Work: Crowdsourcing, Free Labour and the Californian Ideology

The California Ideology is a hybridization of cybernetics, free labour, and counterculture libertarianism. This ideology has been widely promoted by magazines such as the Wired and Mondo along with academic readings such as the books of Stewart Brand, Douglas Rushkoff, and Kevin Kelly among others. It was a systematic and analytical insight into the rapid growth of the Internet and its effect on the economy. In simpler terms the Californian ideology was a critical perception towards the technological neoliberalism that came with the expansion of the World Wide Web. The academic findings of the Californian ideology outlined a peculiar culture and highlighted the advancing technological arts, entertainment and media. The aim of the ideology was focused towards one goal only, which was to create a democracy in cyberspace where everyone was free to express themselves the way they wanted. (Barbrook & Cameron, 1995)

This phenomenon of free labour and Crowdsourcing that has been endorsed by the Californian ideology refers to the democratic participation of people as volunteers in order to complete an assigned task where a group of people contribute in their own small way leading to a greater result. (Jeff Howe, 2006)

This ideology was promoted through publications by the business class in the information technology market, which was a hybrid of the ideas of Marshall McLuhan along with some individualism, libertarianism, and neoliberal economics that gave birth to anti-statism and techno-utopianism. This new culture preached the principles of knowledge based economy through the exploitation of information that facilitates growth of wealth with the help of virtual communities across the Internet. (Best & Paterson, 2010)

Critics argue that although the Californian Ideology has empowered the organisations with increased wealth and growing network of business, it has classified the society into groups based on their socioeconomic conditions. The Californian ideology remains a form of reactionary modernism which has been seconded by Barbrook, who suggested that "American neo-liberalism seems to have successfully achieved the contradictory aims of reactionary modernism: economic progress and social immobility. Because the long-term goal of liberating everyone will never be reached, the short-term rule of the digerati can last forever." (Barbrook, 2000)

Panoptic Panics: Privacy, Security & Cyberwarfare

The concept of panopticism refers to the social theory of surveillance, where subjects are observed. According to Michael Foucault, how developed the theory of panopticism, it is a kind of an experiment conducted by the authority on its employees and prisoners, but monitoring them and their deeds continuously

JeremyBentham was the first to propose the concept of a panopticon when he proposed an observation tower inside a building to monitor the prisoners inside their cell walls with the purpose of increasing the security by facilitating more effective surveillance.

The fundamental role of panoptics is to pave the way for a transparent society where everyone would be watched in order to prevent them from being unlawful, unethical and immoral. It is often seen that people tend to put on their best behaviors when they are aware that they are being watched and will be held accountable for their mistakes. Hence panopticism provides an incentive to do well, and do the right things.

An example of this is the plenty of CCTV cameras around the workplace as well as social establishments, which have been designed to specifically discourage criminal activities. However, as encouraging and positive it looks, a transparent society created by panoptics has its downside. The challenges posed towards privacy and security is immense. The advent of digital devices such as object recognition, person recognition, biometrics, sensors are readily available nowadays and spying on others are easier than ever.

As pointed out by David Brin, due to this transparency, it has become harder than ever to main secrecy where necessary. An example of this is the case of WIKI LEAKS where documents relating to national security were released on the web with the help of panopticism theory, which almost resulted in a civil war. (Bateson et al., 2006)

The Digital mind/body: Investigate the Cultural Construction of Robot in Contemporary Western Culture

The magnitude of technological involvement in contemporary lifestyle has transformed our cultural and social surroundings, so much so that a human brain can be considered as a digital mind, like a robot for example.

 

Electronic gadgets such as cell phones, iPods, and computers have become an integral part of our daily life. Several surveys state that even a five year old child spends an average of six hours in front of an electronic screen, making them accustomed to the presence of digital media around them. Latest studies indicate that in the United States people almost doubled their online time between 2005 and 2009, and in the same period the online time of European people grew by a third and the unemployed individuals in the UK spent 45% of their leisure hours engaged in some sort of media and communication technology. (Richard Watson, 2010)

The advancement of communication technology and Cyberspace has left most of the Western World communicating through text messages and emails instead of traditional face to face conversations. This all round technological presence has affected the thought process and attitudes of mankind in such a way that they seemed to be programmed to think as robots, with a digital mind, For example, a person looking for information no longer approaches another human being next door, instead he/she uses Google for information.

Scientists who study the psychology of the brain believe that this type of habit and behaviours is most likely to influence the way people act and think. Famous Neuroscientist, Michael Merzenich suggests that a human brain is ‘plastic’ and that it reacts to any new stimulus. Simply put, this means that the human brain is likely to adapt to any new habit, hence turning into a digital mind/body when introduced to digital world long enough. This has been further explained by Professor Susan Greenfield, who states that digital involvement of people produces a blast of dopamine in prefrontal cortex and this affects the brain. Longer periods of involvement produces a blast so severe that it becomes unlikely to develop an original mind as the blast often compromises the reasoning ability of the brain. (Richard Watson, 2010: 7)

Hence, to summarise, the advancing technology and booming cyberspace are continually transforming the human-esque behaviours within the society and is creating a digital culture, converting mankind into breathing and walking robots.

 

The Dilemmas of Privacy & Identity Theft in Cyberculture

With the growing involvement of the Internet in the modern life, the pros and cons of Cyberculture are an intriguing issue to reflect upon. Along with several perks of being technology savvy and embracing the revolution of Cyberculture, crimes such as identity theft and invasion of privacy stand out as notable hindrances. This write up reflects on the issues of identity theft and lack of privacy amongst other cybercrimes such as theft, fraud, copyright infringement, and attacks.

A technology dependant life has left people vulnerable to certain technological crimes as the computer systems can be manipulated to design hacking and other cyber crimes. With computer information systems being an inseparable identity of modern life, it is thus essential to analyze both the risks and the advantageous opportunities of the Internet and computers, in order to minimize the risks.

IDENTITYTHEFT refers to the unauthorized obtaining of financial or legal information of a person and then utilizing it for a personal gain, in a way that secures the actual identity of the criminal. Several example of identity theft over the years have raised awareness and protection from organizations. In July, 2001, MSNBC.com reporter Bob Sullivan reflected on how his Social Security numbers, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, and credit card information was shared publicly in a chat room.

Individuals affected with identity theft usually deal with fraudulent financial transactions on personal accounts. Some eminent personalities that have experienced this particular cybercrime are Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey.

The lack of privacy is another popular cybercrime, which begs the question, whether anything is private anymore. Among the different ways of privacy invasion, spying through monitoring software, emails, internet cookies, search history etc. are extremely popular issues since the inception of a technology based life.