
They seem to respond to strategy, puzzle and
role-playing games that are slower and need less
thumb action, but which at the same time allow
them to see interesting environments. The ability
to have virtual travel is very appealing to senior
citizens. While information on this group is still
anecdotal, quite a few companies have started
taking senior citizens as a significant chunk of
the gamers market in [the] future. (2003)
Future Market Indicators
The only weakness, if any, in the game industry is that
it would be that there is too much new competition
within the industry. So many companies are attempting
to make new consoles and games that companies have
to split profits that they once enjoyed for themselves.
Bing Gordon of Electronic Arts stated in 2005 that,
[a]s we try to create more immersive experiences,
these artificial intelligence techniques are helping
drive games forward and this is one of the areas that
could really explode… We hope that the folks here
start thinking about artificial intelligence as a feature.
(Schiesel, 2005)
The release of the Nintendo Wii serves as a product
indicator of what the future holds for VR and video
games.The Nintendo Wii is as close to a VR game console that has ever been developed. The wireless controller, the Wii Remote, “can be used as a handheld
pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in
three dimensions” (Ranka, 2007).This console gives
user a more interactive experience unmatched by
other game consoles. The Nintendo Wii’s debut was
received just like VR at its inception.The sales for the
Wii were also unmatched by the other major
companies during the month of its release, with sales of
The Coming Merger of Virtual Reality & Video Games
600,000 units and revenues of $190 million within
eight days (Nintendo,Wii Sales Top 600,000 in U.S.,
2005). By February of 2007, the Wii was the clear
leader in console sales against Playstation3 and Xbox,
with 432,000 units sold in the U.S.
compared with the PS3’s 280,800 and the Xbox 360’s
254,600 consoles sold. The sales of the Wii can
definitely be taken as an indicator of future sales if VR
and video games were to merge and form a new product from two already existing technologies.
Today’s consumer wants to be able to control their
characters completely instead of following a set of
pre-defined and pre-programmed guidelines.Artificial
intelligence and VR imbue games with a brain—this is
the next step for games to take in order to keep the
players attention. The graphics may attract players
initially, but it may be the AI and game play that will
keep their attention.
With each new game console getting progressively
better and closer to each other graphically by comparison, there needs to be some other way to differentiate
between top consoles.The Nintendo Wii has separated
itself from its competition by releasing a console that is
lifelike and gives its user a highly interactive
experience.
game consoles.
Other signs of things to come in an eventual VR-gaming merger include products that have debuted over
the last three years. On display at the 2005 E3 convention was 3001 AD’s Trimersion, which was touted as
being able “to fully realize the promise of [VR] by
bringing it into the mainstream home market”
(Berardini, 2005) and whose peripherals could be used
with contemporary game machines (Xbox et al).
Another product that may serve as a precursor to how
the market will react to the marriage of VR and video
games is Toshiba’s VR helmet (although it was initially a
little unwieldy for users), a “helmet [that] allows the
viewer to have a full 360 view on the 40 cm dome”
(Toshiba’s Ridiculous Virtual Reality Helmet, 2006);
this version proved to be a much less but still somewhat
cumbersome device like the much earlier versions
from the 1950s and 1960s, but development may
change that somewhere down the line.
Today’s video gamers are ready for the next generation
of video games and they are always demanding more
from their consoles and games. Since the graphic side
has been the primary focus for so many years and the
envelope has seemingly been pushed to its limits, the
next logical step for video games is toward a more
realistic and interactive experience. The only way to
fully achieve this task is for video game console
manufacturers to look into incorporating VR within
their consoles. Consumer reviews and the success of
current products like the Nintendo Wii show that the
market, which is ready to ride the success of the video
game industry, is ready for that more realistic, interac-
TheWii was able to deploy more than 600,000 units to
the US on its release, surpassing the much anticipated
number of units for Sony’s Playstation3. This is a
positive sign that VR and AI can be implemented into
video games in a timely manner.There were no reports
of any major delays in the production of the Wii.This,
too, is promising for the other
major console manufacturers as
Today’s consumer wants to be able to
they attempt to catch up to the
control their characters completely
technological benchmark set by
instead of following a set of pre-defined
Nintendo. Nintendo is not, howand pre-programmed guidelines.
ever, waiting for the competition;
they already released a Wii steertive experience that can be achieved through the merging wheel and aWii gun.The success of these two tech- er of VR and video games. If the VR manufacturers can
nologies will further prove that gamers are in need of deliver an affordable, reliable, and sizeable (but not too
a more realistic experience.Nintendo Wii has received large) product to the market, then it will be a big
negative feedback and publicity because some of its success. The same manufactures who are the major
users are having trouble holding onto their controllers, players in the console industry could serve as the
and there have been reports of items being broken in distributors for the VR products as they cross over into
homes due to the lost of gripping on the controllers. their new market.
This non-production issue can easily be fixed with a
better handle or strap placed on the controllers. Current VR Industry Products
Another major issue was the patent infringement law- In the recent past, companies like Mindflux, Icuiti and
suit filed against them (Interlink v. Nintendo, 2006). Novint have created a variety of VR products and
Such issues may pose a problem for future developers helped maintain a focus on VR and video games.
as they try to create a more virtual experience.What
the patent actually entails determines just what future Mindflux, which supplies VR equipment to
developers will be able to do as far as VR and their non-gaming sectors, such as government/military and
35
medical industries, provides “stereoscopic 3D
production services, presentation and display
equipment for the corporate market” (About, n.d).
MindFlux has a number of different products that
range from specialized displays and tracking systems to
commercial and professional HMDs. They also have
gloves and Haptic feedback devices. MindFlux hit upon
a popular target market with their LaserGolf driver,
which attempted to give players an immersive
experience with sound and, most importantly, no
computer mouse to deal with.
Another company specializing in Haptic devices is
Icuiti. Icuiti creates the traditional head-mounted
displays for gaming but they also offer custom display
units that are made to the specifications of the user;
they also have created an eyepiece visual display device
for the iPod. This device serves as the mini-screen
when watching video via an iPod.
Icuiti won the 2007 CES innovations award for its
VR920 VGA display, which is an earnest attempt at
immersive gaming. This seems like a truly promising
effort toward what many companies have been trying
to do so for so long.
34
Novint is a company that is currently working a
product that they hope will make a big splash on the
video game scene with a force feedback controller
much like that of the rumble controllers of the PS3,
but more sophisticated in that it engages users on a
sensory level—weight and textures can be felt with the
device, and users can sense momentum and the impact
of objects that are hard or soft. It is a very
sophisticated device. The design considerations come
from no other controllers. It is technically a robot and
can be used in conjunction with a VR peripheral.
The VR industry and the video game industry both
have so much to gain from this merger. With the
success of the video game industry growing daily, there
can only be winners if companies were to partner up
to design a product whose time may be now.
References
About. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2008, from
MindFlux:http://www.mindflux.com.au/about
.html
Berardini, C. (2005, July 19). 3001 AD brings
virtual reality to the living room. Retrieved April
27, 2008, from http://www.temple.edu/ispr/
examples/ex05_07_21.html
Burton, M. (1993). Entertainment and Virtual Reality.
Retrieved December 9, 2006, from The
Encyclopedia of Virtual Environments:http://
w w w. h i t l . w a s h i n g t o n . e d u / s c i v w /
EVE/II.K.Entertainment.html
Carlson,W. (n.d.).Virtual Reality. Retrieved April 28,
2008, from A Critical History of Computer
Graphics and Animation: http://design.osu.edu
/carlson/history/lesson17.html
Chesher, C. (1994). Colonizing Virtual Reality:
Construction of the Discourse of Virtual Reality,
1984-1992. Retrieved December 6, 2006, from
Cultronix: http://cultronix.eserver.org/chesher/
Interlink v. Nintendo [document]. (2006, December
4). Retrieved April 24, 2008, from Video Game
Law Blog: http://www.daledietrich.com/gam
ing/pleadings/Interlink_v_Nintendo_(Compliant
_Dec_4_2006).pdf
Jenkins, H. (2005). Computer and Video Game
Audiences. Retrieved December 9, 2006, from The
Education Arcade: http://www.educationar
cade.org/node/45
Media to grow ever faster. (2005, October 10).
Retrieved December 9, 2006, from AdvancedTelevision:http://www.advancedtelevision.
com/2005/news_archive_2005/
Oct10_Oct14.htm
Nintendo Wii Sales Top 600,000 in U.S. (2005, June
23). Retrieved December 9, 2006, from ABC
News: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/
wireStory?id=2683278&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds
0312
NPD February Up 28% as Wii, DS Dominate
Hardware Sales. (2007, March 16). Retrieved
March 18, 2008, from Gamasutra:
h t t p : / / w w w. g a m a s u t r a . c o m / p h p b i n /
news_index.php?story=13163
Ranka, M. (2007, May 2). Nintendo Wii: Competing
Hard. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from OS News:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17828/
Nintendo-Wii-Competing-Hard/
Schiesel, S. (2005, June 7). Redefining the Power of
the Gamer. New York Times [Electronic edition].
Toshiba’s ridiculous Virtual Reality Helmet. (2006,
October 16). Retrieved April 27, 2008, from
Product Wiki: http://www.productwiki.com/
electronics/article/toshiba-s-ridiculous-virtualreality-helmet.html
Virtual reality. (n.d.). Retrieved April 26, 2008, from
Wikipedia,thefreeencyclopedia:http://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
About The Author
Michael Gambrell is a second-year graduate student
enrolled in the Game Design program at the University
of Advancing Technology. He received his Bachelor of
Arts from Virginia Tech in 2000 and is currently
teaching Computer Science at Gulliver Preparatory
School in Miami, Florida.
In the Kingdom:
Searching for the Right Mixture of
Technology and Culture
Al Kelly
How you use technology and how you think about it
are often related to the culture that you have grown up
in and the norms of that society. During a recent
in-service I attended, a speaker, quoting John Palfrey of
the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, used the
term “digital natives” to describe those who grow up in
technological cultures, while those who do not may be
considered “digital immigrants” (Palfrey, 2008).These
digital immigrants are fundamentally different in how
they view and use technology. This description of
technology users describes the high and low ends of the
user scale. While this scale is valid in technologically
technological change slowly taking root.
advanced societies, does it hold true for other
countries and their cultures?
they were not at the time integral to Saudi culture.
Unbeknownst to many at the time, a flood of
technology had arrived in the Kingdom.
By Western standards, Saudi Arabia is a very
conservative country in which adoption of Western
ways and technology come very slowly. During the
first Gulf War, when thousands of Westerners came to
Saudi Arabia’s aid, they brought many items of their
culture with them. Most importantly, they brought
with them the normal, everyday technology of
Western culture—satellite TVs, mobile phones and
video games among others.This is not to say that these
cultural techno-gadgets were new to Saudi culture, but
36
Here in the United States, digital nativism is common
because technology is pervasive. My travels have taken
me to many places—Europe,Asia and the Middle East,
to name a few—where personal technology use is not
necessarily as common in public, and I have seen how
others have adapted to technology and integrated it
within their cultures.
Newly Arrived in a Technology-sparse Culture
In the mid 1990s, I traveled to Saudi Arabia for work.
Almost instantaneously, I was transported from a
culture in which the Internet, cell phones and email
were an everyday fact of life to a country that didn’t
even have email service.While this came as a profound
cultural shock to me, when I looked around my newly
adopted country, I could sense the seeds of
Saudi television at that time was limited to only a few
government-sponsored channels. On one occasion, I
tuned to a government-sponsored channel to see King
Fahd holding audience with pilgrims to the capital city.
This program lasted eight hours, not the normal
entertainment that I was used to. But today, major
European satellite television providers offer a broad
range of Western entertainment and news
programming to the Middle East, and a veritable forest
of satellite dishes now grows from the rooftops of
many ancient cities of the region. A flood of information is flowing into the region, bringing inevitable
change to their culture.
In The Kingdom
Digital Natives in the Kingdom?
Saudi Arabian telephone services in the early 1990s
were provided by the Ministry of Post,Telegraphs and
Telephones.The Kingdom lacked the infrastructure to
place a phone in every citizen’s home, so telephone
service at this time consisted largely of state-financed
telephone cabins, from which most of the citizens and
workers could, for a few riyals, telephone family and
friends.
service to flirt with those of the opposite sex, without
going through the mobile company, thus maintaining
some semblance of privacy and anonymity. This is
common—the youth of this culture have embraced
mobile phones and are finding unique uses for the
features of this technology, allowing them to grow into
true digital natives.
Mobile phones have also found their way into the very
fabric of family life: staying in touch. Saudi Arabia is
Soon thereafter, things began to change:
rich in culture, which has traditionally been spread by
In January 1996, the Global System for Mobiles word of mouth. Family ties are very strong within this
(GSM) was launched in the Kingdom with the aim culture. Saudi men of all ages often spend evenings
of installing 500,000 GSM mobile telephones. By relaxing with their friends and family, discussing
late September 1996, more than half were in politics, religion and telling stories long into the night.
operation. By the end of the project, 45 Saudi cities These gatherings could take place at a local coffee
and towns and all the major highways will be house or on the beach, but more often out in the
covered. (King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, n.d.)
desert where tents,Persian carpets and cushions would
be laid out. Many Saudi nationals that I worked with
Slowly new lines were added to the fledging GSM would be separated from their families for long periods
system after 2000, mobile phones became the most of time, making these social gatherings sparse, possibly
common form of communication, not only among the only happening once or twice a year.The mobile phone
natives of Saudi Arabia, but also among the millions of is not only a communication device, but critical to
foreign workers living in that region of the Middle social family gatherings and survival. No matter where
East.
you are, even far out in the desert, families can come
together.You can often travel to the most remote locations in the Kingdom and still
The youth of this culture have embraced find a Saudi man using his
mobile phones and are finding unique uses mobile phone.
Internet Service Arrives in
the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
In the mid-1990s, Saudi Arabia did not yet have
Internet access. The best one could hope for was an
electronic mail packet server, which was introduced by
private individuals in 1997.This service, much like the
old Pony Express service of the American West, delivered mail at specific, scheduled times. Users would dial
into a local server, upload their mail and then, once or
twice a day, this server would call a server in a country
that had Internet service. Once connected, all the outgoing mail would be uploaded, while any incoming
mail would be collected. It was not a speedy service,
but it was better than the 30-days of waiting one could
expect from snail mail.
for the features of this technology, allowing
them to grow into true digital natives.
In 2006, I was having lunch with a Saudi coworker at a
popular local restaurant. During lunch he kept playing
with his mobile phone. Letting my curiosity get the
best of me I asked him why he was continually playing
with his phone. I knew from previous trips to Saudi
Arabia that communication with family and friends was
very important, but the answer he gave was not what I
expected: He said he was “Bluetoothing.”
I view myself as a very tech-savvy citizen of my culture,
but I had never heard of this practice and I thought that
my languages skills might have been somewhat lacking.
I asked my friend to elaborate. The Kingdom is very
conservative and the rules for meeting those of the
opposite gender are not the same as in Western
culture. Families arrange these meetings and it is very
hard for singles to meet on their own. My friend was
scanning for other Bluetooth phones in this popular
restaurant and sending saved welcome messages,
usually containing a private mobile number, to
prospective partners, hoping for a return call. This
generation of younger Saudis uses the Bluetooth
We found ways to expand this service, sending e-mails
with embedded Uniform Resource Locators (URLs),
which would allow a web server to email web pages.
This was not a true World Wide Web service, but we
could get news from outside the Kingdom. By 1999,
the official policy of the Saudi government was to make
Internet service available (n.d.).
I lived in a region of Saudi Arabia bordering the Arabian
39
Gulf called the Eastern Province, which was the first
region of the Kingdom to have full access to the
Internet. The local governor, Prince Mohammed bin
Fahd bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, was a very progressive
governor and embraced new technology. It did not
take long for the cafés of the region to offer Internet
access. This was an interesting development because,
not only did the Internet offer another means for
friends and family to stay in touch, it also became a
window to the outside world. One aspect of the web
that was very different from my Western experience
was the level of control the government placed on
information its citizens could access:
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia controls the
information its citizens can readily access on the
World Wide Web through a sophisticated filtering
system that draws upon commercial software from
the United States (Secure Computing’s SmartFilter)
for technical implementation and site blocking
suggestions, expert local staff for operations and
additional site identification, and Saudi citizen input
to suggest over- or under-blocking according to
stated filtering criteria. (Internet Filtering in Saudi
Arabia in 2004, n.d.)
38
information that they choose to view, but this freedom
comes with a price. Unrestricted information can have
a negative impact on a culture, diluting the rich culture
of the Kingdom with both the good and bad from the
outside world and bringing growing pains to the
Kingdom.
The Price of Cultural Change
Saudis trace their roots to the ancient tribal Bedouin
culture, as citizens of the desert and mountainous
regions of the Arabian Peninsula who embrace privacy
and family under a patriarchal leader. However, within
just a few decades during the 20th century, oil—the
lifeblood of the Kingdom—created unprecedented
growth and wealth. Massive cities have almost magically grown out of the desert sands, cities that have
attracted the younger members of the tribe looking for
adventure.Today’s urbanized Saudi—well versed in the
technology of the Western world—is replacing the
desert dweller of old.
During my first trip to Saudi Arabia I saw numerous
cultural changes occurring slowly in the cities. I had a
hard time believing how significant these changes
When I returned to Saudi Arabia six years later,
Today’s urbanized Saudi—well
I found very changed technological and
versed in the technology of the
cultural landscapes. Independent service
Western world—is replacing the
providers—e.g., Orbit satellite television,
desert dweller of old.
radio and Internet service providers—had
begun to appear in the marketplace. These
service providers do not come under the
government’s content filtering plan but instead would be until my second visit five years later:Western
provide full, unrestricted Internet and news access to jeans and baseball caps have replaced or been integratcustomers.While, the government has demanded that ed with the traditional thobe and ghutra, obscuring the
controls be placed on Orbit’s SatNet service and other unique Saudi cultural identity of the Arab community;
independent services, these demands have fallen on teens openly challenge the authority of the mutawa, or
deaf ears. Many of these companies, like Orbit, are religious policemen, as well as their families and
internationally based and thus lie outside the laws of Saudi females demand equal rights, equal educational
Saudi Arabia. In such an environment, once the public opportunity and the ability to drive.
have accepted the free flow of information, it becomes
Evidently, the slow trickle of technological change in
extremely difficult to turn it off.
the Kingdom I witnessed during my first trip has
Everywhere I looked during this visit, there was become a torrent of cultural change. Reacting to the
evidence that computers and the Internet had flooded recent spurt of cultural change, conservative members
the Kingdom: Local businesses (of all types) offered of Saudi society have attempted to slow the rapid
access to the Internet using prepaid cards, and wireless growth of cultural change. Meanwhile, the voices of
networks could be found in restaurants, at the change have embraced new technologies and Saudi
shopping mall and, of course, in Starbucks, connecting bloggers have appeared in cyberspace. Of course, this
mobile users to the world. Telecommunication is very risky and can result in imprisonment or even
providers offered the newest technologies including death. One of the most notorious voices in the cyber
Third Generation (3.5G) mobile phone Internet Kingdom was the blogger known as “The Religious
Policeman” who, out of fear of discovery, discontinued
services.
posting updates as of June 2006. Many others
The people of Saudi Arabia have become well- continue to use cyberspace to demand change and
connected, and they have the freedom to select the bring to light social injustice of their culture.
In The Kingdom
Digital Natives or Immigrants?
Palfrey stated the four major attributes of digital natives
as the following: they have digital identities, they
multi-task, they use digital media, and they have gone
from digital consumers to creators. The citizens of
Saudi Arabia have fully embraced the digital culture of
the 21st century, discovering unique ways to integrate
technology into their daily lives while still maintaining
About the Author
Al Kelly has spent seven years off and on in the Middle
East, from 1995 to 2007. During that time, he
managed the F-15 Fighter Weapons School's network
systems, performed course and fighter tactics
development, developed and delivered F-15 training
programs, and wrote custom software documentation
and user manuals.
41
their traditions, family values and cultural identity.
Based on what I have seen, I believe they have truly
become digital natives.
References
Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia in 2004. (n.d.).
Retrieved April 25, 2008, from OpenNet Initiative:
http://opennet.net/studies/saudi
King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25,
2008,from http://www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.
com/main/a.htm
Palfrey, J. (2008). Born Digital: Understanding the
First Generation of Digital Natives. New York:
Basic Books.
An Air Force veteran,Al has worked in the information
technology office of a title escrow company, at
McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company in Saudi Arabia
and at the University of Advancing Technology.
The Logos Arrives in
Berkeley:
Philip K. Dick’s Four Novels
of the 1960’s
Richard Behrens
The Logos Arrives in Berkeley
Book Review: Philip K. Dick, Four Novels of the 1960s:
The Man in the High Castle/The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Ubik.
Edited by Jonathan Lethem. Library of America, 2007,
ISBN 1598530097, 900 pages, US $35.00
“I am only a very minor science fiction writer.”
—Philip K.Dick,1958
Canonizing Dick
It seems that every couple of years there is another
announcement that the writer Philip K. Dick has
finally arrived at literary respectability. It’s hard to
piece together a chronology of these past moments
when our perceptions of PKD shifted from an obscure
sci-fi writer with a cult following to a literary voice
recognized and lauded by the mainstream, much in the
same way that it’s hard to remember all the
singer-songwriters who were once touted as the New
Dylan.When we examine the growth of Dick’s lasting
influence on popular and underground culture over
the last half century, it’s a little hard to see those
proclamations as anything more than an attempt to
push a new collection of essays, or to accompany the
umpteenth release of another cut of the movie Blade
Runner. It got to a point where I just ignored all the
hype, as big of a Dickhead as I am. After all, Steven
Spielberg’s Minority Report wasn’t exactly a turning
point for those of the Phil Faith—it just meant that
book sales would spike for a while, new short story
collections with a special movie cover would appear,
and we’d have another big glitzy Hollywood-produced
DVD on our hands that once again failed to capture
what is so likeable about Phil’s self-created universe.
But with the publication of the Library of America’s
Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s (2007), there is
now empirical proof that Dick has taken his place
amongst the ranks of Hemingway, Faulkner, Melville
and Henry James. No longer do you have to go to the
stigma-riddled science fiction section to obtain copies
of Phil’s paperbacks—you can lift your head up with
snobbish pride and go straight for the dark blue spines
on the Library of America shelf, skipping past the writings of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson,
blowing a raspberry at the complete poems of Hart
Crane,grunting in disappointment at the literary essays
of Edmund Wilson, looking down with elitist disapproval at Jack Kerouac’s Road Novels,and finally lay your
eyes on the large cursive “Dick” that leaps off the binding with dignity and, most importantly for Phil wherever he may be, literary respect. It feels quite different
from any previous re-release, and it even has a silken
bookmark sewn into the binding. Classy stuff, indeed.
And long overdue.
After all, the Library of America was started in 1979 to
preserve and promote the finest flowerings of
American literature, even serving as a sort of
“director’s cut” edition of each of the books, correcting
texts, restoring lost and excised passages, and allowing
recognized literary experts to choose their works with
an authoritative voice that collectively commands, like
the Council of Nicaea, what stands in the American
canon and what does not.The world of science fiction
has always been the Dead Sea Scrolls of the literati,
committed to underground burial and studied in secret
because it contained stuff that was too wacky and too
threatening to the orthodoxy. So this LoA edition feels
like a Gnostic Gospel that has been finally approved by
the Vatican for inclusion in the New Testament.Well,
maybe not as earth-shaking as that, but try telling that
to a Dickhead.
Appropriately enough, the collection was edited by the
ultimate Dickhead, Jonathan Lethem, a writer whose
own career went from science fiction to mainstream
success with his two great novels Motherless Brooklyn and
The Fortress of Solitude. In his own right, Lethem is a
phenomenal writer, possessed of an authentic voice
that perfectly integrated high-brow and low-brow
culture. As a teen, Lethem absorbed the pulp magazines and the classics, was passionate about Marvel
Comics and Italo Calvino, Star Wars and Jean-Luc
Goddard. It was with a great sense of discovering a
long lost twin that I read Lethem’s account of his trips
to the Thalia on the Upper West Side to sit through
numerous viewings of 2001: A Space Odyssey (was I in
the same audience?), and as I poured over his passionate essay on the Eno-Fripp collaboration No
Pussyfooting, it was as if I were reading my own autobiography about the downtown NewYork cultural landscape of the early 1980s (I went to Stuyvesant High
School). I wondered if Jonathan and I ever bumped
into each other shopping for Pink Floyd bootlegs at
Bleecker Bob’s, or rushed the stage together at a
Marvel convention to get Stan The Man’s autograph on
a copy of Spider-man #121.And, of course, I must have
brushed shoulders with him in the Fourth Avenue book
shops hunting for old editions of Ubik and The Three
Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, two PKD novels represented in the LoA edition. If there was any man I trusted to
present Phil to the world in the way that he deserved,
it was Lethem, and his name on the Library of America
edition was just as sellable to me as Dick’s.
In a way, this edition is the culmination of all of PKD’s
dreams. When Phil was growing up in Northern
California in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he saw
himself as a serious novelist. He read through James
Joyce, Homer and Shakespeare like every dutiful
aspiring writer, hung out with poets and other writers
43
(including Anthony Boucher and Robert Duncan),
wrote passionate true-to-life novels like Voices From The
Street (the title itself a tip of the hat to Joyce’s Ulysses),
but there was little hope, beyond incredible luck, for
him to be properly published. Before long, he
discovered that he could write science fiction stories
for the pulps, see his name in print and pay his rent
(barely) all at the same time. He could have boasted
about being published, but Lawrence Sutin, the author
of the amazing biography Divine Invasions:A Life of Philip
K. Dick, reports that Phil, painfully shy that his stories
were published in pulp magazines, tended to downplay
his achievements to his friends (Sutin 2005). At the
time he died, he had written eleven mainstream novels
(Confessions of a Crap Artist and The Broken Bubble being
two of his best), most of which saw publication during
his lifetime, some of which are lost to us today.
42
So why is the Library of America edition so valuable to
his literary reputation even though it contains
exclusively science fiction novels? There is nothing in
the PKD mythos that says that his mainstream novels
were better or less personal than his sci-fi efforts. He
did write some piss-poor potboilers along the route,
but even his most cartoonish effort, his most sci-fi pulp
piece of fluff, still contains ideas and elements that
bemuses the mind and challenges consensus reality in a
clever and often funny way. And even in his most
comic-book-like story, the human element is always
far out for novelistic realism. Science fiction, then,
seemed like the perfect vehicle where Phil could
explore that more spiritually troubled side of himself
with unfettered indulgence, examine his own mystical
interpretations of the world and even work into his
stories a form of psycho-therapy, sort of an attempt to
carve literary art out of pulp.And Phil’s mystical ideas
are just as potent and valid a subject of literary art as
any psychological realism. So, while it would have been
nice to see a celebration by the Library of America of
four of his mainstream novels, Lethem chose wisely to
go down the science fiction route, and he couldn’t have
made better choices.The four novels represented here
are among Philip K. Dick’s finest.
The Book of Changes
In 1958, Philip K. Dick, a young writer not yet thirty
years old, moved with his wife Kleo out of his native
Berkeley to Point Reyes Station, where their marriage
promptly fell apart, in part due to the presence of a
new woman in Phil’s life, Anne Rubenstein. Despite
the fact that Anne had three children from another
marriage—there was also the thorny issue of how to
leave his wife for another woman—Phil carted his
Royal Electric typewriter, his massive vinyl record
collection and all his pulp sci-fi magazines over to
Anne’s and initiated divorce proceedings against Kleo.
At first, the new relationship seemed a success. Phil
became quickly domesticated, started
farm animals, took an active
Only in a PKD novel do you have a psy- toroleraise
in the lives of Anne’s three children
chologically accurate depiction of a mar- and even began to observe strict nineriage in the midst of collapse in the same to-five hours for his writing. Still, he
plot line as an encounter with a was embarrassed at being a paperback
science fiction writer who deeply
Ganymedean slime mold.
yearned for mainstream literary
respectability.
present, the solid psychology of the characters and the
bits of pieces of Phil’s own life that he peppered about Just a short car ride away was San Francisco where the
in all his tales. Only in a PKD novel do you have a Beat Generation had set up their blossoming literary
psychologically accurate depiction of a marriage in the movement, largely centered around the City Lights
midst of collapse in the same plot line as an encounter Bookstore where Phil occasionally sojourned to buy
with a Ganymedean slime mold. It’s almost as if Phil paperbacks. He took no social advantage of this,
was saying, “I want to write about my life and my however, and was further disillusioned when the pubinterior experiences,but I’m stuck in an episode of Star lisher Harcourt Brace, after a promising overture,
turned down two of his mainstream submissions. In a
Trek.To hell with it! I’m going to do both!”
fit of inspiration that may have been mingled with desAnd that’s not a bad thing. Phil wanted to portray true- peration, Phil wrote one of his best novels, the stunto-life portraits of troubled people in the Bay Area of ning Confessions of a Crap Artist, which was more than a
California during the 1950s with a penetrating realism. little based on his marriage to Anne. His mainstream
But he was also struggling with a mental disorder that style had matured beautifully and one can see in Crap
made him vulnerable to lapses of reality, and his Fox Artist the great artist that could have emerged if Phil
Mulder-like obsession with his dead twin sister forced had only become, in his early 30s, a full-time literary
him into religious and mystical areas that were a bit too novelist, unburdened by the need to write genre stuff
to put food on his table. Sadly, the novel wouldn’t get
published until 1975, but, fortunately for the rest of us,
the best of his science fiction was yet to come, inspired
by a strange and unexpected book: the four-thousand
year old Chinese Oracle called the I Ching.
Roughly translated as the Book of Changes, the I Ching
is a series of mythic-poetic interpretations of 64
symbols called hexagrams that represent all the
possible combinations and permutations of yin (male
active energies) and yang (female passive energies)
forces of the universe, providing a divinatory roadmap
through the complexities of events, often helping the
human mind to perceive patterns of order in chaos.
The relationship between patterns and randomness is
reminiscent of the philosophical implications of
quantum mechanics, something Dick, as an avid
follower of science, would have been aware of. More
than a few modern books on what is called the New
Physics have drawn the parallel between the teachings
and experiences of the I Ching and those of quantum
physics. The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra is one such
popularized introduction to the subject, drawing
connections between the mind-bending discoveries in
the sub-atomic cloud chambers of modern science and
the ancient writings of the Chinese mystics.
Back in the early 1960s, Dick had no such books on the
New Age shelf of his local bookstore to guide him, but
he may have been aware of the works of composer John
Cage, who had been using the I Ching and an emphasis
on randomness as valid ways to make choices in
composition. Often Cage would use the I Ching to
guide his composition as if the book was a living entity
revealing patterns or anti-patterns that his own
rational conscious-mind would not have done on its
own. Phil also decided to use the I Ching to generate his
art, and, appropriately enough, he wrote a novel—The
Man in the High Castle—containing characters who use
the I Ching on a daily basis to interpret the events in the
world around them.
This novel, the first in the LoA edition, takes place in a
post-war world in which Germany and Japan have
been victorious in World War II.The German Reich
has occupied the Eastern United States while the
Japanese have occupied the Pacific States. Within this
world, a renegade novelist has used
the I Ching to divine a possible alternative universe in which Germany
and Japan actually lost the war.As a
result, the novel is considered subversive and subsequently banned.
While this seems, on the surface, to
be a clever Twilight Zone plot, it is
actually a bit more brilliant than
that, which I simply can’t explain
too much about without giving
away the ending. So even here,
writing a sci-fi what-if story about
Nazis taking over the country, Phil
plunges head-on into mysticism and
quantum theory.
In 1957, a Princeton graduate student submitted a doctoral thesis
that hypothesized a way out of a
thorny problem in quantum
mechanics. For a long time,
physicists were troubled by the
growing evidence that the particles
of matter and photons of light that were the subject of
their scientific observations were not fixed entities in
time and space. In fact, bits and pieces of the atom and
quanta of light seemed to be probability waves that
only took on solid substance when a human consciousness made a direct measurement. It was a disturbing
hint that our own observations were creating, altering
or choosing realities. Einstein himself, reacting to the
analogy of a mutli-faced die being thrown and the
resulting one-side of the die representing the resulting
reality that was created by the toss, retorted with his
famous rejection of quantum physics: “God does not
play dice!”
Einstein, himself a Princeton professor, died two years
45
before the 1957 doctoral thesis in which the Princeton
student suggested that the probability formula that
covers all the possible states of a particle (including an
infinite number of positions) were all true in multiple
universes, and our observations and measurements
merely filtered out just one of those universes to be
objective reality.Our own consciousness may very well
be choosing and creating realities from an infinite array
of realities. There could be another universe where
everything is exactly the same except for one single
and racial standpoint as well as a military and political
one.
The effect of the occupying Asians on the native
population is subtle and complex. A lesser writer
would have put in more overt racism and would have
failed to understand the intricacies of the philosophical
chasm between East and West, but Dick nails down the
different paradigms of the Americans, the Japanese and
the Germans, and the cultural clashes that would result
when they came together in a battle
to posses the world.
One of the main characters, an
antiques dealer who caters to the
Japanese elite by selling them
fabricated artifacts from America’s
past, helps explore the nature of what
is real and what is simulation, and
how real the simulation can really be.
In a world about to explode with
theme parks like Disneyland and the
presence of media-created realities on
television, Dick’s insights into the
reality of fakes in The Man in the High
Castle is a brilliant compliment to the
greater theme of living in an
alternative reality. If all realities are
real, then all fakes are real as well.
atom light years away that is in a different position, or
another universe where everything is the same except
talk-show host David Letterman is President of the
United States. Only in science fiction could we even
begin to explore the possibilities and implications of
this hypothesis and what it has to suggest about how
our own choices both conscious and unconscious are
engaged in a creative and formative dance with chaos.
In some ways, this was a scientific justification of what
users of divinatory systems like the I Ching or the Tarot
have been saying for years. And to Dick, whose own
inner, suspicious sense of parallel universes must have
been quite personal, the I Ching was revealing to him a
Nazi/Japanese-dominated universe that had split off
from our own.It is to the credit of his genius as a writer
and modern mythmaker that the novel also includes an
extremely realistic depiction of what the occupation of
the United States would be like, both from a cultural
Another plot element drawn from
Phil’s own life was the jewelry
business started by Frank Frink, a Jew
who manufactures fake antiques in
the Bay Area.This was very similar to
the business started by Anne Dick
which served to supplement the couple’s income since
Phil’s writing was bringing in so little stable money.
Just as a neighbor callously stuck one of Anne’s
attempts at beauty on a wall in his home as if it were a
simple trinket, the Japanese client who inspects Frank’s
jewelry attempts to turn it into mass-produced junk.
A few years later, Phil was to write an essay called
“Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes” in which he
stated his belief in the veracity of relying on an oracle
for daily events (1996). His conclusion was that the
value of the reading was not fortune telling, but a meditation upon the energies at play in your localized situation and how it relates to a more general and cosmic
relationship of energies. From this understanding of
these complicated relationships, the reader can divine
from the I Ching’s hexagrams a way to guide
consciousness through the moment. But whoever
would be addicted to such oracular revelations for
every aspects of life, like using the I Ching for taking a
bath or opening a can of tuna for your cat, would
clearly be schizophrenic. Such is the fine line between
mysticism and madness. Use it for the big questions
only, he cautioned. One gets the impression that Phil
had a lot of insight here because he had used the
hexagrams for more than a few tuna can openings for
his cat.
When the novel was finally published, the public
enjoyed it as a clever political thriller with a fascinating
alternate-universe twist, but in a strange turn of
events, the book was included in the Science Fiction
Book Club and was ultimately awarded a Hugo as Best
Novel of the Year. Phil, who had just had several of his
mainstream manuscripts rejected and literally dumped
at his front door, finally resigned himself to the science
fiction ghetto and, fueled with the creative fires that
leapt from his rocket-shaped Hugo, furiously wrote
eleven novels in two years.
Gnostic Sci-Fi
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is one of PKD’s best
works, but was produced during a period when he was
trying to raise four children while barely holding on to
a rapidly disintegrating marriage; in the midst of this
chaos,he somehow managed to produce eleven novels.
It seemed a minor miracle that not only did the novels
get produced, but Phil and Anne survived without
killing each other.
It was during this period that Phil started to take drugs,
the better to both self-medicate his curious mental and
emotional conditions as well as provide vision and
inspiration to his fiction.The biggest price was paid in
his marriage; before long, the constant arguing and
intense unhappiness between the two lead to Anne
being hospitalized for mental illness. When she
returned heavily medicated, Phil was inspired to
include Anne as a character in several of his books. He
began to doubt his own sanity but fueled this anxiety
into his fiction. A mentally disturbed moment when
Phil saw an evil face staring at him, filling him with a
profound sense of fear, lead to the character of Palmer
Eldritch whose name alone evoked the insane horror
of an H.P. Lovecraft mythos creature. But to
understand the way that Phil used his drug experiences
and Anne’s bout with mental illness, we must first take
a look at the religious philosophy called Gnosticism
that was playing a larger role in Phil’s life.
Gnosticism was a non-mainstream spiritual belief
system that was, after many millenniums, having more
and more relevance for the generation caught up in the
radical changes of the 1960s. Along with the ancient
Chinese philosophy embodied by the I Ching,
Gnosticism had come down into the modern world via
the theosophical and magical societies of the Victorian
Age and mystical writers like Madame Blavatsky (who
first popularized the tradition of the spiritualist
medium channeling an ancient Tibetan entity for
spiritual wisdom) and Aleister Crowley (the
ceremonial magician who had died in the 1940s but
who shared a prominent place on the cover of The
Beatles’ Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band).While it is
doubtful that Dick did a systematic study of either the
theosophy of Blavatsky or the kabbalistic magic of
Crowley, it is clear that Gnosticism came to him as an
important step in his spiritual quest and not just a
convention for his fiction.
Dating back to the time of Christ (some believe it
predates Christianity and even helps to explain that
religion’s origins), Gnosticism was practiced by a
minority and often persecuted by the ruling powers,
eventually being almost completely suppressed by
Roman Catholicism and, later, Islam. It was a strange
syncretistic movement that centered around the belief
that the material world was both a delusion created by
a deity called, by some, the Demi-Urge and also an
inherently evil, materialistic world, separate from the
spiritual world of the monadic God. This material
world, it was claimed, could be transcended by Gnosis,
or direct spiritual experience of the Divine. Although
many different schools of Gnosticism existed, they all
had in common a belief that the world around us was
not the true divine world that existed behind the veils
of matter. Like Morpheus in the Matrix films, the
Gnostics were offering us a way to wake up to our
divine selves and to cast off the delusions of the
Demi-Urge that kept us physically and spiritually
enslaved to the material world.
In The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, povertized
Martian colonists become preoccupied with Perky Pat
Layouts, small toy sets representing penthouse
apartments inhabited by a Barbie-like figure and her
Ken-like mate. When combined with the use of an
hallucinogenic drug called Can-D, these sets can give
the colonists—who live in miserable hovels—the
illusion that, not only that they are living in Perky Pat’s
luxurious apartment, but they are actually inhabiting
her perfect body as well. A crisis is sparked when
Palmer Eldritch, a missing space adventurer, is
rumored to be returning to earth after being stranded
on Pluto. His new hallucinogenic drug, Chew-Z, takes
the form of a mystical revelation and threatens to wipe
Can-D off the market. A psychic war erupts that
amounts to no less than a battle for human
consciousness between Palmer Eldritch and the
47
manufacturers of Can-D.
Personal elements are also present in the book. The
couples who live upon Mars in their hovels,
supposedly living in squalor and deprived of the
luxuries of life upon Earth, do not resemble
hard-scrabble Depression-era farmers so much as they
do middle-class Americans in their suburban housing
developments, getting together to take drugs and enter
the world of Perky Pat and engage in a mystical union
with each other that also resembles the practice of
couple swapping, another popular suburban middleclass pastime. Perhaps in the Martian couples there is
more than a little of Anne and Phil Dick and their Port
Reyes Station friends. Interestingly enough, “the
Hovel”was also the nickname of a small hut up the road
from their house that Phil rented in order to have
privacy for writing.
During this period, Phil became close friends with
Bishop James Pike, an Episcopalian minister who had
gone off on into some theological deep waters of his
own when his son committed suicide and Pike experimented with contacting his dead
spirit. Pike also took trips to the
His spiritual manias, which often were Holy Land in order to follow in the
mythic inventions based on his own historical footsteps of Jesus, but with
mental instability, were also revealing to Gnostic twists. Pike was reported to
him powerful visions that shaped his fic- have said, “If I were not a Christian,
tion and helped to stamp his art with that I would be a Jew.And if I were not a
I would be a Zororastrian!”, a
unique flavor that to this day we call Jew
reference to a Persian religion based
“Phildickian.”
on the teachings of the Persian
prophet Zororastra, or Zarathustra,
Barbie dolls possessed with the ability to invade a religion very Gnostic in flavor.The Californian Bishop
consciousness, imaginary drugs that change reality and was eventually to die of thirst in the Isreali desert after
identity, and communal hallucinations where multiple his car broke down and become the main character of
people merge into one. In this novel, Dick not only Philip K. Dick’s last novel, The Transmigration of Timothy
focused on the mental illness issues permeating his Archer.
failing marriage, but he also created a strange, surreal,
comical vision of Gnostic beliefs with all the trappings One of the interesting side-bars to come out of his
of science fiction.
friendship with Pike was Dick’s reaction to Bishop’s
search for life after death. Phil definitely took the more
Hindu approach that the ego we experience during this
Spiritual Machines
After Phil’s marriage to Anne collapsed, he moved lifetime is an illusion that will be shed upon death, a
away from the tempting safe comforts of middle-class moment when, he declared, the cards of reality will be
living and went back to Berkeley, where he plunged revealed and the game will be dispelled.Truly in line
headlong into two self-indulgences.The first was close with many mystical systems of thought, as well as the
and frequent contact with the thriving science fiction findings of quantum psychics, Dick believed reality to
community, enjoying friendships and parties with be something created by consciousness that shields us
luminaries like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Poul from the “real” reality of the unmanifest. And with
Anderson and publishing icon Donald A. Wollheim. typical Phildickian humor, he also revealed that if, upon
His other indulgence was to engage in serial dying, he turns out to be wrong, “I’ll be content. I’ll
monogamy with a string of woman whom he met in have no choice.”
rapid succession, often falling in love immediately,
often making them a bit frightened of his mood swings, It was at this time that Dick wrote another
his weird mystical bent on reality and his unresolved masterpiece: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This
Three Stigmata is complex and suitably zany, leading the
reader through a maze of psychic marketing men,
talking suitcases that act as therapists, psychedelic
46
emotional issues from losing not just his wife but four
children he had come to love, including a biological
child of his own. By July, 1966, he was married again,
to his fourth wife Nancy, and he was also starting to
take LSD and other drugs that were to characterize the
counter-culture in the 1960s. His spiritual manias,
which often were mythic inventions based on his own
mental instability, were also revealing to him powerful
visions that shaped his fiction and helped to stamp his
art with that unique flavor that to this day we call
“Phildickian.” Phil was a brilliant artist, and although he
was apparently almost impossible to live with and
seemed to many around him as the most miserable
man they ever knew, he was a walking example of
Arthur Rimbaud’s call for a “derangement of the
senses” that every visionary has to create in order to get
closer to his own true self.
novel, chosen by Lethem to grace the third slot in the
Library of America volume, was the basis of Ridley
Scott’s film Blade Runner, perhaps one of the most
famous media products associated with Philip K. Dick
to date. It is in this novel that Phil tackles the question
of what it means to be human; the answer he provides
is one of his most lasting legacies to our current age. In
a world where machines, primarily computers
represented in the novel by androids who are created
to be worker-slaves for off-world colonies, are
seemingly more human than human, what is it that
separates the human from the machine? Dick’s answer
is the ability to feel empathy for another being’s suffering.
to the Christian practice of meditating upon the
wounds of Christ, it is also a perfect image, both
spiritual and material, of the ability to have compassion
for another sentient being, an ability that separates the
human from the machine, in Dick’s estimation.
Dick loved animals and had a deep compassion for
their suffering as well. Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep? portrays a world in which a great war has
greatly reduced the animal population of the planet,
causing humans to resort to android pets because the
real animals are too cost-prohibitive. In fact, the moral
dilemma of Deckard is that he needs to kill the
replicants for the bounty pay so he can replace his
mechanical sheep with a real one. Deckard’s merging
Here, the androids, known also as
replicants, are distinguishable
It was a crowning achievement, giving us a
from other humans only through
Gnostic myth about the modern age of spirthe Voigt-Kampff scale, an empaitual machines that is even more relevant
thy
test
which
poses
today than in its own time.
questions largely concerning the
suffering of animals. When professional android hunter Rick Deckard is hired to track with Mercer towards the end of the book, one of
down and decommission (he can’t use the word “mur- Dick’s funniest laugh-out-loud moments in all his
der”) renegade replicants who have escaped their servi- novels, is replaced in the film version by a profound
tude and came illegally to earth, he fails to feel any moment of beauty where the android that Deckard
empathy for the artificial humans that he tracks and hunts down allows his own bounty hunter to live
because of the replicant’s own awakened empathy.
kills, and doubts are raised about his own humanity.
Anyone familiar with Blade Runner but not its source is
in for a surprise. While the novel provided the film
with a basic plot line and some characters, and while
the world of the movie was so close to what Dick had
visualized in his mind that he was in tears when he was
shown a test reel of special effects by the studio, there
are big differences between book and film, some of
which are regrettable, but others of which were
necessary for the powerful emotional impact of the
film.
The religious movement Mercerism, left out of the
film, is a Gnostic-flavored cult that also appears in
Dick’s short stories. Mercerism combines doubts
about reality (Wilbur Mercer, whose presence is
experienced in trance-like states by his followers, is
rumored to be an actor in a television studio) with a
subversive force, much like Palmer Eldritch and the
verboten novelist of The Man in the High Castle.
Followers of Mercer have their own empathy box,
whose handles they clutch to propel themselves into a
virtual shared reality where they literally merge with
the consciousness of Mercer, an old man who climbs a
hill while off-screen tormentors hurl rocks at him.The
practitioner feels the pain of the rocks and identifies
with Mercer’s suffering.While this is clearly a reference
Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the
mid-1960s and it was published in 1967, the year of the
Summer of Love and the high watermark of the
psychedelic counter-culture. It was a crowning
achievement, giving us a Gnostic myth about the
modern age of spiritual machines that is even more
relevant today than in its own time. However, the
Philip K. Dick of the 1960s was to produce one more
genuine masterpiece to cap off the decade: Ubik.
Canary in the Coal Mine
In many ways, Ubik stretches the definition of science
fiction because there is really very little science in it,
but there is plenty of mysticism. Phil’s personal
psychological issues, his unrelenting quest to make
sense out of his own reality, his marriage problems, the
low-brow genre in which he was working and his
continual fascination with mystical texts make for a
very strange mix of sci-fi entertainment, Twilight Zonestyle plot twists, and obscure literary and mythic
references. For that reason, it is surprising that in 2005
Time magazine hailed it as one of the top hundred best
novels written since 1923.
Just as The Man in the High Castle was inspired by the
Chinese Book of Changes, and Palmer Eldritch and Do
49
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? derived concepts and
themes from Gnostic beliefs, Ubik derives its internal
focus from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, otherwise
known Bardo Thodol or Liberation Through Hearing In
The Intermediate State. Essentially a collection of
funerary rites,it is also a guide for the dead as they travel towards their next rebirth.The Bardo, or the state of
consciousness in which they exist between lifetimes, is
mapped out in the text. Meant to be recited by a lama
over the body of the deceased, the text guides the consciousness of the dead person through the various
experiences starting from the moment of death and
culminating in its attraction back to the cycle of birth,
life, death and rebirth.
We are served by organic ghosts, he thought, who,
speaking and writing, pass through this our new
environment.Watching, wise, physical ghosts from
the full-life world, elements of which have become
for us invading but agreeable splinters of a substance
that pulsates like a former heart. (2007)
What a fitting summary of it all: “served by organic
ghosts who pass through this our new environment.”
How much more true now in an age of cyberspace
than in 1969.And Philip K. Dick, the canary in the coal
mine, was one of the first to sense it.
Our culture has a growing fascination with Philip K.
Dick, simply because the energy, the vision and the
philosophical underpinnings of his major works are
In this brilliant novel, a group of people witness their becoming a significant presence in our collective
employer, Leo Runciter, get killed in an accident; they psyche.Witness the popularity of the film The Matrix,
subsequently believe that he is communicating to them with its insistence that we are not living the reality that
from beyond the grave. Soon, they are shocked to we think we are, that behind the veils of matter is a
realize that it was they who have actually died, and sinister conspiracy to control not only our bodies but
Runciter is attempting to prolong their ties to the real our very consciousness. There is also the growing
world through the use of a drug called Ubik. As concern over the rise of computer intelligence as
Runciter guides his dead employees through a weird evident in the paranoid teachings of David Icke, the
landscape that seems to be moving backwards in time, predictions about the future of computers by Ray
their life-forces gradually begin to diminish. Only Kurzweil and movie franchises like The Terminator, in
Runciter’s mystical Ubik, which he introduces into which machines are attempting to enslave the human
their hallucinations in the form of spray paint and race. All the anxieties, fears and mystic visions of how
48
snake-oil unctions,can keep their minds and souls from cyber-technology will change our consciousness forces
us into a new definition of reality and a new definition
completely dissipating into the void.
of what it means to be human, which was the very
Many of the mind-bending and reality-altering conceits theme of Electric Sheep/Blade Runner. This may explain
its continuing popularity and the
Our culture has a growing fascination with non-stop release of more and
Philip K. Dick, simply because the energy, the more director’s cuts and final
editions of the movie.
vision and the philosophical underpinnings of
his major works are becoming a significant
presence in our collective psyche.
that one finds in a Philip K. Dick novel—narrative and
thematic elements that made him so endearing to his
readers and have ensured him a rabid sub-culture of
readers for many decades—are now commonly
accepted by mass audiences in popular movies such as
Fight Club and Being John Malkovitch. Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind, in which two lovers are having their
consciousness altered to forget each other, mostly takes
place inside their heads while their memories of each
other and realities they have experienced together
begin to disintegrate. Obviously, this film owes a lot to
Philip K. Dick and Ubik, both of which have cast a long
and lasting shadow on our culture.
And what a beautifully written book it is, as witness
this passage:
Yet, the disturbing inner experiences of Philip K. Dick, from his
early struggles—i.e., his sense
that he didn’t quite fully exist, his later Gnostic visions
of sharing a consciousness with a first-century
Christian and his pronouncement that an alien intelligence was downloading information into his head
through a nocturnal pink beam aimed from an orbiting
satellite calledValis—seemed to many at the time to be
a sign of religious mania at best, mental illness at worst.
Phil suffered alone back then, trying to work out his
own sanity in his writing and to find a relationship with
a woman that would accommodate such a lofty and
unsettling spiritual quest.
In today’s world, however, what he went through is
becoming more common. This has been evident for
decades, beginning in the 1970s with a vast explosion
of new age psychics claiming to channel
extraterrestrial beings, long-dead philosophers and
saints, angels and gods, including Timothy Leary, who
wrote about his Sirius transmissions, leading one to
suspect that, despite the veracity of some of these
prophet’s claims, there are definitely one or two
higher chakras that are in the process of becoming
more active than ever before in a mass public. New
creative spiritualities seem in the process of being
created all the time, incorporating the findings of
eastern mysticism, western magic and quantum
physics, turning the wacky world of the particle
accelerator into a mainstream post-modern
philosophy, much to the chagrin of many dogmatic
atheists and religious fundamentalists alike.
There’s more: computers, the Internet, radical new
inventions like nanotechnology and the evolution of
super string theory are leading many more of us to
radical interpretations of reality and, for some, new
types of religious experiences on the edge of
cyberspace. While in his time, Philip K. Dick wrote
furiously to pay his rent bills, in today’s world, Phil may
very well be revered as a cyber-shaman and be writing
screenplays for the Wachowski Brothers.
So here, in the Library of America’s Philip K. Dick: Four
Novels of the 1960s, we can clearly see the first
awakening of the Gnosis in the genre writings of the
early 1960s.Thanks once more to Jonathan Lethem for
bringing this wonderful collection to our attention and
for choosing the novels wisely for his fellow Dickheads.
References
Dick, P. K. (2007). Four Novels of the 1960s:The Man
in the High Castle/The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch/Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep/Ubik. (J. Lethem, Ed.) New York: Library of
America.
Dick, P. K. (1996). Schizophrenia and the Book of
Changes. In P. K. Dick, & L. Sutin (Ed.), The
Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected
Literary and Philosophical Writings. New York:
Vintage.
Sutin, L. (2005). Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K.
Dick. NewYork: Carroll & Graf Publishers.
About the Author
Richard Behrens is a frequent contributor to the Journal
of Advancing Technology as well as an editor for The
Modern Word, a website devoted to postmodern
literature. He is also a producer and director for
Garden Bay Films. Among his works is Almost Gone, a
documentary about the Bethlehem Steel Works. He
lives in New Jersey with a very large book collection.
51
Kunstler’s World
Without Oil:
Speculative Fiction, Serious Gaming &
Understanding Future Crises
Dr. Kathleen Dunley
Kunstler’s World Without Oil
Book Review: James Howard Kunstler, World Made By
Hand,Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008, ISBN 0871139782,
336 pages, US $24.00
The Peak Oil Debacle
James Howard Kunstler’s 2006 work, The Long
Emergency, made an impact upon its release. The text
centers on the problem of peak oil, which in and of
itself is not a new concept. In 1956, M. King Hubbert,
a geophysicist who at the time was serving as the chief
consultant for Shell’s Exploration and Production
Research Division, developed the theory that U.S. oil
production would reach a peak around 1970, and,
from that point on, production would dwindle on a
downward curve until supplies were completely
depleted.
In recent years, Hubbert’s theory has been used to
predict the global peak of oil production. In 2005, the
Hirsch report—aka, “Peaking of World Oil
Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk
Management”—was released. This report featured a
table of potential peak years for global production that
ranged from 2006 on the pessimistic end to 2025 on
the optimistic end. Drawing off these reports and
additional research, Kunstler (2006) argues that the
increasing demand for oil, coupled with a dwindling
supply, will only lead to trouble, especially if changes
are not made while America still has an oil-fueled
infrastructure. Solutions like solar panels, for instance,
disappeared; the hero of the story is a former IT guru
who falls back on a carpentry hobby and his fortunate
collection of non-powered tools. Food does not come
from a grocer; rather, backyards are converted into
small farms and food is traded for goods and services
(including some rather primitive dentistry).
What frightens this author is this notion that the
country could be moving backwards towards a future
that best resembles eighteenth-century agrarianism.
When Nathaniel Hawthorne penned The Blithedale
Romance in 1852, he envisioned a farm-centric utopia
where the community would live and work in tandem,
far away from the corrupting effects of the city.
Technology, such as it was at that time, was spurned in
favor of living off the land. For those who know the
story, things didn’t pan out. Personalities clashed, some
did more work than others and, in the end, Blithedale
proved to be an epic failure.
Kunstler’s arguments are reminiscent of Hawthorne’s
from so many centuries ago. In his earliest work, The
Geography of Nowhere (1993), he argues that the
sprawling patterns of suburban development have
killed the notion of true community. Folks drive into
their respective plats and directly into their garages,
which are often more prominent and visible than their
front doors. Such structural features limit a sense of
community because neighbors do not have to interact.
Kunstler continues by pointing out how most new
houses lack front porches as a potential
gathering area where neighbors can
While peak oil has its critics, the theory is greet neighbors. Sidewalks are often
frightening enough to form the back- either too skinny or have disappeared
completely, leaving many subdivisions
bone for compelling fiction.
unfriendly to walkers. Suburban homes
have thus become pods in which people
will prove impossible if there is no electricity to run a live, alienated but “connected” via technology. Where
plant,no plastics to form the backbones of chips and no will these connections go when and if we reach an
transportation infrastructure to deliver necessary parts energy crisis so huge that power becomes intermittent
and technology reaches a point where it is no longer
(pp. 121-131).
sustainable to produce new items?
Kunstler’s view of the future is grim; he sees peak oil
as the elephant in the room that nobody wants to These questions are partially answered in World Made by
discuss. Indeed, he argues that technology is often seen Hand, a piece of speculative fiction that combines
as the savior that will save America from this elements of Hawthorne’s social realism with science
impending crisis; however, technology will fail if we fiction.While the novel has many merits in the sense
cannot find sustainable energy alternatives while we that it illustrates clearly the world Kunstler envisions in
his nonfiction, the work belies a complete disavowal of
still have oil.
technology as we know it, as well as an unusual sense
While peak oil has its critics, the theory is frightening of “backwards gazing” innovation that is typically
enough to form the backbone for compelling fiction. downplayed in the text. Is Kunstler a mad prophet, or
In his recent novel, World Made by Hand (2008), does he simply produce a readable piece of speculative
Kunstler returns to the motif of peak oil and related fiction? What makes his text all the more interesting is
crises to develop an alternate future that, by all how easily it can be related to a recent alternate reality
accounts, looks backwards. Technology has all but game, World Without Oil, which used an online
53
community and Web 2.0 technologies in order to
promote positive social changes. This begs a key
question: Can technology save us, or are we headed for
a grim future?
A World Made by Hand
“Sometime in the not distant future…”
52
Thus begins World Made by Hand, but the future James
Howard Kunstler imagines does not consist of flying
cars, nanotechnology or cyborg-esque humans.
Instead, the story’s hero, Robert Earle, is a former IT
guru, having worked for a company that made
“network security programs: antivirus, antispam, antihacker, firewalls” (Kunstler, 2008, pp. 22-23).
The company folded due to a tanking economy, precipitated by a number of factors including the effects of peak oil. Now Earle works as
a carpenter, falling back on his
weekend hobby in order to survive. iPods have
been replaced by live music events on
handmade and reclaimed instruments. The
electricity comes and goes, awakening a
cacophony of mad radio preachers predicting
the apocalypse. Computers are no more, cars
have been junked for scrap and a sense of
localism prevails in a world without retail,
transportation and most other conveniences of
modern life.Abandoned K-Marts, derelict car
dealerships and empty suburban tracts
sprinkle the scenes, while Union Grove, New
York, stands apart as an active, although
isolated, community. There might be a
president, but no one knows for sure in a
world without newspapers, television or the
Internet.
In Kunstler’s novel, most of the action centers on the
people who live in Union Grove. Here, Earle is
elected mayor and is asked to mediate between two
radically different social camps. On the one hand is
Wayne Karp’s group of motorheads who live in a
reclaimed trailer park on the end of town. They
operate a salvage operation, digging up still useable
items from the former town dump and disassembling
the former residential and commercial infrastructure
of suburban sprawl.This group seems to be living the
“old life”as they nostalgically sing Guns N’Roses lyrics,
drink home-brewed beers and wear “t-shirts [that]
might have come off the shelf at the Wal-Mart the day
before yesterday, if Wal-Mart had still existed” (p. 42).
The other group is Brother Jobe’s assortment of religious radicals, the New Faith Brotherhood. Their
beliefs and practices weave parts of fundamentalist
Christianity and the ways of the Amish, representing a
group that knows the ways of the past while
maintaining a spirit of the now long-gone “mega
church” and a promise of peace in a troubled world.
Jobe’s sect has purchased the abandoned high school
and becomes active in the day-to-day operations of the
town by offering assistance to fix the water supply
issues and by helping the mayor keep law and order.
Right in the middle are the residents of Union Grove,
a hyper-idealistic small town that stayed small with
strong bonds between neighbors who help each other
out whenever crisis hits.
While the cast of characters evolves around the day-today life of one summer in the town, a summer filled
with murder and mayhem, the most interesting parts
of the novel are in the questions that the book raises for
the reader. How did things get this way? Is this an
accurate picture of the future?
On the first question, the book is disappointingly
vague. A series of terrorist attacks in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., disrupt the government right in the
midst of an economic crisis with oil at its heart. Oil, at
the time this novel is set, had been slowly running out.
Supply did not equal demand and an angry public
began to turn on each other in the midst of the crisis.
There are allusions to the change—fights erupting at
gas pumps and folks living on the fringes suddenly
faced with half-empty grocery stores due to the rising
gas prices, which interrupted shipping.The downfall of
the technology sector corresponded to the lack of
imported goods and the lack of fuel to run factories or
even produce plastic components. The lack of goods
wreaked havoc on the pharmaceutical industry as well,
and not a single character in the text remains unscathed
by loss as their children and spouses succumbed to
diseases that would have been curable with antibiotics
from the local Walgreens. Kunstler, beyond the
occasional hint of what happened, remains vague
regarding the specifics of who attacked, or precisely
how the oil crisis started.
man claims, “We got a right to decent roads.This ain’t
the American Way” (p. 183).When Minor suggests that
the old man buy a horse to avoid the road problem, an
interesting dialogue ensues:
The old man snorted scornfully […] “This is sup
posed to be the modern age.”
“The modern age went to hell some time ago.”
“Is that so? Well I don’t like it. […]You should have
been around in the 1960’s, boy. Hooo-weee. Gas was
twenty-five cents and the roads were as smooth as a
baby’s behind.You could by good bread and ground
round anywhere, and the TV came on when you felt
like it.” (p. 183)
While greater detail about the hows and whys would
have made this a stronger piece of scientific fiction, the
work is best when it depicts the changing attitudes of
Union Grove’s residents. “I tried to avoid nostalgia
because it could destroy you,” states Earle frequently
within the first few chapters of the work.With its roots
in evoking homesickness, the evocation of nostalgia
hints that there is a layer of sadness that pervades even
through the rosy descriptions of small town life. This
sentiment becomes even clearer when Earle describes
his recurrent dream at the start of chapter four:
I was sitting in a comfortable padded chair gliding
swiftly over the landscape in a way that felt
supernatural yet oddly familiar. I did not feel any
wind on my face, despite the speed, which was
much faster than anything I was accustomed to. I
was deeply at ease in my wonderful traveling chair
and thrilled by the motion. (p. 19)
The disingenuous nature of the old man’s comments
smack of nostalgia as he reminisces about the 1960s, a
past that we can imagine is long since gone. Running
his SUV on liquor, the old man is desperately clinging
to the modern age and the promises embedded
therein. Even his speech patterns, from the
stereotypical “hooo-weee” to the use of clichés, betray
a sense of loss.This is a man who could have taken part
in an old show like The Beverly Hillbillies,but,despite the
backwoods reality that has taken over, his vocal
affectations seem trite and overdone. Nostalgia, in his
case, winds up destroying him as he kills himself a few
pages later.
The lack of control becomes an
essential sub-theme to the work. Because the details
regarding how the world became this way are vague,
the reader is often left to fill in the gaps and call the plot
into question, signifying an authorial death in the traditional sense as we are left to take the wheel, as it were.
As a modern reader, this author related best to the oldtimers who desperately held onto their habits. Earle
meets up with one such character in chapter thirtynine when he sees an old man driving a “Ford, the big
Explorer model” who is slowly navigating the pot hole
ravished road (p. 182).We learn that the car is running
on grain spirits (described as “a waste of the taste” by
Brother Minor, one of Earle’s companions) (p. 183).
Complaining about the condition of the roads, the old
children would create as part of playing house (pp.
129-130). There are the folks in Wayne Karp’s
compound who put on live, Jackass-style plays for their
prime-time entertainment (pp. 276-280). There’s
Steven Bullock, the richest man in town, who uses his
skills to jerry-rig electricity from running water and
even perfect the taste of an old-fashioned hamburger
(p. 86). Despite the author’s habit of making these
people seem like they are clinging to an absent past,
each in their own way strives for a sense of normalcy.
In Bullock and Karp’s case in particular, old items
become the basis for new technology… technology
made, literally, by hand.
It is on the technological point where the novel’s struc-
The magical nature evoked by this traveling device The old man and his car are but one example of the
soon becomes demystified. Early in the novel, he could sense of desperation that hangs over many of the
be describing a futuristic piece of technology, perhaps sub-characters encountered in the novel. There’s the
a personal travel pod or an electronic magic carpet. woman who pretends to have grocery fresh provisions.
Instead, we soon see a dashboard appear.The “traveling which turn out to be mud pies and grass of the sort
chair” is nothing but a common
automobile that, in typical Freudian
What frightens this author is this notion
fashion, veers out of control as the
that the country could be moving backdreaming Earle realizes he no
longer remembers how to stop the
wards towards a future that best resemvehicle.
bles eighteenth-century agrarianism.
55
ture begins to waver in its realism. Kunstler makes it
quite clear in The Long Emergency that we need to use
our oil-fueled technological powers now to produce
the items that might save us from peak oil problems in
the future. He even spends an entire chapter deconstructing all of the alternative fuels and modes of energy to show how, without the infrastructure we have
today, they might prove moot in a world without oil
(Kunstler, 2006, pp. 100-146).Technology in the novel
does not appear redemptive either. Despite the
“innovations” of men like Karp and Bullock, and even
the maintenance of old technology and techniques by
Earle and Jobe’s sect, innovation seems stunted. The
novel comes to a rather swift end, leaving the technology question largely unanswered.Yet, is this disavowal
of technology a fair assessment? In a fictional universe,
poetic license allows for a certain suspension of disbelief, but as a counter-argument to Kunstler’s future, we
need only turn to a recently “completed” alternatereality game, WorldWithout Oil to see how something as
simple as serious gaming could,partially, make a difference.
Making Worlds That Work
World Without Oil (http://www.worldwithoutoil.org)
was an intriguing experiment that ran for 32 days
between April 30 and June 1, 2007. Users signed up on
a main portal and altered their reality, or parts thereof,
to pretend that the oil crisis had hit home. Players used
various bits of Web 2.0 technology, from blogs to
podcasts to YouTube-style videos, which were linked
back to the central gaming site. Each day, new
challenges were thrown at players. The game began
when gas prices went up to $4.12 a gallon. By the
midway point at day 16, fuel was up to $7.11 a gallon
with 80% availability. At this point, players were challenged to deal with shortages in food and other goods,
and the challenges compounded themselves until the
last days of the game. Over 60,000 people viewed the
site and subscribed to RSS feeds and over
1,800 people participated. Each user developed his or her own solutions to the common
problems.Video blogs show actual homeowners converting their suburban backyards to
small fruit and vegetable farms.We read about
people who opted, for the sake of the game, to
ride their bikes to work. Because the game
challenged players with energy downtimes,
they had to turn their lights out as a way of
conserving. The best solutions were profiled
on the game’s site.As Jane McGonigal, participation architect for the project,states,“Games
give us responsibility and powers. Skills and
ideas you develop in game worlds can solve
real-world problems” (Acosta, 2008, ¶ 10).
Could an increase in games like World Without
Oil prove to be the grass-roots solution to
avoid the backward-looking future that
Kunstler constructs? Such a community-centered response to crisis (despite Kunstler’s
objections to the types of online communities
made possible by Web 2.0 resources) might
prove an invaluable resource for educating an
otherwise resistant audience about pending
problems. Already, World Without Oil has
attracted critical attention and features teaching tools
for using its archived bits of gameplay. Technology’s
archival powers are keeping this game as a suitable, and
more optimistic, companion text for Kunstler’s work.
In my final 0estimation, both are worth a read.
Whether peak oil becomes a wide-scale crisis or simply fades to the back pages of Paranoia Magazine has yet
to be seen,but initiatives like Kunstler’s latest novel and
McGonigal’s game do raise awareness; in the latter
case, technology may be the very thing that can redeem
us by simply making us think.
Bibliography
Acosta, B. (2008, February 29). See Jane Game:
Keynote speaker Jane McGonigal wants
to change the world. Austin Chronicle. Retrieved
March 17, 2008 from http://www.austinchronicle
.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=597190
Deffeyes, K. S. (2001). Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending
World Oil Shortage. New Jersey: Princeton University
Press.
Eklund, K., & McGonigal, J. (2007). WorldWithout Oil.
Retrieved on March 17, 2008 from http://
worldwithoutoil.org
Hirsch, R. L. (2005, October).The Inevitable Peaking
of World Oil Production. The Atlantic Council
of the United States,15.
Kunstler, J. H. (1993). The Geography of NowhereThe
Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape.
NewYork: Free Press.
Kunstler, J. H. (2006). The Long Emergency:Surviving the
End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging
Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. New York:
Grove Press.
Kunstler, J. H. (2008). World Made by Hand. NewYork:
Atlantic Monthly Press.
About the Author
Dr. Dunley’s scholarship centers on cultural analysis of
literary, visual, multimedia and historical artifacts. Her
most recent work, “The Necessity for Ruins in Seth’s
Clyde Fans” was presented at the 2007 University of
Florida Conference on Comics, and her article on the
preservation of Hachita, New Mexico, was featured at
the 2007 regional meeting of the American Studies
Association. She is an active member of the American
Culture Association, the American Studies Association,
the Modern Language Association, and the Recent Past
Preservation Network. While she dreads the
possibility of a “world without oil,” she enjoys reading
and teaching all types of speculative fiction, no matter
how grim a future the works depict.
57
The Battle Over
Social Media
Craig Belanger & Darcee Espelien
Prominent applications of Web 2.0 include social networking, as common today as use of the TV Guide was
20 years; virtual communities for gaming, avatar-gazing or any other sort of group-meet; blogs, which can
take the form of anything from personal diaries to
media and arts criticism to political posturing to socalled citizen journalism; and wikis, which are webbased encyclopedias editable by anyone with Internet
access, whose contents are the result of a collective
effort to gather and disseminate knowledge about
particular subjects.Web 2.0 is at a crossroads, a
formative stage in which there are many ways to use it
but very few ways of thinking about it, at least in the
sense of common knowledge.This stage is analogous to
the manner in which the Internet itself was somewhat
misunderstood in the early 1990s; at that time, even
the most forward-thinking critics were apt to wonder
what, exactly, we were supposed to be doing with this
thing.Two critics—Andrew Keen and Clay Shirky—
have emerged in the last several years, both of whom
claim to point the way forward forWeb 2.0. But claims
are divergent. If one is to believe Keen, then the end of
culture as we know it is nigh, and it will be social media
that is to blame. If one chooses to believe Shirky, then,
thanks to social media, we may just be on the brink of
a culture change much richer than any our civilization
has ever experienced.
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 first came to prominence after it
was used as the title of an O’Reilly Media conference
on emerging technology in 2004 (Graham, 2005). In
an effort to further define Web 2.0, publisher Tim
O’Reilly explained its core principles as the following
(O’Reilly, 2005): use of the World Wide Web as a
platform, the harnessing of collective intelligence
(implicit in this point is the notion of user-generated
content), database management, “the end of the
software release cycle,” and support for “lightweight
programming models.”These changes from older web
development criteria are, ostensibly, the driving force
behind new, more user-inclusive, ways of using the
web.
For a period of time in 2005 and 2006, Web 2.0
references were ubiquitous on the Web, as well as
within more traditional mainstream media. Frequent
references to such Web 2.0 staples as Wikipedia,
YouTube, Facebook and MySpace helped drive this
idea further into the public’s consciousness,
culminating in “You” (i.e.,Web 2.0 users) being named
Time’s Person of theYear at the end of 2006 (Grossman,
2006), an honor that, the author warns, does come
with some misgivings about the integrity of those
being honored:
Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well
as its wisdom. Some of the comments on
YouTube make you weep for the future of
humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind
the obscenity and the naked hatred… But that’s
what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a
massive social experiment, and like any
experiment worth trying, it could fail… [Web
2.0] is an opportunity to build a new kind of
international understanding, not politician to
politician, great man to great man, but citizen to
citizen, person to person. It’s a chance for people
to look at a computer screen and really,
genuinely wonder who’s out there looking back
at them. (2006)
But not everyone has been effusive in their praise.
Many critics deride any claims that Web 2.0 differs
from how people have been using the Internet since its
conception. Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, for
example, criticized the idea that Web 2.0 is any
different than the first iteration (often retroactively
referred to as Web 1.0) because
Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was
an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is… a
piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it
means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then
that is people to people. But that was what the
Web was supposed to be all along.And in fact…
this “Web 2.0,” it means using the standards
which have been produced by all these people
working on Web 1.0. (Anderson, 2006)
Berners-Lee’s criticism was based on the (to him)
fallacious view that Web 2.0 offers anything new to the
web experience, a valid perspective if one considers
the intent of those original “Web 1.0” developers who,
because of their early attempts at application
development, should be proud of what their work
eventually led to.
Other critics have been more savage. In a 2006
editorial in TheWeekly Standard,Andrew Keen, a former
web entrepreneur, targeted the emergent Web 2.0
culture as possessing a Marxist hold on contemporary
technology culture. Invoking a statement from Karl
Marx that, in the communist society he envisioned,
citizens would be enabled “to hunt in the morning, fish
in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise
after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever
becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic,” Keen
states that, “[e]mpowered by Web 2.0 technology, we
can all become citizen journalists, citizen
videographers, citizen musicians. Empowered by this
technology, we will be able to write in the morning,
59
direct movies in the afternoon, and make
music in the evening” (Keen, 2006). Keen
believes that such a state of creative freedom for anyone—“even the most poorly
educated and inarticulate amongst us”
(2006)—results
in
the
degradation of traditional media and
ulture industries, which he says are being
undermined by social media.
Berners-Lee’s criticism is valid in part
because there is evidence in Web 1.0 uses
of the Internet—message boards, chat
rooms, email and even the earliest forms
of entertainment streaming—that the
tools have changed but not the intentions
of web developers and users. Keen, on the
other hand, finds fault with the positive
outcomes of social media,such as the ability of people to act upon their media in a way that supports it and contributes to its evolution rather than
degrades it, the ability of citizens to mobilize public
awareness of things that were either too expensive or
too seemingly obscure to advertise, or the ability of
artists or even non-artists to utilize and possibly even
discover creative outlets never before available to the
masses. For Keen, such developments will eventually
lead to cultural destruction.
discovered it and his statement that the Internet, “in
addressing the problem of cultural fragmentation, may
in some ways deepen it” (1993).The aspects of web use
Wright spoke directly about in this article were,in fact,
what we eventually came to call Web 2.0.
Fortunately for proponents of Web 2.0, opinions like
Keen’s are rare. As the Web and its tools grow, and as
58
web users continue to shape and modify the digital
world as they see fit, the uses of social media have
Andrew Keen is not a new type of Internet culture grown to encompass much more than traditional social
critic: by the mid-to-late 1990s, academic studies and purposes; instead, there are uses of Web 2.0 that
intellectuals were already parsing web user behavior indicate a maturation of human civilization in ways that
for signs of social illness and cultural change, both of were likely unintended by its creators. Such maturation
which were common topics of discussion among is evident in the work of many people and
organizations that are herein exemplified
by activist aggregator website Global
Many critics deride any claims that Web Voices Online, whose use of social media
2.0 differs from how people have been as a tool of change for raising awareness
about humanitarian causes raises the
using the Internet since its conception.
value of social media from a mere set of
communications and entertainment
media
to
a
tool
for democratization and social change.
frequent web users (Can the Internet Become an
Such
a
realization
of collective action and imagination
Addiction?, 1997; Potera, 1998). But there were many
signals
that
the
Internet
has finally reached a point
others who viewed the Internet experience as a
where
it
is
no
longer
simply
an entertainment and
wondrous expansion of the human spirit: a 1993
communications
media
but
is
something
much more
feature story by Robert Wright in the New Republic
important
to
our
collective
future
than
anyone
may
found that, while the Internet was a secretive place
ever
have
realized.
populated mainly by hackers and scientists, a place
where “creepy, nefarious groups” such as skinheads
could congregate and possibly even organize groups, a
place where humanity could go to express itself and
find affiliation and affirmation (Wright, 1993). Despite
seeming naïve (as read today),Wright is also prescient
in offhanded ways, such as his comment about what
would happen to the Internet once corporations
The Rise of Social Networking and Social
Media
You or someone you know is either a member of or
frequents one or more of the most popular social
media sites: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, YouTube,
Last.fm, LinkedIn and Digg. These sites offer many
platforms for communication among users: you can
post a blog or “twitter” a momentary update, send text
messages, stream video and music or other files, or
chat online.
Corporation for nearly $600 million (Boyd & Ellison,
2007), while earlier, in 2003, Google unsuccessfully
attempted to purchase Friendster (it launched Orkut
instead, and, in 2007, OpenSocial). Microsoft
Corporation purchased shares in Facebook for $240
million in 2007 (Greene, 2007). (Richard Wright’s
question in 1993 about what would happen when
The prominence of Web 2.0 is a direct result of the
popularity of social networking websites—virtual
communities that encourage and foster interaction among members of a community by
allowing them to post personal information,
A fair criticism of social media
communicate with other users and connect
circa 2008 is that all of this
their personal profiles to others’ profiles. In
usability is for selfish purposes.
most cases, frequently visiting and interacting
with others who use that website makes one’s
network stronger because of the sheer volume of users corporations discover the Internet is thus answered.)
one comes into contact with through browsing and
communicating.
Such popularity also brings negative attention, as has
been the case during the last several years when cases
The earliest social networking services available on the of sexual stalking of minors, bullying and privacy issues
Internet—Berners-Lee’s Web 1.0 sites—were became part of the public debate over social
USENET groups and bulletin boards established by networking; such cases involve reports of minors being
like-minded communities to communicate about lured into explicit relationships with sexual predators
specific topics. Because these early Internet users were they met online, forcing MySpace (Schonfeld, 2008)
computer programmers and enthusiasts, many of these and other services to adopt age requirements and other
websites consisted of technology and computer topics, safety measures. Other notable cases involve the use of
as well as topics of interest to programmers of the era, these websites to investigate the claims or attitudes of
such as role-playing games and science fiction.
job and college applicants. Copyright infringement
cases have also arisen as a result of the popular use of
Web 2.0 is distinguished from the earlier, simpler music and video clips on personal profiles.
community messaging sites by the ways it makes a
user’s network visible to others. Some of the earliest A fair criticism of social media circa 2008 is that all of
services to perform this function were this usability is for selfish purposes: self-satisfaction in
Classmates.com, which attempted to reconnect showing the breadth of one’s network, self-assertion of
people who had attended school together, and Six individuality through the listing of personal
Degrees of Separation, which allowed people to list preferences, and self-aggrandizement through the
their friends for others to view. Another early creation of a more interesting and unique “you.”Yet, the
networking site to use the friends list was LiveJournal, uses of social media are not static, and there is evidence
which also allowed users to post weblogs, or blogs, for that some groups are beginning to realize the social
others to read.Many of these early networking sites are necessity—as opposed to mere availability—of Web
still active, while others, such as Six Degrees of 2.0 as a tool of growth and meaningful interaction
Separation and Friendster, did not fare well in the among populations. With the publication of Andrew
market despite having millions of registered users (a Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur:How Today’s Internet
result of backlash against fee-charging services and Is Destroying Culture, and the ensuing wave of criticism
technical difficulties arising from the surge in new directed at his pronouncements, this debate became a
battlefield for the value and worth of Web 2.0.
users (Boyd & Ellison, 2007)).
With the enormous popularity of social networking
websites has come enormous growth—in May, 2006,
Nielsen/Netratings reported that the top ten
networking sites were collectively growing at a rate of
47% from year to year (Nielsen/NetRatings, 2006).
As has been the case throughout the history of the
Internet, once a website becomes popular, it attracts
the attention of larger companies seeking to purchase
it. In May, 2005, MySpace was purchased by News
Critics and Proponents of Social Media
There have been many critics of the Internet over the
years and, like Andrew Keen, many of them have seen
the uses of social media and the Internet as negative
forces on society, particularly in uses that involve crime
(e.g., dissemination of child pornography or illicit
trade of copyrighted materials). But these do not
concern Keen’s argument against the power of social
media as a social good. Rather, Keen’s argument rests
61
on the degree to which social media wrests control
from cultural elites who have been in charge of media
for decades and even longer.
A disgruntled former Internet entrepreneur, Andrew
Keen experienced firsthand both the ecstasy and the
disappointments of the boom-bust phase of the
Internet’s rapid growth in the 1990s and early 2000s.
But during an O’Reilly Media conference for
technology industry insiders, Keen underwent “a
metamorphosis from believer” in the promise of
democratization of the Internet in social media
websites and tools including Wikipedia, Craigslist,
Google and blogs, as well as such Web 2.0 principles as
user-generated content. The democratization that
forms the heart of Web 2.0, says Keen, invites the
wrong element to take control of information to the
detriment of the elite corps who have traditionally
been in charge of or formed the operational heart of
such time-honored media industries as print publishers
and record companies: “[D]emocratization, despite its
lofty idealization, is undermining truth, souring civic
discourse, and belittling expertise,
experience, and talent… it is
threatening the very future of our
cultural institutions” (p. 15).
There are many wrongfully
empowered developments in the
rise of Web 2.0, according to Keen,
including free culture in the form of
illicit downloading or broadcasting
of copyrighted material over
websites like YouTube, which takes
money away from established
corporations and may force people
out of jobs if these industries
collapse, and Wikipedia and other
knowledge-based websites whose
contents are wholly derived from
amateurs. According to Keen, such
entities take propriety away from
“experts” (degreed academics,
presumably) and put information in
the hands of the masses. Such
developments undermine culture
by placing established information,
rules of conduct and the financial
future of culture industries in the
hands of millions of people1.
unbridled technophilia to a skeptic of it. His apostasy
arose from a realization that
governing the infinite monkeys now inputting
away on the Internet was the law of digital
Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most
opinionated. Under these rules, the only way to
intellectually prevail is by infinite filibustering.
(Keen, 2007, pp. 12-15)
At the heart of Keen’s discontent is not the memory of
lost profits but rather the sheer nausea he feels at the
In defense of expertise and elitist
handling of cultural decisionmaking, Keen points out that “many
unwise ideas—slavery, infanticide,
George W. Bush’s war in Iraq,
Britney Spears—have been extremely popular with
the crowd” (p. 96), a somewhat shrill complaint against
democratization that perhaps unwittingly co-mingles
criticism of abhorrent cultural institutions and unfavorable American foreign policy with a personal dislike of
a pop singer. Regardless, in such a climate of frequent
techno-cultural shift and boundless optimism about
technology, Keen is adamant that nothing good can
come from the use of technology as a social tool for
bringing together the shared wisdom and preferences
1 Keen offers no similar argument against free market capitalism, which also puts its future in the hands of the general public.
of the masses, an attitude that reveals Keen as deeply
pessimistic about the promise of technology. He
foresees a glut of moral and intellectual depravity in
which “monkeys [Web 2.0 agents]—many with no
more talent in the creative arts than our primate
cousins—are creating an endless digital forest of
mediocrity” as they blog or otherwise communicate
“with monkeylike shamelessness” about activities and
predispositions (sex, personal dreams, boredom, etc.)
that are the stuff of normal life.
Wikipedia—to rapidly articulate a social need and
empower a group of concerned web users to address
that need; the organized group can then realize a
solution or at least attempt to realize a solution, which
is to him no less meaningful a use of technology:
[W]e are living in the middle of a remarkable
increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with
one another, and to take collective action, all
outside the framework of traditional institutions
and organizations… [Social media has] spread
beyond academic and corporate settings. The
effects are going to be far more widespread and
momentous than just recovering lost phones.
(Shirky, 2008, pp. 20-21)
Keen’s vision of the Web 2.0 future is one in which
anyone can contribute knowledge, compose a diary
and make a film, the results of which may be seen or
read by millions of others. To the detriment of his
argument, Keen often aligns his criticism of Web 2.0 As an example of the organizing power of social media,
with a cultural naiveté and historical blindness that, if Shirky describes how LiveJournal blogging software
not tempered, may ultimately do harm to the has recently been used by dissidents in Belarus to
integrity of his opinions. For example, his criticism of protest the repressive regime of Alexander
YouTube, a popular short film and video clip showcase Lukashenko. The results—a successfully executed
website, is partially based on the admittedly crude series of flash mobs in which groups of seemingly
quality of amateur
random people
films, particularly
The key difference between these converged on a
“movies showing
points of view is that Keen fears a location to, for
poor fools dancing,
radical change in the status quo instance, eat ice
singing,
eating,
less
while Shirky believes that such rad- cream—were
washing, shopping,
important than the
ical transformation is necessary to fact that the state
driving, cleaning,
realize the promise of technology.
sleeping, or just
was made well
staring into their
aware of the organcomputers” (p. 5).Yet, such scenes are nearly identical ized rebuke by citizens. However, this form of protest
to the vignettes of early motion pictures; one could is clearly an evolution away from successful protest
make an analogy between early cinema and YouTube methods used as recently as 1989, when East
circa 2008 as historical relatives and imagine that, per- Germans, by bravely and relentlessly turning out to
haps in another decade or two, the online video format protest, forced their government to begin to tear down
could become as much an institution as cinema became the Berlin Wall, a result that took a comparatively long
by the 1920s. One of the earliest such films (available time to emerge socially. But, says Shirky,
to be viewed at YouTube), from 1894, is descriptively technologyis removing even the barriers of time from
entitled “Fred Ott’s Sneeze.”
social action:
Now the organization of group effort can be
Any potency within Keen’s techno-pessimism is
invisible, but the results can be immediately
further diminished by a nearly opposite set of
visible. Because the cost of sharing and
conclusions about the promise of technology drawn by
coordinating has collapsed, new methods of
critic Clay Shirky. Where Keen sees culture being
organization are available to ordinary citizens,
corrupted, Shirky sees actualization of democratic
methods that allow events to be arranged without
principles and social good as inherent to such creative
much advance planning. Because the mobs were
uses of technology as wikis, blogs and social media in
proposed via weblog, the state had no way of
general. The key difference between these points of
keeping track of who had the plan. They could
view is that Keen fears a radical change in the status quo
not break up the plot, since there was no plot; the
while Shirky believes that such radical transformation
event was proposed in public, so there was no
is necessary to realize the promise of technology.While
secret information to uncover. Even if the
admitting of the blunders that users are capable of in
government had the surveillance apparatus to
the early days of this paradigm shift, Shirky is
know the identity of all the blog readers, it had no
enthusiastic about the power of social media in
way of knowing which of them were planning to
particular—websites such as Facebook and
attend. (pp. 168-169)
63
This is a profound change because it represents not
only the levels of sophistication achieved in information
technology but also the sophistication of its users.
A New Medium for Changing the World
The Belarus protests are a prescient example of how
social media and the Web can be made to serve the
people. In Here Comes Everybody:The Power of Organizing
Without Organizing, Shirky recounts several such
examples of how social media has empowered citizens
to actualize change within the Roman Catholic Church
during the priest child abuse scandals that resurfaced in
2002 (pp. 143-160) and in the New York City Police
Department (pp. 1-11). Such incidents are not
isolated, and there are many other examples of how
Web 2.0 tools can be made to challenge the established
orders and actualize social change.
62
Global Voices Online is an aggregator for blogs,
podcasts, streaming media and other Web 2.0 sites
from around the world.The goals of Global Voices are
to make web users aware of ongoing and “interesting
conversations and perspectives emerging from
citizens’ media around the world,” the offering of
marketing and tutorial services that teach people how
to use open-source programs to make themselves
heard anywhere in the world, and to act as advocates
for free expression and the protection of human rights
for so-called citizen journalists (Global Voices Online,
n.d.).
The functionality and mission of Global Voices is
directly attributed to the spirit of Web 2.0: the ease of
use allows anyone to become educated about a cause,
learn some valuable information about it, and, most
importantly, understand—from individual bloggers’
points of view—what action or actions may be
needed, or how the dispossessed of that region or
nation are articulating their respective situations.
Search functionality at Global Voices utilizes several
different methods that set it apart from a Web 1.0
analogue. The primary content for Global Voices
Online is a collection of blogs written by human rights
activists around the world, many of them acting as
editors and dedicated authors for Global Voices (a
translation-from-English feature is also available for 13
languages);there are also many other authors/bloggers
who are not expressly employed by Global Voices.
Users may navigate content using drop-down menus, a
tag cloud (in which the topics that receive more hits are
presented in larger text), or by mashup (in which a
map is used as a visual base to display tagged data).The
site also utilizes RSS feeds by topic (Freedom of
Speech, etc.), a direct link to a subject’s Wikipedia
entry, and a ready archive of previous posts on a topic
and all links from the site to all blogs it has ever
featured. Therefore, a traditional search (performed
April 22, 2008) using the drop-down menus leads to,
for example,“Middle East & North Africa,” which then
leads to all countries within that region. A search for
posts related to Egypt bears posts from the regional
Global Voices editor and a dedicated website author, as
well as several outside links to bloggers in their
original language (sometimes already translated to
English for that link). A similar search for
Americas>U.S.A. leads to 8 articles and 36 links
(again on April 22) on a diverse array of topics: a visit
by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to Egypt to
meet with Palestinian Hamas leaders, reactions to a
U.S. by Pope Benedict II, and the reaction of Ethiopian
bloggers to presidential candidate Barack Obama’s
online campaign efforts. Each of these is also
cross-referenced to its respective international
counterparts.
Global Voices online seeks to present information via
blogs and podcasts from regions stricken by some kind
of humanitarian crisis (according to the results
displayed at Global Voices Online, this includes most of
the world); such activities represent a highly evolved
form of activism, and there are many other
organizations who seek to use Web 2.0 functionality in
similar ways to bring attention to myriad causes.
UNDemocracy.com, for example, is a “private attempt
to provide Web 2.0 compliant access to many of the
important official [United Nations] documents (e.g.
Security Council Resolutions and General Assembly
votes) which feature in the news” (UNDemocracy,
n.d.), something that the U.N. itself does not provide
(links issuing from the U.N.to its public documents are
given one-time-use URLs that are different for every
instance of link creation). In providing this service,
UNDemocracy.com’s operators hope to make available such items as PDFs of United Nations resolutions
and proceedings related to both historical and presentday discussions among U.N. members. For example,
the page for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1625
(United Nations Security Council, 2005) provides a
link to the document itself and also cross-references to
all post-1994 documents that reference it,a ready URL
link to this page, and a link to a Wikipedia template for
U.N. documents. Other sites, such as MoveOn.org,
seek to mobilize political and social action by offering
resources for learning about issues and organizing
events designed to bring otherwise disparate people
together for rallies and other events (MoveOn, n.d.)
[Editor’s note: See Espelien and Belanger’s Grass Roots
Online for more websites like these.]
Conclusion
The examples given by Clay Shirky—among them,
Voice of the Faithful’s efforts to force change within the
Roman Catholic Church and the protests in Belarus
(Shirky, 2008) represent a sea change in the organizing
power of the Web. More importantly, they show how
effective a tool technology can be for anyone wishing
to communicate any type of idea, from the most
mundane to the most world-changing.
These efforts represent an evolution away from the
older forms of activism in which time and distance
were great restrictions on effecting change. Protest
rally organizers, for example, no longer need to spend
hours creating, copying and distributing pamphlets to
their target audience. Instead, a blog post or an email
can be transmitted to anyone with an Internet
connection and details can be transmitted as quickly as
they are created. Likewise, the costs of organizing
hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of
people have been effectively eliminated by the social
media.With ever-increasing movements afoot to gain
more political influence by the citizens of the world,
Web 2.0 (and, just as likely,Web 3.0 when we finally
get there) will be the key to many of the central
barriers to such change.
References
Anderson, N. (2006, September 1).Tim Berners-Lee on
Web 2.0. Retrieved April 21, 2008, from Ars
Technica:http://arstechnica.com/news.
ars/post/20060901-7650.html
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network
Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal
of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13 (1).
Retrieved April 16, 2008, from http://jcmc.indi
ana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html
Can the Internet Become an Addiction? (1997,
September 8). Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 8.
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base.
Global Voices Online. (n.d.). About. Retrieved April
22, 2008, from Global Voices Online:
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/about/
Graham, P. (2005, November). Web 2.0. Retrieved
April 21, 2008, from Paul Graham:
http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html
Greene, J. (2007, October 25). Microsoft and
Facebook Hook Up. Business Week [Electronic edition]
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businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2007/
tc20071024_654439.htm?chan=top+news_top
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Grossman, L. (2006, December 13).Time’s Person of
the Year: You. Time [Electronic edition]. Retrieved
April11,2008,from http://www.time.com/
time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
Keen,A. (2007). The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s
Internet Is Killing Our Culture. New York: Doubleday.
Keen, A. (2006, February 16). Web 2.0: The second gen
eration of the Internet has arrived. It’s worse than you
think. Retrieved February 11, 2008, from
h t t p : / / w w w. w e e k l y s t a n d a r d . c o m /
Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/
714fjczq.asp
MoveOn. (n.d.). About the MoveOn Family of
Organizations. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from
Democracy
In
Action:
MoveOn.org:
http://moveon.org/about.html
65
Nielsen/NetRatings. (2006, May 11). Retrieved April
10, 2008, from Nielsen/NetRatings homepage:
h t t p : / / w w w. n i e l s e n n e t r a t i n g s . c o m /
pr/pr_060511.pdf
O’Reilly, T. (2005, September 30). What Is Web 2.0?
Retrieved April 21, 2008, from O’Reilly Media:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/ti/
news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Potera, C. (1998).Trapped in the web. Psychology Today
31 (2), 66. Retrieved April 22, 2008, from
EBSCO host datbase.
Schonfeld, E. (2008, January 14). MySpace Tries To
Put Sexual Predator Problems Behind It.
Retrieved
April
23,
2008,
from
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myspace-tries-to-put-sexual-predator-problemsbehind-it/
Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of
OrganizingWithout Organizations . NewYork: Penguin
Press.
64
UNDemocracy.(n.d.).Retrieved April 22,2008,from
UNDemocracy: http://www.undemocracy.com
United Nations Security Council. (2005, September
14). S-RES-1625(2005) Security Council Resolution
1625
(2005).
Retrieved
April
20
2008, from UNDemocracy: UNdemocracy.
com/S-RES-1625(2005)
Wright, R. (1993, September 13).Voice of America.
New Republic, pp. 20-27. Retrieved from
EBSCOhost datbase.
About the Authors
Craig Belanger is editor-in-chief for the Journal of
Advancing Technology. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in
Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and is
currently pursuing a Master of Science in Technology.
Darcee Espelien is a Staff Writer at UAT and is a
contributing editor for the Journal of Advancing
Technology. She holds an English degree from Northern
Arizona University.
Grass Roots Online:
A Guide to Internet-Based
Advocacy & Activism
Darcee Espelien & Craig Belanger
Global Voices Online (www.globalvoicesonline.org)
Item: “Saudi blogger Fuad alFarhan has finally been
released after spending 137 days in jail for simply
speaking his mind politely and eloquently. Meanwhile,
the Saudi government has no problem whatsoever
allowing the shouts and rants of many preachers of
death. Lovely!”
66
This sentiment by The Sudanese Thinker, posted on the
website Global Voices Online, expresses both the
celebration of a freed writer and the gravity of
censored reporting. A non-profit site founded by
Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet
and Society, Global Voices Online provides a safe haven
for bloggers and translators from oppressed countries
around the world. Witnesses to war and victims of
tyranny look to Global Voices Online to report social
and political atrocities that might have otherwise been
rebuffed by mainstream media. The website also
provides networking opportunities with other
activists;an Advocacy program that helps bloggers fight
censorship; an outreach program called Rising Voices
that facilitates communication for oppressed people;
and a program called Voices Without Voices, which
concentrates on the world’s response to U.S. voters’
decisions and U.S. foreign policy.
Visitors to the website have access to blogs, photos,
podcasts, videos, training resources, daily emails and
open-source tools, and they can search for all of these
materials by country, region, topic or author.
UNdemocracy.org
Understanding that organizations such as the United
Nations inherently package their communications and
information in red tape, website UNdemocracy makes
transcripts of General Assembly (international treaties)
and Security Council (war and international sanctions)
meetings easily attainable to the layman. Website
visitors can discover word-by-word what has led to
important decisions affecting war, territories,
economic development, and human rights policies.
The website also features Wikipedia articles in which
other Internet users clicked on a reference that links to
UNdemocracy. This feature helps to guide users to
more information about the topic for which they are
researching.
(By the way, these guys are always looking for help
from programmers and active users with a little time
on their hands. Contact them directly from the website
listed above.)
OpenSecrets: The Center for Responsive
Politics (www.opensecrets.org)
Open Secrets assuages any doubts about the power of
lobbyists. Created by the non-profit, non-partisan
group Center for Responsive Politics, the website
monitors how money influences politics, campaigns,
elections and public policy.The Center hopes that its
research will prod media, activists and everyday
citizens to become more involved with what money
does to the political system.
Users of the site can examine who donates and who
receives money, and they can track the cash flow by
industry (tobacco, firearm, casino, etc.), political party
or candidate/politician. There are also resources that
offer thorough yet very simple explanations of
campaign finance laws, as well as reports based off of
personal financial disclosures that detail politicians’ net
worth, major holdings, liabilities, agreements, sources
of income, gifts, travel reimbursements, and outside
positions.
In addition to miscellaneous news items, alerts and
links, other features of the site include numerous
interactive databases where users can search for more
than 6,400 elite individuals and see how they move
between government and private sectors; relationships
between powerful lobbyists and political bodies;
information on where, when and why a politician or
their staffer traveled and who paid for it; 527s and who
is behind them; and political contributors, lobbying
firms and PACs.
Congress.org
Congress.org is a one-stop site for communicating
with elected officials and their constituents. The
website is run by Capitol Advantage and Knowlegis,
LLC, two private, non-partisan companies that work
to encourage public participation in the political
process.
Activists can search for alerts in the Issues and Calls to
Action area, as well as post Soapbox action alerts with
information about particular issues and rally support
from other website users. The Letters to Leaders
forum hosts constituent letters and emails to
politicians, and users have the option to have the letters
that they submit hand-delivered to Congress for a fee.
For those who would rather the information come to
them, there are options to receive weekly emails with
legislation and voting results from local officials.There
are also resources for locating and contacting
politicians, and local and national media.
Grass Roots Online
Federal Election Commission (www.fec.gov)
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an
independent regulatory agency that was formed by
Congress to manage and implement the Federal
Election Campaign Act (FECA), a bill that presides
over federal election financing.The website features a
database for researching contributions to and from
candidates, PACs and parties.
Visitors to the site can view and download financial
disclosure reports filed by house, senate and
presidential campaigns, as well as parties and PACs.
Data reports starting from 1993 that concern
contributors, candidates, committees and campaign
finance, are also available. Users can search for FEC
public records and get research assistance, publications
and other disclosure resources from the Public
Records Office section of the website.
Project Vote Smart (www.vote-smart.org)
Project Vote Smart is comprised of enthusiastic
volunteers of all political backgrounds who research
and provide objective information on the backgrounds
and records of countless political figures.Their primary
objective is to get to the core of democracy by making
bringing the truth about each politician to the surface,
which is facilitated by both statistical data and the
interactive features on the website that bring officials
and the public together.
The information found on the Project Vote Smart
includes voting records, campaign contributions,
public statements, issues and legislation, ballot
measures, political resources, biographies, and analysis
of each candidate by more than 100 special interest
groups. Candidates can fill out the Political Courage
Test, which shows explicitly where they stand on
important social issues.
Change Congress (www.changecongress.org)
Change Congress was started by the renowned
technology reformer Lawrence Lessig to encourage
reform in campaign finance by holding elected officials
accountable for the money they accept from various
groups.The website lists four ideals they would like to
see candidates uphold: avoiding money from special
interest groups, lobbyists or political action commities
(PACs); voting to end earmarked legistlation; supporting a transparent Congress by making officials report
their activities, meetings with lobbyists, financial
contributions and changes in wealth to the public; and
backing publicly financed campaigns. Politicians can
take a brief quiz on the website that shows where they
stand on these four standards, and users of the site can
get involved by approaching their local leaders, seeing
where they stand, and reporting the results to Change
Congress. There is even an interactive United States
map that displays the levels of PAC money being
accepted by region and by which politicians.
About the Author
Darcee Espelien is a Staff Writer at UAT and is a
contributing editor for the Journal of Advancing
Technology. She holds an English degree from Northern
Arizona University.
Craig Belanger is editor-in-chief for the Journal of
Advancing Technology. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in
Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and is
currently pursuing a Master of Science in Technology.
69
The Evolution of
Distance Education
Mike Erwin
University of Advanciing Technology
The Evolution of Distance Education
Distance education has undergone significant growth
and change over the last decade to a point that it
is now widely accepted as a viable and valuable form of
education. But what, exactly, is it, and what constitutes
“good” distance education in the current market? In
order to answer these questions, I examine its history
and development and identify some areas of
development for the future. Many distance educators
may not realize that there are key ingredients within
distance education that contribute to its success in
fulfilling its educational mission—namely, teaching.
Hopefully, the following information will enable
educators to understand this
original mission.
The Beginning
There have been five
generations of media in the
history of distance education;
we are currently in the fifth.
The first, dating back to the
early 1700s, was the
correspondence model based
on print media technology
such as news articles, flyers
and, ultimately, the mail
service. The second was the
multimedia model based on
audio and video technologies as well as print.The third
was the tele-learning model based on applications of
telecommunications technologies to provide
opportunities for synchronous communication (this
could include live video lectures). The fourth was
based on online delivery via the Internet (Taylor,
1995). The fifth generation of distance education is
essentially a derivation of the fourth generation, which
aims to maximize the current capabilities of the
Internet and the World Wide Web.
The first iterations of distance education were
correspondence study courses offered through
newspaper advertisements in the U.S. and England
(Holmberg, 2005; Moore & Kearsley, 2004).
Thereafter, correspondence study courses began to
emerge as alternatives for learning throughout Europe
and the United States. The process was very simple:
students received instruction via mail and responded
with assignments or questions to the instructor. The
process was very slow and could take several weeks for
a response from the instructor.Correspondence courses grew in spite of the drawbacks, in large part thanks
to maturation in postal service that allowed
correspondents to study across long distances.
I was fortunate enough to have experienced a
correspondence course first-hand as a high school
student in 1985. The process was very similar to the
description of the first correspondence course from
1728.Assignments were mailed to my high school, and
there was never any direct communication with the
facilitator other than through mail. Feedback for the
assignments was given by mail; in some cases,
responses from the facilitator took up to four weeks.
The exams and quizzes were delivered by the assistant
principal and mailed directly to the facilitator from the
assistant principal’s office; this was to limit the
opportunity for deception. The entire class was
self-directed and taught completely from supplied
reading materials. However,
while learning out of a
textbook may be effective,
there was no opportunity
for unique interaction with
the facilitator or other
learners in the class.
Regardless, there was an
opportunity to learn in
correspondence courses,
and the slow interaction did
not hurt the process, it
merely slowed it down.The
feedback at the time was
extremely meaningful and
plentiful, as it would have
had to be in such circumstances. The feedback and
interaction are what fostered the learning.
Correspondence courses mark the beginning of
distance learning.With the development of television
and videoconferencing, electronic elements began to
create a slight change in the architecture of distance
education. Before the Internet was embraced as a
teaching tool, the use of video was a common method
for teaching at a distance.There were several methods
for facilitating a course using video for both
asynchronous and synchronous teaching, including via
broadcast video and videoconferencing. Early attempts
using these techniques required students to drive to
facilities that could support videoconferencing and
group participation. This was a viable method for
teaching, especially if a student lived in a rural area
where schools were in short supply. Benefits of video
conferencing included a heightening of student
motivation and improved verbal communication and
presentation skills. In addition, videoconferencing is
said to
improve students’ memory retention by appealing
to a variety of different learning styles by including
diverse media such as video and audio clips,
graphics, animation, and computer applications…
The visual connection and interaction among
71
participants enhance understanding and allow both
the content providers and the students to feel
connected to one another.That connection leaves a
distinct impression on the students who have the
opportunity to go on a virtual field trip
(Videoconferencing, n.d.).
The visuals in this environment, as well as group
interaction, created a vibrant learning environment
that differed from the traditional classroom.The next
few generations of distance education added new
flavors to the mix, including Internet-based tools to
facilitate online training.As we will see, such additions
created an uncertain future for web-based training and
distance education.
Flash Forward
The correspondence courses of the past have mutated
into what we identify today as distance education.
Distance education may be defined as an “institutionbased formal education where the learning group is
separated, and where interactive telecommunications
systems are used to connect learners, resources, and
instructors” (Ely,2003). Let me clarify this description
slightly: “Institution-based” means, typically, that a
traditional educational institution has created a digital
extension of itself in the form of an online school. It is
not merely self-paced materials that are posted on the
Internet for students. Rather, this model is facilitated,
organized and backed by a brick-and-mortar
institution that holds the same mission, values and
integrity online as it does within the on-ground
program.
This one element is what distinguishes distance
education from self-study or web-based training. The
separation of instructor and student in the past was
interpreted as a geographic separation, but in the case
of distance education as we know it today, that is not
entirely what is meant. Certainly, online students may
not be in the same place at the same time, but there is
more to the separation. Separation could mean
asynchronous learning. In the asynchronous model,
instructors and students need not be online at the same
time, and assignments may be completed at the
discretion of the student within certain deadlines and
other parameters. Separation could also be interpreted
as an intellectual gap between the knowledge of the
instructor and the knowledge of the student.The goal
of distance education is to eliminate this separation of
knowledge.
Telecommunications is another
component of contemporary
distance education and is obviously
one of the most important in the
21st century. The term “telecommunication” implies the use of
electronic media such as video,
telephone, audio and the Internet.
In this model, telecommunication,
such as simple correspondence via
traditional mail service, may still be
used, but it is (hopefully) rare.
Distance education is, after all,
synergistically linked to modern
technology and is therefore
distinguished from more traditional
forms of education, a factor which
may contribute to course development and acceptance problems.
The final component of connecting learners, resources
and instructors is that there is an instructor teaching in
electronic form, there are resources available that
support learning and courses are structured under
design guidelines. In many cases, these very
connections and interactions with the instructor, as
well as other learners, are commonly the focus of
distance education.
Current Popularity
Distance learning is utilized in many areas of education; beyond higher education, it spans the spectrum of
public, private and home-based primary through
secondary, as well as corporate, military and
government training.With the widespread acceptance
of the Internet, web-based applications have become
the cornerstone for online colleges and universities. In
2006, the Sloan Consortium reported that more than
96 percent of the largest colleges and
universities in the United States offered online
Correspondence courses mark the
courses and that almost 3.2 million U.S. students
beginning of distance learning.
were taking at least one online course during the
With the development of television
Fall 2005 term (Allen & Seamen, 2006). The
and videoconferencing, electronic
growth for distance education has been
elements began to create a slight
staggering. In 2006-2007,
[o]nline enrollments… continued to grow at
change in the architecture of
rates far in excess of the total higher education
distance education.
student population, albeit at slower rates than
for previous years.Almost 3.5 million students
were taking at least one online course during the fall CMS’s are not only used for online classes but have
2006 term; a nearly 10 percent increase over the now moved into the classroom as a supplement to
number reported the previous year.The 9.7 percent on-ground classes. According to a recent Gartner
growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the survey on e-learning, the physical and virtual campus
1.5 percent growth of the overall higher education have become intertwined due to the use of CMS’s, not
student population. Nearly twenty percent of all for only online but in classrooms. E-learning is
U.S. higher education students were taking at least changing higher education, not as a replacement for
one online course in the fall of 2006. (2006)
the physical campus, but as a supplement to the
Based on this report, it appears that Associate and classroom. CMS’s have been instrumental in this
Doctoral degrees are among the most sought after.
transformation (Zastrocky, Harris, & Lowendahl,
With the growth of distance education programs,
web-based applications called Course Management
Systems (CMS) have become predominant. One
common element among all online colleges today is
the utilization of a CMS to administer and facilitate
online programs and degrees. Web-based CMS’s—
e.g., Blackboard, eCollege, WebCT—have become
essential to this model.The integration of technologies
in CMS’s, such as streaming media, Voice over IP
(VoIP) and live video, have created vibrant learning
environments that are becoming the preferred method
for learning for many people throughout the world.
There are many benefits to using a CMS. For example,
they are based on a common web browser and have the
ability to be edited anywhere as long as there is a web
connection. Courses may be developed on the beach in
Jamaica, for instance, and then delivered the same day
to a distance course connected to students throughout
the world. Another benefit is the interface and
processes are “designed with non-technical
content authors in mind” (GII Technology, n.d.), and
anyone with even a moderately low level of word
processing can be a content creator. Another
helpful feature is the presence of configurable
access restrictions to control user’s permissions;
users are prevented from editing content they
didn’t create. Navigation is generated
automatically as well as the interface for page layouts.A storage database is used for content and is
able to be reused and formatted for multiple
devices. Cooperation among faculty is also facilitated through a CMS, and content scheduling is
available to allow for content controlled by a
calendar or hidden for later use.
2007).
In addition to the use of CMS’s, another common
element among online programs today is the
implementation of branding for the look and feel of the
courses. This is natural, since CMS’s are web-based
applications and function exactly like websites in which
a common theme can be implemented to format
information for a web audience. Web technologies,
such as streaming video and audio or live video are
commonly utilized in ways that assist the learning
process.Teaching Art classes online is a good example
of how video can assist the learning process; typically in
such courses, video lectures are created by an
instructor to accompany text or audio lectures.
Another common element used currently in online
programs is the threaded discussion feature. In the
asynchronous model discussed previously, students are
not required to be online at a certain time and
assignments and reading take place sometime before
the due date but at the student’s convenience. In this
73
scenario, the only interaction that takes place online is
through threaded discussions, email or feedback from
the professor in the CMS gradebook.
The threaded discussion is a common component built
into CMS’s designed for interaction with the class.
Assignments in the on-ground counterpart are
modified to create a discussion thread component out
of the objective, where the students and instructor can
participate through written response in open forum.
Quality of student feedback is one of the critical
elements in distance learning, and it is heavily
emphasized among online programs. Feedback from a
facilitator as well as fellow learners—i.e.,
interaction—has been found to stimulate learning in
distance courses (Garrison & Anderson,2003)
Interactions between faculty and students, and the
collaboration in learning that results from these interactions are the goals of many online courses. Increasing
such interaction may lead to a smaller gap and this can
create much more effective learning.An understanding
of quality feedback begins with an appreciation of the
role of distance. Quality relies upon a close evaluation
of support to students as courses are planned, launched
and then monitored through the CMS (Price, 1997).
One last common component to note about the
modern day distance course is the implementation of
instructional design concepts. “Instructional design is a
discipline that is concerned with understanding and
improving the process of instruction” (Xiaodong et
al,1995).The goal of instructional designers is to devise
optimal means to achieve desired ends. Therefore,
instructional designers are concerned primarily with
outlining and implementing optimal methods of
instruction to bring about desired change in students’
knowledge and skills (Reigeluth, 1983). Design
components may vary widely; for example, as authoring tools become easier to use and the speed of the
Internet increases, the use of games and interactivity
will continue to grow (Waldir, DeAzevedo, & Latham,
2007).The benefits of instructional design have been a
topic of discussion for years and they are now
recognized as essential to serious distance education
programs. The twist is the transfer of instructional
design methods for traditional classrooms to the
electronic classroom:
The designing of online courses requires a
radical change in thinking in the way the
instruction is designed and presented to the
student… The designed instruction must
create a learning environment that will
accommodate all students. The primary
responsibility of the instructional designer is
to make sure the online program accom
plishes the learning goals... Courses taught
in instructional design in the area of instruc
tional technology are found in the majority
of colleges of education. In some
institutions instructional design is a required
area of study. (Koontz, Hongqin, &
Compora, 2006)
The end result for online classes using instructional design methods is the transfer of
knowledge in an effective and interactive way,
with the subject matter expert at the core and
the instructional designer as the translator for
information to an electronic form.
In many ways, correspondence courses have come full
circle in the form of online courses.At the center of the
technology, the solid layout and aesthetics of online
classes sits the original idea of correspondence with a
facilitator.The process is very much the same in many
ways, with the addition of asynchronous feedback and
interaction.
The Future
The future distance education model is not quite clear.
However, there are a few emergent trends that may
impact the future of learning in a positive way. As
indicated, the next generation of online learning may
incorporate video gaming or simulation into course
learning materials. Games and simulation have the
potential to dramatically improve student motivation
and learning outcomes. In addition, this type of
learning could create new insights into the very nature
of learning altogether (Gibson, Aldrich, & Prensky,
2006).
The online massively multiplayer online game Second
Life exemplifies a trend for learning in an entertaining
and interactive environment:
Although virtual environments and serious gaming
have been explored and researched in higher education for many years, the more recent ease of access
and experimentation in Second Life mark a global
awakening of interest in a virtual world from a broad
range of academic disciplines. (Harris, Lowendahl,
& Zastrocky)
Second Life “residents” interact with each other by, for
instance, chatting or attending special events (e.g.,
concerts, art exhibitions) in-game, and they may also
create and trade items of varying worth and live in
specially built dwellings on virtual property.Second Lifee
already offers pedagogical advantages in several
subjects: as of this writing, there are 130 higher
education institutions identified by name with activity
in Second Life (2007).
The future of distance education could very well be
delivered in a virtual world. However, because of the
inevitable technological improvements occurring over
With the growth of distance
education programs, webbased applications called
Course Management Systems
(CMS) have become predominant. One common element
among all online colleges today
is the utilization of a CMS to
administer and facilitate online
programs and degrees. Webbased CMS’s e.g.,Blackboard,
eCollege,WebCT—have
become essential to this
model.
time, there are certain to be significant leaps in the
ability of teachers to interact with their classes. Faster
networks and larger storage space will allow teachers
to deliver large steaming media files that do not require
extensive downloading. Furthermore, the interaction
that students can have with fellow students will
increase due to improved web-authoring tools (e.g.,
VoIP, live video and web conferencing tools built into
CMS’s).
Some future trends seem clear today. For example,
content developers of the future will most likely be the
professors and subject experts for the material being
taught, and the idea of a facilitator may be all but
extinct as students demand that the teachers for
courses actually be present.Also, the tools of the future
will be quicker, smarter and easier to use, and they will
not require extensive training to implement. The
traditional classrooms of the future will take advantage
of the tools that distance educators use and will
complement courses with technologies previously
reserved for distance courses. Another possibility for
the future is the integration of video threading; rather
than the traditional method of text-based threaded
discussion to create student/teacher interaction, the
use of webcams that create short videos and paste them
in a threaded and archived format could be used.The
development of video blogging at web destinations
such as ustream.com and seismic.com are great
examples of the possibilities of what video can do to
create a more cohesive distance education
environment.
Of course, only time will tell, but one thing is certain—the future of distance education, like the future
of the technology that will deliver it to us, will be very
exciting and will contribute to the evolution of human
learning in significant ways.
References
Allen, E., & Seaman, J. (2006). Making the Grade:
Online Education in the United States, 2006.
Needham, MA: Sloan Consortium.
Ely, D. P. (2003, May). Selecting Media for Distance
Education. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from ERIC
Digest: http://www.ericdigests.org/20052/media.html
Garrison, D. R., & Anderson,T. (2003). E-Learning in
the 21st Century: A framework for research and
practice. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Gibson, D.,Aldrich, C., & Prensky, M. (Eds.). (2006).
Games and Simulations in Online Learning.
Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
GII Technologies. (n.d.). What is a CMS? Retrieved
April 27, 2008, from GII Technologies:
http://www.giicms2.com/index.php?id=424
Harris, M., Lowendahl, J. M., & Zastrocky, M. (2007).
Second Life: Expanding Higher Education
Learning Into 3-D. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from
Gartner:http://www.gartner.com
75
Holmberg, B. (2005). The evolution, principles and
practices of distance education. Bibliotheks-und
Informations system der Universitat Oldenburg.
Koontz, F. R., Hongqin, L., & Compora, D. P. (2006).
Designing Effective Online Instruction. Lanham,
MD/Toronto/Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield
Education.
Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2004). Distance
Education: A Systems View (2nd ed.). CA:
Wadsworth Publishing.
Price, B. (1997). Defining quality student feedback in
distance learning. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26
(1), 154-160.
Reigeluth, C. M. (1983). Instructional Design. In C.
M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design Theories
and Models: An Overview of Their Current
Status. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Taylor, J. C. (1995). Distance Education
Technologies. Australian Journal of Education
Technologies , 11(2), 1-7.
74
Videoconferencing. (n.d.). Retrieved April 27, 2008,
from http://www2.csd.org/newlinks/whatisvidc
onf.htm
Waldir, A., DeAzevedo, F., & Latham, L. (2007).
MarketScope for Content Courseware, 2007.
Gartner.
Xiaodong, L. (1995, March). Instructional Design and
Development of Learning Communities: An
Invitation to a Dialogue. Educational Technology.
Zastrocky, M., Harris, M., & Lowendahl, J. M. (2007,
January). E-Learning for Higher Education:
Course Management Systems. Retrieved April 23,
2008, from Gartner: http://www.gartner.com
About the Author
Mike Erwin has been involved in graphics and design
for 22 years. He began his career in the printing and
publishing industry at age 15. After managing several
firms, he moved into the web industry with an
emphasis on 3D web design and 3D visualization. He
has worked in digital animation, architectural
animation, industrial design, multimedia production
and web programming, as well as game design. In
1998, he started a consulting company and has
completed projects for clients including the U.S.
Department of Defense; Sacramento, Fresno and Los
Angeles Federal Buildings; Nokia Phones; and Boeing.
He has also worked as a professional trainer and was
involved in the development of the “Train the Teachers”
program for the Navajo Nation Learning Programs and
the Mesa Public High School Teachers Job Training.
Mr. Erwin holds a Bachelor of Science degree in
Computer Aided Design with Emphasis on Virtual
Reality and a Master of Arts degree in Adult Education
with emphasis on Distance Learning. He is currently
pursuing a doctorate degree in Educational
Psychology. In 2005, he was awarded a Teaching
Innovation award for teaching excellence.
77
c a l l
f o r
p a p e r s
Call for Submissions and Publication Guidelines
Works published in the JAT focus on all areas of advancing technology. Topics include the following:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Technology and Society
Networks/Systems
Information Security
Game Theory and Design
Video and Animation
Digital Art, Cinematography and Design
•
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Web Technologies
Software and Databases
Entrepreneurship through Technology
Artificial Intelligence Technologies
Artificial Life Technologies
In addition, we are receptive to ideas for columns and regular features.
76
We welcome a wide range of forms and approaches. Our intention is to create a journal that
contains narrative discussions, observations of trends and developments, quantitative and
qualitative research, technological application, theoretical analysis and applied theory,
interviews with individuals involved in technology-related fields, literature and product reviews,
letters to the editor, updates to research previously published in this journal, etc.
We want to publish works that display creativity, and we encourage works beyond the
boundaries of traditional scholarship. We recognize that not every Nobel Prize winner
dedicated their lives to academic research, a fact which should never discount the authenticity
of their work.
Authors will be compensated in copies of the journal.
Format criteria
• Submitted work should be 1000 to 10,000 words in length
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Contact Information
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the editor on any matter related to JAT content will be considered. JAT reserves the
right to edit these for clarity. Please send messages to [email protected] or to our offices at 2625
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Submissions
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85283-1056.
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79
i n
t h i s
i s s u e
CIRCA 2008: The Rise of Surface Computing
GREG KIPPER
A-Life’s Hybrid Child: DNA Computing
HAROLD KIMBALL
JOE MCCORMACK
Thinking About Thinking: Towards a Taxonomy of Thinking
DOMINIC PISTILLO
Editorial: Are We Losing the Ability to Think Abstractly?
RON FLOYD
The Coming Merger of Virtual Reality and Video Games
MICHAEL GAMBRELL
In the Kingdom: Searching for the Right Mixture of Technology and Culture
AL KELLY
The Logos Arrives in Berkeley: Philip K. Dick’s Four Novels of the 1960s
RICHARD BEHRENS
Kunstler’s World Without Oil: Speculative Fiction, Serious
Gaming and Understanding Future Crises
KATHLEEN DUNLEY
CRAIG BELANGER & DARCEE ESPELIEN
Grass Roots Online: A Guide to Internet-Based Advocacy and Activism
DARCEE ESPELIEN & CRAIG BELANGER
MIKE ERWIN
Phone 800.658.5744 > Fax 602.383.8222
www.uat.edu

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