{"id":110,"date":"2015-01-27T03:35:57","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T08:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/?p=110"},"modified":"2015-01-27T14:49:09","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T19:49:09","slug":"110","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/2015\/01\/27\/110\/","title":{"rendered":"Organic Eyes, Electronic Glasses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"big-data\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In his analysis of surveillance, The Electronic Eye<\/em><\/a>, David Lyon begins by noting that computer scientists back in the 1970’s were already beginning to imagine how plausible Orwell’s\u00a0Nineteen Eighty-Four<\/em><\/a> might be. An equal amount of time has passed since Lyon’s analysis, and time would seem to further confirm his suspicion that increasing computing capability is birthing an entirely new surveillance paradigm.<\/p>\n

Lyon eludes to his thesis that a panoptic framework, derived practically from Foucault<\/a> but\u00a0originally from Bentham<\/a>, goes further in articulating the modern multivalence of surveillance than an Orweillian one by noting that, “the old dichotomy between decentralization and centralization is itself \u00a0now questionable”. On face, such an observation might soothe an Orwell, who feared the emergence of a massive state surveillance apparatus, but pulling the string of decentralization further unravels an arguably more terrifying ball of yarn.<\/p>\n

Rather than\u00a0being dominated by a carefully controlled and maintained surveillance state, society today is impelled “forward” (if we grant \u00a0teleology to technology) by a hairy amalgam of economically coordinated actors that realize gains through strategic information gleaned from the firehose of data<\/a> that humanity is pumping out. Google, FaceBook, and many others large and small thrive off of a business model that positions users as products for advertisers to consume. Indeed the state is more capable of surveilling, but so are its citizens<\/a>. One shudders to think how well Orwell described the Microsoft Kinect, which in its second iteration is now capable of determining a user’s heart rate and mood by looking<\/a> at their skin alone.<\/p>\n

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The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Most tellingly of the prescience of the panopticon, the state doesn’t have to force citizens to have one of these boxes in their homes. Rather, in 2015, people willingly go out and spend $500 to set up surveillance boxes themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Lyon, David. \u201cFrom Big Brother to the Electronic Panopticon.\u201d\u00a0The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society<\/i>. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1994. 57-79. Print.<\/p>\n

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In his analysis of surveillance, The Electronic Eye, David Lyon begins by noting that computer scientists back in the 1970’s were already beginning to imagine how plausible Orwell’s\u00a0Nineteen Eighty-Four might be. An equal amount of time has passed since Lyon’s analysis, and time would seem to further confirm his suspicion that increasing computing capability is … Continue reading Organic Eyes, Electronic Glasses<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-1","category-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}