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.
Rada bi vsem povedala, da ste vsi pravzaprav kiborgi, a ne takšni kiborgi, kot si jih zamišljate. Niste RoboCop, niste Terminator, a kiborg postanete vsakič, ko pogledate na računalniški zaslon ali uporabite svoj mobilni telefon. Kaj je torej dobra definicija za kiborga? No, tradicionalna definicija pomeni organizem, "kateremu so bile dodane zunanje komponente z namenom prilagajanja novim okoljem". To izvira iz besedila o potovanju v vesolje iz leta 1960. Ker, če pomislite, vesolje je precej neprijetno in neprimerno za bivanje ljudi. A ljudje so radovedni in svojim telesom radi dodajajo različne stvari, da se lahko en dan odpravijo v Alpe, potem pa postanejo riba v morju.
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."
Poglejmo torej koncept tradicionalne antropologije. Nekdo gre v drugo državo, reče: "Kako privlačni so ti ljudje, kako zanimiva orodja uporabljajo, kako nenavadna je njihova kultura". In potem napišejo znanstveno razpravo, ki jo morda prebere nekaj antropologov in vse to se nam zdi zelo eksotično. Kar se dogaja je to, da smo nenadoma odkrili novo vrsto. Jaz, kot antropologinja kiborgov, sem nenadoma rekla: "O, vau. Zdaj imamo naenkrat novo vrsto homo sapiensa. In poglej te zanimive kulture. In poglej te nenavadne rituale, ki jih vsi izvajajo okrog teh tehnologij. Klikajo na stvari in stmijo v zaslone".
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.
Obstaja razlog, zakaj študiram to, namesto tradicionalne antropologije. Razlog za to je ta, da je bila uporaba orodja na začetku, tisoče in tisoče let, vse je bilo fizična sprememba samega sebe. Pomagala nam je razširiti naš fizični jaz -- premikati se hitreje, udarjati močneje -- in vse to je imelo svoje meje. A zdaj to, kar opazujemo, ni razširitev fizičnega jaza, temveč razširitev umskega jaza. In zaradi tega lahko potujemo hitreje, komuniciramo drugače. In druga stvar, ki se zgodi, ko nosimo s sabo tehnologijo, ki spominja na malo Mary Poppins. Vanjo lahko spravimo karkoli, pa ne postane težja in kasneje lahko vse vzamemo ven. Kako dejansko izgleda notranjost vašega računalnika? No, če bi jo natisnili, bi izgledala kot pol tone težek kup materiala, ki ga nosite s sabo ves čas. In če dejansko izgubite te informacije, to pomeni, da ste nenadoma izgubili del uma, čutite, da naenkrat nekaj manjka, le da tega ne morete videti, zato je občutek zelo nenavaden.
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.
Druga stvar, ki se zgodi, je, da imate drugi jaz. Naj vam bo to všeč ali ne, začenjate se pojavljati na interneti in ljudje so v interakciji z vašim drugim jazom, tudi ko vas ni tam. In zato morate biti previdni, da svoje prve linije ne pustite preveč odprte, in to je praktično vaš Facebook zid, da ljudje ne pišejo po njem sredi noči -- kar je skoraj enako. In nenadoma moramo začeti vzdrževati ta drugi jaz. V digitalnem svetu se moraš predstaviti podobno, kot bi se v 'analognem' življenju. Torej na enak način, kot se zbudiš, stuširaš in oblečeš, se moraš naučiti enako storiti z digitalnim jazom. In problem mnogih ljudi v tem trenutku, posebno mladoletnikov, je v tem, da morajo preživeti dve puberteti. Morajo se prebiti čez prvo, ki je že tako čudno obdobje, ko pa se prebijajo skozi odraščanje drugega jaza, je vse skupaj še bolj čudno, saj obstaja dejansko zgodovina tega, kar doživljajo na internetu. In vsak, ki prihaja v stik z novo tehnologijo, je trenutno v puberteti. In tako je zanje zelo čudno in težko početi te stvari.
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.
Ko sem bila majhna, mi je oče ob večernih pogovorih rekel: "Naučil te bom o času in prostoru v prihodnosti". In rekla sem: "Super". In nekega dne je rekel: "Kaj je najkrajša razdalja med dvema točkama?" Rekla sem: "No, to je ravna črta. To si mi povedal včeraj. Mislila sem, da sem zelo pametna". Rekel je: "Ne, ne, ne. Tu je boljši način". Vzel je kos papirja, narisal A in B na eno in drugo stran, nato pa je papir prepognil tako, da sta se A in B stikala. Rekel je: "To je najkrajša razdalja med dvema točkama". In jaz sem rekla: "Ati, ati, kako narediš to?" Rekel je: "No, samo prepogneš čas in prostor, kar zahteva veliko energije in tako preprosto to narediš". Rekla sem: "To hočem narediti". In on je rekel: "No, dobro". In tako sem, ko sem naslednjih 10 ali 20 let hodila spat, ponoči razmišljala: "Hočem biti prva, ki ustvari črvino, ki bo stvari pospeševala hitreje. In hočem ustvariti časovni stroj". Vedno sem pošiljala sporočila sama sebi v prihodnost s pomočjo kasetnih snemalnikov.
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."
A ko sem začela študirati, sem spoznala, da tehnologija ni tako sprejeta zato, ker deluje; sprejeta je zato, ker jo ljudje uporabljajo in ker je narejena za ljudi. Tako sem začela študirati antropologijo. Ko sem pisala doktorat na temo mobilnih telefonov, sem spoznala, da vsi nosijo okrog črvine v svojih žepih. Niso se sami fizično tansportirali, so se pa transportirali mentalno. Če so kliknili na gumb, so se nemudoma povezali od A do B. Pomislila sem: "O, vau. Odkrila sem nekaj. To je odlično".
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.
Zaradi tega sta se čas in prostor tekom časa stisnila. Lahko stojiš na eni strani sveta, zašepetaš nekaj, kar je mogoče slišati na drugi strani sveta. Ena od drugih idej, ki se pojavijo, je ta, da imaš različno vrsto časa na vsaki napravi, ki jo uporabljaš. Vsak posamezen brskalnik ti da občutek drugačnega časa. In zaradi tega začneš iskati svoje zunanje spomine -- kje si jih pustil? Tako smo zdaj vsi paleontologi, ki iščemo stvari, ki smo jih izgubili iz naših zunanjih možganov, ki jih nosimo v žepih. Vse to ustvarja nekakšno arhitekturo panike. O ne, kje je ta reč? Vsi smo 'I Love Lucy' (ameriška nanizanka, op. p.) na tekočem traku informacij in ne moremo zdržati tempa.
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.
Kar se zgodi je to, da ko prenesemo vse to v družbeno okolje, končamo tako, da neprestano preverjamo naše telefone. Imamo to reč, ki ji pravimo ambientna intimnost. Ne gre za to, da smo vedno povezano z vsemi, a kadar koli lahko kontaktiramo kogar koli želimo. In če bi lahko natisnili vse ljudi, ki so v vašem telefonu, bi bila v sobi huda gneča. To so vsi ljudje, do katerih imate dostop v tem trenutku, v glavnem -- vsi ti ljudje, vsi prijatelji in družinski člani, s katerimi se lahko povežete.
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.
Tako se pojavi nekaj psiholoških učinkov. En, ki me še posebno skrbi, je ta, da si ljudje ne vzamejo več časa za razmišljanje, in da se ne znajo upočasniti in ustaviti, saj so neprestano v sobi z vsemi temi ljudmi, ki se borijo za njihovo pozornost na simultanih časovnih povezavah, paleontologiji in arhitekturi panike. Ne sedijo samo tam. In resnično, ko nimaš zunanjega vira informacij, takrat je čas, ko lahko ustvarjaš svoj jaz, ko lahko načrtuješ na dolgi rok, ko lahko poskusiš ugotoviti, kdo zares si. In potem, ko to enkrat ugotoviš, lahko spoznaš, kako predstaviti svoj drugi jaz na primeren način, namesto da se spopadaš z vsem, kar se pojavi -- in o, moram storiti to, moram storiti to in moram storiti to. Zato je to tako pomembno. Resnično me skrbi, posebno za otroke, da ne bodo dobili dovolj tega časa zase, saj ustvarjajo to instantno kulturo pritiskanja gumbov in dobijo vse na pladnju, ter postanejo zelo navdušeni in zelo odvisni od tega.
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.
Ko pomislite o tem, svet se prav tako ni ustavil. Ima svoje lastne zunanje naprave in vse te naprave nam pomagajo pri komuniciranju in interakciji z en drugim. Ko si to dejansko vizualiziraš, vse te povezave, ki jih pravkar ustvarjamo -- je to slika zemljevida interneta -- ne izgleda tehnološko; dejansko izgleda zelo organsko. To je prvič v celi zgodovini človeštva, da se povezujemo na tak način. In ne gre za to, da bi stroji prevzeli svet; gre za to, da nam pomagajo biti bolj človeški, pomagajo nam pri sporazumevanju.
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.
Najbolj uspešna tehnologija se umakne in nam pomaga živeti naša življenja. In resnično, na koncu je bolj človeška kot tehnološka, saj so-ustvarjamo drug drugega ves čas. In to je pomembna točka, ki bi jo rada proučevala: da so vse stvari lepe, da še vedno obstaja povezava med ljudmi; le da je v drugačni obliki. Povečujemo našo človeškost in našo sposobnost sporazumevanja, ne glede na geografijo. Zaradi tega torej študiram antropologijo kiborgov.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplavz)