Thursday, August 10, 2006

Greasemonkeying with Reality

David Louis Edelman, author of Infoquake, has just posted "Greasemonkeying with Reality" to his blog, a very interesting post about the self-censorship we are rapidly rushing into. Earlier this month, I had a conversation with a friend and noted critic about the dangers of our Long Tail / total freedom of choice society, in that it becomes increasingly easy to self-select yourself into what Robert Anton Wilson called a "reality tunnel." Essentially, "I hear only what I want to hear" (as Supertramp sang so long ago in "Soapbox Opera.")

As David writes, "The Greasemonkeying of information won't just stop with the web. It's not going to end with the editing of digital bits on your computer screen. It's going to move onto your telephone and your television and eventually, inside that thick skull of yours."

I'm a big believer that the Long Tail is allowing us to drill deeper into niche content, discovering and rediscovering content we'd never encounter in traditional retail, but it's also true that the amount of time I spent with my head buried in the future - editing Pyr, corresponding with writers and artists, keeping up with the SFnal side of the bloggosphere and blogging about it myself - is making me feel like I've got my head in the sand when it comes to the real world. I wouldn't know jack about the foiled transatlantic bombing if a friend hadn't just emailed me about it. And while I'm pretty fond of my particular reality tunnel, the last thing I need is the ability to Greasemonkey myself even deeper into the future.

3 comments:

Lou Anders said...

I concur. But, since you reference television, my family still debates its relative merits and whether or not it is good to expose young children to it. The majority opinion (my fathers' & brother's) is that early exposure to tv is bad in that it curtails imagination. How I, a pop culture junkie, came about they cannot explain, and have classified me as an exception. My brother says that "for most" television is passive but of me it is an "active" medium. I think that what the computer has done is to transfer vast amounts of passive media participants into active ones, but their will always be a certain percentage of eloi among the moorlocks. For my own part, I will obviously be exposing my son to ungodly amounts of pop culture, but I'm going to encourage him to get involved with his interests. Like videogames? Cool, but learn how to program them. Like movies? Here's a digital camera. Like music, let's go shop for a guitar. Anything you want, but be a content provider not just a consumer. It's never been easier to give than receive.

Lou Anders said...

What do you do that you have 5 monitors going?

I hear you on inventing games. The little girl in the neighborhood never forgave me that our SHAZAM movie fell through, though in highschool I organized a game of "Killer" (everyone assigned a squirt-gun target) that ran for weeks and caused much havoc. Couldn't do that now, I suppose.

Unknown said...

It makes sense to me to let users know, and I was conflicted about it until now. Google collects information, and the users should know about it if they visit your site. Thank you for your opinion which to me is more fact than anything.
עוזרת.

.
.