I would like to tell you all that you are all actually cyborgs, but not the cyborgs that you think. You're not RoboCop, and you're not Terminator, but you're cyborgs every time you look at a computer screen or use one of your cell phone devices. So what's a good definition for cyborg? Well, traditional definition is "an organism to which exogenous components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments." That came from a 1960 paper on space travel, because, if you think about it, space is pretty awkward. People aren't supposed to be there. But humans are curious, and they like to add things to their bodies so they can go to the Alps one day and then become a fish in the sea the next.
Želim vam svima reći da ste svi zapravo kiborzi, ali ne kiborzi na način na koji to mislite. Niste RoboCop, a niste ni Terminator, ali ste kiborzi kad god gledate u računalni monitor ili rabite neki od svojih mobitela. Koja je, dakle, dobra definicija kiborga? Tradicionalna definicija kaže da se radi o organizmu "kojemu su dodane egzogene komponente s ciljem prilagodbe na novo okružje." Definicija je iz rada na temu svemirskih putovanja iz 1960. Jer, ako razmislite, svemir je prilično čudan; ljudi ne bi trebali biti ondje. Ali ljudi su znatiželjni i vole svojem tijelu dodati nešto kako bi jedan dan mogli otići u Alpe a sljedeći dan postati riba u moru.
So let's look at the concept of traditional anthropology. Somebody goes to another country, says, "How fascinating these people are, how interesting their tools are, how curious their culture is." And then they write a paper, and maybe a few other anthropologists read it, and we think it's very exotic. Well, what's happening is that we've suddenly found a new species. I, as a cyborg anthropologist, have suddenly said, "Oh, wow. Now suddenly we're a new form of Homo sapiens, and look at these fascinating cultures, and look at these curious rituals that everybody's doing around this technology. They're clicking on things and staring at screens."
Pogledajmo stoga koncept tradicionalne antropologije. Netko ode u stranu zemlju, kaže, "Kako su fascinantni ovi ljudi, kakve zanimljive alate koriste, kako im je kultura zanimljiva." I zatim napišu rad, možda ga nekolicina drugih antropologa pročita, i mi mislimo da je to vrlo egzotično. No, ono što se dogodilo je to da smo iznenada otkrili novu vrstu. Ja, kao antropolog kiborg, iznenada sam rekla, "O-ho. Sad smo odjednom nova vrsta homo sapiensa. Pogledajte te fascinantne kulture. Pogledajte te zanimljive rituale koje svatko obavlja s ovom tehnologijom. Oni klikaju na stvari i zure u ekrane."
Now there's a reason why I study this, versus traditional anthropology. And the reason is that tool use, in the beginning -- for thousands and thousands of years, everything has been a physical modification of self. It has helped us to extend our physical selves, go faster, hit things harder, and there's been a limit on that. But now what we're looking at is not an extension of the physical self, but an extension of the mental self, and because of that, we're able to travel faster, communicate differently. And the other thing that happens is that we're all carrying around little Mary Poppins technology. We can put anything we want into it, and it doesn't get heavier, and then we can take anything out. What does the inside of your computer actually look like? Well, if you print it out, it looks like a thousand pounds of material that you're carrying around all the time. And if you actually lose that information, it means that you suddenly have this loss in your mind, that you suddenly feel like something's missing, except you aren't able to see it, so it feels like a very strange emotion.
Postoji razlog zašto ja izučavam ovo, umjesto tradicionalne antropologije. Razlog je u korištenju alata, u početku, tisućama i tisućama godina, sve je bilo fizička dopuna nas samih. Pomoglo nam je da proširimo naše fizičko ja, krećemo se brže, udaramo jače, a tome postoje granice. No ono što sada promatramo nije proširenje našeg fizičkog ja, već proširenje našeg mentalnog ja. I zbog toga smo u stanju putovati brže, komunicirati drukčije. A drugo što se zbiva je to da svi nosimo uokolo malenu Mary Poppins tehnologiju. Možemo u nju staviti što god želimo i time ne postaje teža, a zatim možemo bilo što i izvaditi. Kako stvarno izgleda unutrašnjost vašeg računala? Pa, ako je isprintate izgleda kao stotine kilograma materijala kojeg posvuda nosite cijelo vrijeme. I ako se dogodi da izgubite te informacije, znači da odjednom osjećate gubitak u svom umu, da odjednom osjećate da nešto nedostaje, osim što to ne možete vidjeti, pa doživljavate vrlo neobičnu emociju.
The other thing that happens is that you have a second self. Whether you like it or not, you're starting to show up online, and people are interacting with your second self when you're not there. And so you have to be careful about leaving your front lawn open, which is basically your Facebook wall, so that people don't write on it in the middle of the night -- because it's very much the equivalent. And suddenly we have to start to maintain our second self. You have to present yourself in digital life in a similar way that you would in your analog life. So, in the same way that you wake up, take a shower and get dressed, you have to learn to do that for your digital self. And the problem is that a lot of people now, especially adolescents, have to go through two adolescences. They have to go through their primary one, that's already awkward, and then they go through their second self's adolescence, and that's even more awkward because there's an actual history of what they've gone through online. And anybody coming in new to technology is an adolescent online right now, and so it's very awkward, and it's very difficult for them to do those things.
Drugo što se događa je to da imate svoje drugo ja. Voljeli vi to ili ne, počinjete se pokazivati online, i ljudi su u interakciji s vašim drugim ja i kad niste tamo. Zato morate biti oprezni kad ostavljate svoju prvu liniju otvorenom, a ona je, u suštini, vaš zid na Facebooku, kako ljudi ne bi po njemu pisali usred noći -- jer je to prikladan ekvivalent. I odjednom, moramo voditi brigu o našem drugom ja. Morate se predstaviti u digitalnom životu na sličan način na koji biste se predstavili u analognom. Na isti način na koji ustajete, tuširate se i oblačite, morate to naučiti i za svoje digitalno ja. Teškoća je u tome što mnogi ljudi danas, naročito adolescenti, moraju proći kroz dva puberteta. Moraju proći kroz primarni pubertet, koji je već neobičan, a zatim moraju proći kroz pubertet svoga drugog ja. A on je još neobičniji jer postoji zabilježena povijest onoga kroz što su prošli na mreži. I svatko tko ulazi kao novak u tehnologiju, je sada adolescent na internetu. Zato je njima vrlo čudno, i vrlo teško činiti sve to.
So when I was little, my dad would sit me down at night and he would say, "I'm going to teach you about time and space in the future." And I said, "Great." And he said one day, "What's the shortest distance between two points?" And I said, "Well, that's a straight line. You told me that yesterday." I thought I was very clever. He said, "No, no, no. Here's a better way." He took a piece of paper, drew A and B on one side and the other and folded them together so where A and B touched. And he said, "That is the shortest distance between two points." And I said, "Dad, dad, dad, how do you do that?" He said, "Well, you just bend time and space, it takes an awful lot of energy, and that's just how you do it." And I said, "I want to do that." And he said, "Well, okay." And so, when I went to sleep for the next 10 or 20 years, I was thinking at night, "I want to be the first person to create a wormhole, to make things accelerate faster. And I want to make a time machine." I was always sending messages to my future self using tape recorders.
Kad sam bila mala, tata bi me noću posjeo i rekao, "Naučit ću te o vremenu i prostoru u budućnosti." Rekla sam, "Sjajno." I jednoga dana je rekao, "Koja je najkraća udaljenost između dvije točke?" Rekla sam, "No, ravna linija. Jučer si mi to rekao. Mislila sam da sam vrlo pametna." Rekao je, "Ne, ne, ne. Postoji bolji način." Uzeo je list papira, nacrtao na svakoj strani A i B i presavinuo papir tako da se A i B dodiruju. I rekao, "To je najkraća udaljenost između dvije točke." Rekla sam, "Tata, tata, tata, kako se to može postići?" Rekao je, "Pa, moraš saviti vrijeme i prostor, za to je potrebno strašno puno energije, i tako se to postiže." Rekla sam, "Želim to napraviti." Rekao je, "Pa, dobro." I tako, kad bih pošla spavati u idućih 10 ili 20 godina, mislila sam noću, "Želim biti prva osoba koja će stvoriti crvotočinu, kako bi stvari mogle brže ubrzavati. I želim napraviti vremenski stroj." Uvijek sam slala poruke mojem budućem ja pomoću kazetofona.
But then what I realized when I went to college is that technology doesn't just get adopted because it works. It gets adopted because people use it and it's made for humans. So I started studying anthropology. And when I was writing my thesis on cell phones, I realized that everyone was carrying around wormholes in their pockets. They weren't physically transporting themselves; they were mentally transporting themselves. They would click on a button, and they would be connected as A to B immediately. And I thought, "Oh, wow. I found it. This is great."
Ali odlaskom na fakultet sam shvatila da se tehnologija ne usvaja zato što funkcionira; usvaja se zato što je ljudi koriste i što je napravljena za ljude. Pa sam počela studirati antropologiju. Kad sam pisala svoj rad o mobitelima, shvatila sam da svi sa sobom nose crvotočine u džepu. Nisu se fizički transportirali, transportirali su se mentalno. Kliknuli bi na tipku i bili smjesta spojeni, kao A i B. Mislila sam, "Oho, otkrila sam je. Ovo je sjajno."
So over time, time and space have compressed because of this. You can stand on one side of the world, whisper something and be heard on the other. One of the other ideas that comes around is that you have a different type of time on every single device that you use. Every single browser tab gives you a different type of time. And because of that, you start to dig around for your external memories -- where did you leave them? So now we're all these paleontologists that are digging for things that we've lost on our external brains that we're carrying around in our pockets. And that incites a sort of panic architecture -- "Oh no, where's this thing?" We're all "I Love Lucy" on a great assembly line of information, and we can't keep up.
I tako su se s vremenom, vrijeme i prostor sabili zbog ovoga. Možete stajati na jednom kraju svijeta, prošaptati nešto i čut će vas na drugom. Jedna od drugih ideja koje dolaze je ta da imate različitu vrstu vremena na svakom pojedinom uređaju. Svaka pojedina kartica u pretraživaču daje vam drugu vrstu vremena. I zbog toga počinjete čeprkati tražeći svoje vanjske memorije - gdje ste ih ostavili? Pa smo sada svi paleontolozi koji kopaju za stvarima koje smo izgubili na vanjskim mozgovima koje nosimo sa sobom u džepovima. A to izaziva svojevrsnu arhitekturu panike. O, ne, gdje je ta stvar? Svi smo mi "Volim Lucy" na velikoj pokretnoj traci informacija, i ne možemo pratiti taj tempo.
And so what happens is, when we bring all that into the social space, we end up checking our phones all the time. So we have this thing called ambient intimacy. It's not that we're always connected to everybody, but at anytime we can connect to anyone we want. And if you were able to print out everybody in your cell phone, the room would be very crowded. These are the people that you have access to right now, in general -- all of these people, all of your friends and family that you can connect to.
Zato, ono što se događa je to da kad sve to unesemo u naš društveni prostor, završimo tako da provjeravamo mobitele cijelo vrijeme. Imamo nešto što zovemo ambijentalna intimnost. Nismo neprekidno spojeni sa svima, ali u bilo koje doba možemo se spojiti s kim god želimo. I kad biste mogli isprintati svakoga iz vašeg mobitela, u sobi bi nastala velika gužva. To su ljudi do kojih odmah imate pristup, općenito -- svi ti ljudi, svi vaši prijatelji i obitelj s kojom se možete povezati.
And so there are some psychological effects that happen with this. One I'm really worried about is that people aren't taking time for mental reflection anymore, and that they aren't slowing down and stopping, being around all those people in the room all the time that are trying to compete for their attention on the simultaneous time interfaces, paleontology and panic architecture. They're not just sitting there. And really, when you have no external input, that is a time when there is a creation of self, when you can do long-term planning, when you can try and figure out who you really are. And then, once you do that, you can figure out how to present your second self in a legitimate way, instead of just dealing with everything as it comes in -- and oh, I have to do this, and I have to do this, and I have to do this. And so this is very important. I'm really worried that, especially kids today, they're not going to be dealing with this down-time, that they have an instantaneous button-clicking culture, and that everything comes to them, and that they become very excited about it and very addicted to it.
Postoje neki psihološki učinci do kojih dolazi zbog ovoga. Jedan koji me stvarno brine je taj da ljudi više ne posvećuju vrijeme razmišljanju, da ne usporavaju i ne zastaju, okruženi svim tim ljudima u sobi svo vrijeme koji se pokušavaju nadmetati za njihovu pažnju na istovremenim vremenskim sučeljima, paleontologiji i arhitekturi panike. Nije da oni samo sjede mirno. Zaista, kad nemate vanjskog inputa, to je vrijeme izgradnje svoga ja, vrijeme kad planirate dugoročno, kad pokušavate shvatiti tko ste zapravo. A kad to jednom učinite, onda možete shvatiti kako na legitiman način predstaviti svoje drugo ja, umjesto da se samo nosite sa svime kako dolazi -- o, moram to uraditi, i moram to uraditi, i moram to uraditi. Zato je to vrlo važno. Zaista sam zabrinuta da, posebno današnja djeca, neće posvetiti vremena sebi samima, da pripadaju kulturi klikanja po tipkama bez odlaganja, da sve dolazi k njima, i da postaju vrlo uzbuđeni zbog toga i vrlo ovisni.
So if you think about it, the world hasn't stopped either. It has its own external prosthetic devices, and these devices are helping us all to communicate and interact with each other. But when you actually visualize it, all the connections that we're doing right now -- this is an image of the mapping of the Internet -- it doesn't look technological. It actually looks very organic. This is the first time in the entire history of humanity that we've connected in this way. And it's not that machines are taking over. It's that they're helping us to be more human, helping us to connect with each other.
Ako razmislite o tome, ni svijet nije stao. Svijet ima vlastite vanjske protetičke uređaje, i ti uređaji nam svima pomažu u komunikaciji i ostvarivanju kontakata. No, kad stvar vizualizirate, sve te veze koje upravo ostvarujemo -- ovo je slika mapiranja Interneta -- to ne izgleda tehnološki; izgleda zapravo sasvim organski. Ovo je prvi puta u čitavoj povijesti čovječanstva da smo povezani na ovaj način. A nije stvar u tome da strojevi preuzimaju; oni nam pomažu biti još više ljudi, pomažu nam da se povežemo jedni s drugima.
The most successful technology gets out of the way and helps us live our lives. And really, it ends up being more human than technology, because we're co-creating each other all the time. And so this is the important point that I like to study: that things are beautiful, that it's still a human connection -- it's just done in a different way. We're just increasing our humanness and our ability to connect with each other, regardless of geography. So that's why I study cyborg anthropology.
Najuspješnija tehnologija se miče s puta i pomaže nam živjeti naše živote. I doista, na kraju postaje više ljudskom nego tehnologijom, jer sudjelujemo u stvaranju jedni drugih svo vrijeme. I zato je važna stvar koju volim proučavati: da su stvari lijepe, da je još uvijek riječ o čovjekovoj povezanosti; samo što se ona postiže na drukčiji način. Mi samo povećavamo svoju ljudskost i svoju sposobnost međusobnog povezivanja, bez obzira na zemljopis. I zato ja proučavam antropologiju kiborga.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)