In our last class we briefly touched upon the way in which technology connects us all in some fashion. These days, perhaps now more than ever, we are interconnected to people and networking systems that we are most likely completely unaware of, but upon which we are totally dependent for our livelihoods. For instance, in order for me to write this blog, I am unknowingly dependent on the good people at AT&T U-verse for providing their internet services to me. One of your colleagues brought up the point that this interconnectedness is not entirely new as in medieval times a knight is interdependent upon a blacksmith for his services. But what differentiates the knight-blacksmith relationship to my relationship to the IT guy or gal at AT&T? I think one of the main differences is that the knight and the blacksmith could communicate to one another directly for their services. Plus, what if the blacksmith starts spilling lead into the village's water supply? Justice can easily be doled out by the knight. On page 28 of The Human Factor, Kim Vicente mentions the chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India that killed thousands of innocent people, relating how "the industrial world is exporting more and more of its technologies to non-industrialized countries, sometimes without much thought about the impact that those technologies will have in other cultures." The knight and his village can go after the blacksmith for poisoning the water supply as opposed to the legal mess that occurred with Union Carbide and the Indian Government. Then again, the blacksmith probably drinks from the same water source! So why would he want to contaminate it?
On the second page of Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut describes the idea of the karass in this way:
"We Bokonists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass."
I think this term is useful in thinking of the ways in which we are interconnected by technology as the karass, according to Vonnegut, "ignores national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries." If my internet breaks down and I call for help, it's quite likely that I will be connected to some operator sitting in a call center in Mumbai. This interconnectedness is beautiful in a way, but it's also very chilling, as well. What do I care about this operator in Mumbai? If he's being paid a good wage? If his working conditions are fair? If he makes enough to feed his family? Perhaps even more pressing, should I care that this operator in Mumbai is taking away a good, middle-class job that could go to an American citizen? So I guess my question is with this post, does technology allow us to "forget" national boundaries and national concerns? Concerns for our community? Under what circumstances is technology's ability to transcend national boundaries a "good thing," and under what circumstances could this have detrimental effects on our sense of national identity or even local community?
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I dont believe that it allows us to forget national boundaries or national concerns. I think the way we see them maybe is different. For example you might not know which new missles and guns they are creating but they will tell you we are creating smarter or better guns. They won't give details about it because their enemy's can use it against it. In communities the technology helps us with ways some people might not even know. If you go onto internet you can check if there are any criminals, sexual offenders in your neighboorhood.Which i find very usefull if you have kids for example. Also the way technology affects the community is if the community is close the technology will benefit them but if they are not close it wont affect them.
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