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.
Želela bih da vam kažem da ste svi vi ustvari kiborzi, ali ne kiborzi na koje vi mislite. Niste Robokap, niti Terminator, ali vi postajete kiborg svaki put kada pogledate u monitor od kompjutera ili koristite neke od vaših mobilnih telefona. Koja bi definicija kiborga bila dobra? Pa, po tradicionalnoj definiciji to je organizam "kojem su dodate egzogene komponente u cilju prilagođavanja novoj okolini." Ova definicija je iz 1960. iz članka o putovanju u svemir. Jer, ako razmislite o tome, svemir je jako čudan; ljudima tamo nije mesto. Ali ljudi su radoznali i vole da dodaju stvari svojim telima kako bi jednog dana mogli da odu na Alpe, a drugog postanu 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."
Hajde da pogledamo ovaj pojam u tradicionalnoj antropologiji. Neko otputuje u drugu zemlju, kaže "Kako su fascinantni ovi ljudi, kako je zanimljivo njihovo oruđe, kako je čudna njihova kultura." I onda napišu članak o tome i moža ga poneki antropolog pročita, a mi pomislimo kako je to veoma egzotično. Zapravo, ono što se dešava je da smo iznenada otkrili novu vrstu. Ja, kao antropolog kiborga, iznenada sam rekla, "Opa. Sada smo odjednom postali novi oblik homo sapiensa. Pogledajte samo te fascinantne kulture. Pogledajte sve te zanimljive rituale vezane za tehnologiju koje svi svakodnevno rade. Svi klikću po stvarima i bulje u monitore."
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 zbog čega ovo proučavam, umesto tradicionalne antropologije. A razlog je da je upotreba alata, na početku, hiljadama i hiljadama godina, bila fizička modifikacija bića. Pomogla nam je da unapredimo naša fizička bića, da brže idemo, da jače udaramo, ali i to je imalo svoju granicu. Međutim ono čega smo svedoci sada nije unapređenje našeg fizičkog bića, već unapređenje našeg mentalnog bića. I zbog toga možemo brže da putujemo i drugačije da komuniciramo. Druga stvar koja se dešava je da svi mi sa sobom stalno nosimo minijaturnu Meri Popins tehnologiju. U nju možemo da stavimo sve što poželimo bez da ikad postane teža a potom možemo bilo šta da izvadimo. Kako unutrašnjost kompjutera zapravo izgleda? Pa, ako je ištampate, izgleda kao tona materijala koju stalno nosite sa sobom. A ako izgubite te podatke, to znači da odjednom imate rupu u sećanju, da naprasno osećate kao da nešto nedostaje, samo što to ne možete da vidite, pa vas obuzme jako bizaran osećaj.
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 koja se događa je da vi posedujete svoju repliku. Svidelo vam se to ili ne, počinjete da se pojavljujete onlajn, i ljudi komuniciraju sa vašom replikom i kada vi niste prisutni. Tako da treba da vodite računa da vaša ulazna vrata ne ostavljate otvorena, što je u osnovi zid vašeg Fejsbuka, da ljudi ne bi pisali po njemu u sred noći -- što je u velikoj meri slično. A onda odjednom moramo da počnemo da vodimo računa o svojoj replici. U digitalnnom životu morate da se predstavite na sličan način kao što biste to uradili u analognom životu. Tako, na isti način kao što se budite, tuširate i oblačite, morate da naučite to sve da radite za digitalnog sebe. I problem je što mnogo ljudi sada, posebno adolescenti, moraju da prolaze kroz dve adolescencije. Moraju da prođu kroz primarnu adolescenciju, to je već dovoljno čudno, a onda prolaze i kroz adolescenciju svoje replike. A to je još čudnije jer postoji prava istorija svega kroz šta su prošli onlajn. I svako ko kao novajlija ulazi u svet tehnologije je adolescent onlajn upravo sada. Jako je to čudno, i veoma im je teško da rade 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.
Kada sam bila mala, tata bi me uveče stavio u svoje krilo i rekao, "Sada ću te naučiti nešto o vremenu i prostoru u budućnosti." I ja sam rekla: "Sjajno." I jednog dana pitao me je: "Koja je najkraća razdaljina između dve tačke?" I ja sam odgovorila: "Pa, to je prava linija. To si mi rekao juče." Pomislila sam kako sam to pametno rekla. Reče: "Ne, ne, ne. Evo boljeg načina." Uzeo je list papira, nacrtao tačku A na jednoj i tačku B na drugoj strani i savio napola tako da se A i B dodiruju. Rekao je: "To je najkraća razdaljina između dve tačke." A ja sam rekla: "Tata, tata, tata kako si to uradio?" Rekao je: "Pa, samo saviješ vreme i prostor, za to je potrebno jako puno energije, tako se to radi." A ja sam rekla: "Hoću ja to da uradim." A on reče "U redu." I tako, kada sam narednih 10 ili 20 godina odlazila da spavam noću bih razmišljala "Želim da budem prva osoba koja će napraviti crvotočinu, da bi stvari imale veće ubrzanje. I želim da napravim vremeplov." Uvek bih slala poruke budućoj sebi koristeći magnetofone.
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 onda, kada sam otišla na koledž shvatila sam da se tehnologija ne prihvata samo zato što funkcioniše; prihvata se zato što je ljudi koriste i zato što je namenjena ljudima. Tako sam počela da studiram antropologiju. Kada sam pisala svoju disertaciju o mobilnim telefonima, shvatila sam da svi zapravo nose crvotočine u svojim džepovima. Nisu se fizički transportovali, ali su se mentalno transportovali. Kliknuli bi na dugme, i bili bi momentalno povezani kao tačka A sa tačkom B. I pomislila sam: "Opa. Pronašla sam je. To 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.
Vremenom, vreme i prostor su se zbog ovog kompresovali. Možete stajati na jednom kraju sveta, šaputati nešto, a da vas čuju na drugom. Jedna od ostalih ideja koje se javljaju je da imate različite vrste vremena na svakom pojedinačnom uređaju koji koristite. Svaka pojedinačno otvorena stranica u internet pretraživaču predstavlja različitu vrstu vremena. Upravo zbog toga, počinjete da tragate za svojim eksternim sećanjima -- gde ste ih posejali? Sada smo mi svi paleontolozi koji tragaju za stvarima koje su izgubili u svojim eksternim mozgovima koje nosimo sa sobom u džepovima. A to izaziva neku vrstu arhitekture panike. O ne, gde je sad ovo? Svi smo mi "Ja volim Lusi" na velikoj pokretnoj traci sa informacijama, i ne možemo da idemo u korak.
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.
Tada se dešava da, kada sve to izmestimo u društveni prostor svede se na naše neprestano proveravanje telefona. Pa imamo nešto što se zove bliskost okruženja. To ne znači da smo uvek povezani sa svima, već da se u bilo kom trenutku možemo povezati s kim god poželimo. A ako biste mogli da svakog prebacite u vaš mobilni telefon, bilo bi prenatrpano. To su oni ljudi s kojima možete momentalno da stupite u kontakt, generalno -- to su svi ti ljudi, svi vaši prijatelji i članovi porodice sa kojima 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.
Tu se uz to javljaju i psihološke posledice. Jedna koja me veoma brine je da ljudi više ne ostavljaju sebi vremena za razmišljanje i da ne usporavaju niti prestaju da budu okruženi svim tim ljudima u sobi koji pokušavaju da se nadmeću za pažnju na vremenski simultanim interfejsovima, palenteologiji i arhitekturi panike. Nije da oni samo sede tamo. Jer ustvari, kad nemate nikakvu spoljašnju ulaznu informaciju, tada je vreme stvaranja sebe, kada možete nešto dugoročno da isplanirate, kada možete da pokušate da shvatite ko ste vi zapravo. A onda, kada ste to uradili, možete da smislite kako svoju repliku da predstavite na legitiman način, umesto da samo rešavate sve onda kada se pojavi -- pa bude, jao, moram da uradim ovo i moram da uradim ono. Zato je ovo jako važno. Veoma me brine to što se, posebno deca danas, neće baviti ovim stvarnim vremenom, što imaju instant kulturu na dugme, i što sve njima dolazi i što postaju jako uzbuđeni oko toga i veoma zavisni.
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, svet isto tako nije stao. Ima svoje spoljne protetske uređaje, i ti uređaji nam pomažu da komuniciramo i sarađujemo jedni s drugima. Ali kad to zapravo vizualizujete, sve veze koje pravimo upravo sada -- ovo je slika koja prikazuje preslikan Internet -- ne izgleda tehološki; ustvari izgleda veoma organski. Ovo je prvi put u celokupnoj istoriji čovečanstva da se povezujemo na ovaj način. I nije da mašine preuzimaju kontrolu; već nam pomažu da budemo ljudskiji, pomažu da se povežemo jedni sa 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.
Najuspešnija tehnologija sklanja se s puta i pomaže nam da živimo naše živote. I stvarno, svede se na to da smo ljudskiji od tehnologije, jer sve vreme ko-kreiramo jedno drugo. I ovo je važna stvar koju želim da proučavam: da su stvari divne, da je sve to još uvek ljudska povezanost; samo što je povezana na drugačiji način. Mi samo unapređujemo našu ljudskost i našu sposobnost da se međusobno povežemo, bez obzira na geografiju. Eto zato proučavam antropologiju kiborga.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(aplauz)