Going into this class, I wondered to myself; what will the weak signals of this class be? This first class was primarily about the climate crisis and our relationship with it in the present day. I thought the way our lecturer Jose Luis De Vicente broke it down was a good way to compartmentalize such a huge topic. Those four categories with my key takeaways as follows: 1) Tell the truth (state everything we know in the clearest sense) 2) The mutation (signs of change with the anthropocene) 3) What is the plan (steps to get there- or if we should even try), and 4) The long here the long now (undesrstaning how our cultural and political actions now affect the future now). Everything we talked about in the class got me thinking at a deep level. It was a three hour long class, which we did without a break. It felt like a wealth of information about concepts in which we knew, but were again reminded of. One thing that really shocked me was the videos of Singapore’s land reclamation by dumping sand into the water. I knew this was being done, but had never seen a video. Seeing it stunned me. It was done at such a massive scale, reshaping the earth so quickly. Jose told us that Barcelona and its beaches might cease to exist very soon, or at least look very different. That we might be saying bye bye to Barcelona’s beaches in 25 years. Since I had been living in coastal California the past 5 years, I have been aware of the problems with sea level rise. However, thinking of it in a city, one where I now live, and its beaches being such a central part of its character, left me feeling very uneasy. I know that Barcelona’s beaches are human-made anyways, but I can’t imagine the city without them. When talking about part 3, the plan, I’m glad Jose touched on the opposite, more negative position, that we might be trying for nothing and that the world is doomed anyways. I don’t want to think this way, although I sometimes do, because it leads me to depressive thoughts. I know this might be reality, and no one knows for sure, but I can’t go about the world not caring or at least trying to care about my actions and outcomes for a world in which I cannot control. I’m not sure if it is possible that we adopt a lifestyle of decretionism like going back to how life was like in the 50s. The world has completely changed. Though I do believe we can take aspects of life from before. The idea of going to Mars is absurd to me, it seems like a sense of escapism in which we can’t make things right on our own planet earth. Another thing that came out of the discussions with the class was thinking about the politics of decisions for future generations. I believe that the unborn children of future generations have rights, which is why I also think that young voters are so important, because they are the ones that will be living in the world in which the general population decides on now. As a whole, the class left my peers with a great sense of grief. Walking outside of class, some of my classmates were crying thinking about the state of the world. Saying they did not want to bring children into the world the way that is now. I have these thoughts too sometimes. I hate that growing up in my generation, and all the ones after it, that we will have the burden of wondering when or if the world will end. It’s these existential thoughts that make these signals feel not weak, but in fact very strong.
What we can aspire to in the internet world is an idea of Tim Wu’s net neutrality- that it will be decentralized, facilitate interaction, not be specialized, and with an infrastructure that doesn’t care who or what is transporting, and doesn’t have preferences. However, with web2.0 this is not always the case. This is because of production of value and the fact that personal interaction can be bought and sold. With this, we spoke about data extractivism, attention monopoly, data brokerage, and production of intelligence, how aggregation of data produces knowledge. This class reminded me of a documentary film that I watched that was very popular last year, the social dilemma. It was about the effects of social media on our mental health and their often invasive aspects into our personal lives. While watching the movie, I remember thinking that I agreed with everything that was being said, as I was aware of it. I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that I am aware of these controlling systems and still choose to be a part of it. I often think that I don’t really even care that I am a part of it, or that companies have my data, and know information about me. Maybe I should care more, although I feel that I have accepted it. Perhaps growing up in a world where this has almost always been my reality makes me somewhat numb to it. However, I do realize that it is in fact alarming that this happens, that we essentially trade information about ourselves in the form of data in order to use social media platforms. The fact is that we live in an attention economy, that in a way resembles real life. Whether online or in reality, people thrive off of interactions that command attention. Mechanisms that are designed to capture our attention such as the like, infinite scroll, and notifications readily impact us as we are hardwired as humans to be attentive and drawn in by this. It’s something I recognize every time I see my phone light up with a notification. I think about turning off my notifications, but it gives me the feeling i’ll be missing out on something, which would increase my anxiety when I know the reality is that the notifications themselves increase anxiety. I’m not ashamed to say I am addicted to it, I think most people are. I look around on the metro every morning and would say that about 90% of people are actively on their phones instead of just sitting or looking around. These dopamine hits run by algorithms and social media platforms controlled by few manipulate us and control us more than we know. We live in a world where our time is king. The more time that can be stolen from us, the more we are economically valuable. An example was given with Netflix’s countdown on playing videos, automatically sending us to the next one seemingly without our consent. I hate this feature, as the countdown is so fast it doesn’t even allow you to stop and think or take a moment before more media is instantly shoved in your face. I think the main takeaway from this is that there needs to be more algorithmic transparency and accountability to tell users how and why their data is being used and what interacting with these platforms really means. It should be mandatory that there is some sort of disclaimer before entering apps/sites that data mine to tell the user or at least alert them of what is happening behind the scenes. I’m genuinely afraid of how good algorithms will become in getting to know us better than we know ourselves.
We started off being asked: what is a job? The discussion with my classmates yielded many different and interesting answers. People made valuable points, from it being through the unpaid work of women as mothers, a form of value, trade, security, and privilege. With Jose, we talked about the growing wage and income inequality gap that will continue to grow. It reminded me of when I was in Costa Rica this summer, and was discussing it with my friend from there. As a tourist from California, I found it quite expensive, especially since people traveling to Latin America from the US often have this notion that it is much cheaper. Prices and cost of living were in fact quite high, yet wages remain low. I found it hard to understand how a standard citizen could make ends meet without struggling. The job market is changing quickly as automation develops and will eventually take over many jobs that are considered low skill. Some of these jobs will be replaced with new types of jobs, but the overall number of jobs would still decrease. In an ideal world, life with fewer jobs that need to be done by people with others automated would be great. The problem lies in where and how to divide it, and if it can even be done fairly. Some companies are starting to try the four-day, 32 hour work week. Apparently, it has been seen to increase productivity and decrease stress in some studies. However, I think this would only be true if it was a 32 hour week and not 40 pushed into 4 days. If a system for working less and distributing those jobs evenly was done correctly, I think society could greatly benefit from it. However, I had to think about the flip side of people working less as well. I do think that people working and holding jobs holds up much of the structure of society and how we live our lives, how we go about our days. If jobs were to disappear suddenly, and at a fast rate, I believe that people would not know what to do if there was no structure in place. Jobs provide so many people with purpose, part of their identity, and routine. For that, I think it can be a very good thing, and society does thrive on structure to some extent. Without people working with no alternative, we would have a very different reality. For some, life would be great. Those with access to nature, activities to occupy their time, in-person social networks, creative outlets, and chiefly money, life would be great. While for others that do not have these opportunities, life without work would mean more leisure time but might not result in such a dreamy outlook. When people get bored, they might be more likely to turn to violence or actions that society deems undesirable. On the other hand, people could just become lazy and mindless. I think there is a very delicate balance that can be held between work and leisure. The automation of some jobs can move that proportion to one that is more balanced and for the better. The definition of “work” and “jobs” is constantly evolving, and what that looks like in the future will be evolving even more quickly.
It is hard to imagine a world without nations and borders as we currently have. The fourth and final class of the atlas of weak signals questions this, and imagines what life could look like after the nation state. A nation can be defined as a group of people that share a common culture, values, and traditions. The state aspect is the governing force in the form of a political unit with borders, including tax collection and army. As it is now, nation-states rule the structure of how people are separated in the world. There are some definite advantages to this, yet there are some trends that show waning of the nation state with anti-immigration, economic migration, and refugees, who will play an increasingly larger part in the structure of nation-states in the future. With the existence of globalization as a world force that has completely dominated the political and social landscape by now, I believe the concept of nation-states will become less and less centralized. As discussed in the end of work class, jobs becoming more and more decentralized with jobs being moved around the world for cheaper labor, and people having the ability to work remotely in which covid-19 has changed the work landscape, globalization within jobs further removes borders. A major weak signal that Jose discussed was about technologies that bypass state control. I think technologies that do this, notably and firstly the internet, challenge the notion of nation-states to a different degree. It is cool that technology, although not equally distributed or available around the world, crosses borders and does not only exist within one sphere. I believe it is the biggest way information can be spread, and unites people under one rule rather than their individual governments. Nation-states are important in creating order, and simplify control and organization of people which is a necessary evil. However, truly being a citizen of the world does seem more like a reality in the future. I hope we can shift towards a “world government” type of global system of control in the future, where decisions are made on a global scale. There is no way to solve the global issues we have if we are working in parts, on a nation-state level. In order to begin to solve the problems we all have as citizens of the world, we must work as so, not as individual nation-states that act as though their decisions only affect the borders in which they are within. I can imagine futures where borders and being a citizen of some place is less strict, although in some ways I can’t imagine economic advantages for wealthier countries wanting to do this. During the in-person class, all of my peers shared their stories of where they were “from”. The diversity in the room was already far-reaching, but hearing about their families and where they feel they come from expanded that even further. It is times like those, where all of these people from around the world are in a room in Barcelona, that remind me how fictitious borders and countries actually are, and how strongly they dictate the lives of people everywhere when in reality the planet is owned by everyone and noone.