The Real Losers

A word to the readers of The Atlantic, whose editor Jeffrey Goldberg kowtowed to the mob and fired Mr. Williamson before the ink was even dry on his contract: you're the real losers. Hope you're enjoying life in your little bubble.

When the Twitter Mob Came for Me, by Kevin Williamson

The Train Leaves the Station

 

Methinks these schools may rue the day they encouraged this event. 

What kind of letters will these administrators be sending to their teachers next January, for example, if millions of students across the nation stage a National School Walkout for the murdered unborn, or a National School Walkout for gun rights?

“It’s a teachable moment,” say the wise and judicious administrators. “We want to support what they want to do. It’s not ours to plan, it’s not ours to encourage, it‘s not ours to discourage.”

A teachable moment? Well, then. Let the teaching begin…with them. Because now that the floodgates have been opened (and they have), the real lesson will come when these administrators are confronted with a flurry of causes that students insist on demonstrating for during school hours, causes that may (or may not) represent these administrators’ views.

I taught today (community college) but not until late afternoon. Part of me was glad I didn’t have to even deal with this (we got our letters). The other part of me, the part that has me pacing the floors in anger at how this country is so manipulated by the far left, wishes I had taught at 10 a.m. Because I would have lectured to an empty room for 13 minutes and tested for 4. Fine, miss my class for your cause (good cause, bad cause, whatever), but I won’t be held hostage by your cause. The train leaves the station at 10, class carries on, be here or don’t be here.

But I’m tired of being manipulated.

Epic Fail

I have to say something.

I listen to the mostly nonsense that I hear on social media and cable news and tell myself, Don’t, Elaine, just don’t. It’s not worth it. People think what they think, and nothing you say will make a difference. 

But sometimes, it’s just, well, I admit, it’s just too hard to say nothing.

The kids, I don’t blame them. They’ve been traumatized. They need to lash out, at someone, at the system that let them down, at the adults who failed them. So they need to speak, and I say, let them speak. I don’t blame them for their ignorance, their naiveté, their idealism.

But I do blame those who are exploiting the kids. Those silly people who who say, “Run for president!” (that’s what someone on Facebook said about one of the spokeskids), who thrust microphones in their faces, who cheer when they curse their senators, who celebrate their protests, who encourage them to cast blame for their pain on a single solution. Get rid of the guns. Problem solved.

But “too many guns” is not what failed these kids.

Adults failed them. 

The school system failed them.

Local law enforcement failed them.

Sheriff Scott Israel failed them.

The FBI failed them.

Social services failed them.

Mental health professionals failed them.

At any point along the path leading to this massacre, this shooter–a kid himself–could and should have been pulled off the trajectory.

But he wasn’t. From start to finish, the system failed. I don’t use this word often, but in this case, it works: it was epic. 

Yet now, as if on cue, we’re talking about gun control. Hunting’s OK, sure. But guns for self protection? No. The average citizen doesn’t need a gun for protection, we’re lectured, because law enforcement will protect us.

Right. 

How’d that work out for these kids in Florida? 

Ironically, the failure of law enforcement in this tragedy actually underscores why the average citizen thinks he needs his gun for self-protection. Because now that the dust has settled, it’s quite clear, law enforcement isn’t always up to the task. It’s either inept, inefficient, incompetent, intimidated, or all of the above.

To repeat: From start to finish, I see this incident as epic fail on the part of law enforcement. And I’m disgusted at the cynicism of gun-control advocates who are shamelessly exploiting the grief and anger and vulnerability, and yes, ignorance, of teenagers who should be left to themselves to grieve and to heal, who should not be thrust into the limelight of a manipulative media frenzy.

Google and Our Brains: A Summary of Nicolas Carr's Article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Here's my summary and outline of Nicolas Carr's 2008 Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" which I prepared for my students this semester (see discussion here). 

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic July/August 2008)

Summary  

Are we becoming like HAL, the supercomputer featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, losing our ability to think? Nicolas Carr suggests as much in his article, “Is Google Making us Stupid?” published in the July/August 2008 issue of The Atlantic. The article begins with Carr’s admission that he, like HAL, feels his mind “is going,” that is, he is losing his ability to concentrate or maintain any level of sustained reading. He attributes this change to the amount of time he now spends reading material online and suspects that the type of reading he does online is “chipping away at [his] capacity for concentration and contemplation.”

Carr’s theory is bolstered not only anecdotally, with fellow writers expressing similar experiences, but scientifically, as an emerging body of research suggests that we “may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think.” Studies seem to suggest that how we read influences how we think, and that, because we are reading more material online, our brains are actually adapting to the kind of reading we do online. In other words, it’s possible that the way we read actually shapes “the neural circuits inside our brains.”

By analogy, Carr relates the story of how the 19^th century German philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, who was losing his eyesight, began to type his thoughts with his eyes closed. Many noted at the time how his “already terse prose [became] even tighter,” the implication being that the brain, being malleable, will adapt to the technology it is using most frequently. Carr’s point: the Internet affects cognition, causing our brains to adapt, and, consequently, traditional forms of media need to adapt, as well.

What does all this have to do with Google? Another analogy. Staying in the 19^th century, Carr describes how the mechanical engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor revolutionized productivity and efficiency in the steel industry by his methodical scientific analysis of how machinists and machines worked. His objective being, “Maximum speed, maximum efficiency, maximum output,” Taylor developed a “utopia of efficiency,” which relied more on science (facts) than “rule of thumb” (practice).

This same approach applies, Carr suggests, to the realm of the mind, since information is a kind of commodity. Carr suggests that Google’s objective, like Taylor’s, is ultimate efficiency: “What Taylor did for the work of the hand, Google is doing for the work of the mind.” Google seems to be on a quest for the “ultimate search engine,” a Hal-like artificial intelligence that could be “directly attached” to our brains. This objective makes sense if you assume, as the founders of Google apparently do, that “the human brain is just an outdated computer.”

Carr concedes that his fears may be overwrought. He admits that Socrates “bemoaned the development of writing” and that the Gutenberg printing press “set off another round of teeth gnashing.” He advises the reader to “be skeptical of my skepticism” about Google. Nevertheless, he does ask the reader to at least consider the consequences of the loss of “quiet spaces” of the mind. “Deep reading,” he writes, citing one leading researcher, “is indistinguishable from deep thinking.” Carr closes by evoking HAL’s final, poignant plea for the astronaut to “stop.” It’s HAL, Carr muses, who comes across as more human, and the astronaut more machine-like. “That’s the essence of Kubrick’s dark prophesy,” he concludes. “As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” 

Is Google Making Us Stupid?*

by Nicholas Carr (The Atlantic July/August 2008)

Outline

Introduction Author begins by analogy, comparing his mind to the supercomputer “HAL” from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey” saying, “My mind is going.” 

I. A Sea Change in the Way We Read and Think (¶ 1-5)

A.        Anecdotal Evidence (his friends’ experiences)

B.        Scientific Evidence ( “power browsing” rather than reading)

C.        Reading More but Thinking Less (“a different kind of reading

            means a different kind of thinking”)

D.        Reading is Not an Instinctive Skill (“the type of reading we

            practice shapes the neural circuits inside our brains”)

II. Intellectual Technologies Give and Take Away (¶ 6-16)

A.        Nietzche’s Typewriter Symbolizes the Connection Between

            Equipment and Thought

B.        The Malleable Brain: The Adult Mind is Plastic and Able to

            Reprogram Itself

C.        The Mechanical Clock Creates a Disassociation Between Time

            and Human Events

D.        How the Internet Affects Cognition

                        1. The Internet Absorbs Other Technologies

                        2. Traditional Media is Transformed as it is Forced to

                        Adapt

III. Taylor’s Algorithm—“A Utopia of Efficiency” (¶ 17-19)

A.        Taylor’s Observation of Workers and Machines at Midvale

            Steel Plant

B.        Maximum Speed, Maximum Efficiency, Maximum Output:

            The Substitution of Science (facts) for “Rule of Thumb”

            (practice).

C.        Fast Forward to Today: Taylor’s Ethic of Industrial

            Manufacturing Now Governs the Realm of the Mind

IV. What is Google’s End Game? (¶ 20-25)

A.        The Science of Measurement: Behavioral Data, Algorithms,

            and Me

B.        The Perfect Search Engine: Information is a Kind of

            Commodity

C.        Can Artificial Intelligence be Connected to Human Brains?

D.        No Room for Ambiguity or Contemplation in Google’s

            Business Model

V. Overreaction or Valid Concern? (¶ 26-30)

A. Socrates’ Fears: The Development of Writing Will Become

            a Substitute for Wisdom

B. Squarciaficos’ Fear: Printing Press Will Lead to Intellectual

            Laziness

C. Deep Reading = Deep Thinking: The Internet is Displacing “Quiet

            Spaces” of the Mind

D. The Author’s Fear: Our Intelligence Flattens, and we are Becoming

            “HAL” 

---

* Copyright of outline and summary belongs to Elaine Minamide (2017)

Puzzling Our Way Through a Longish Article

I assigned Nicolas Carr's essay, "Is Google Making Us Stupid"(published in The Atlantic in 2008) to my English 50 class this semester. The article is slightly more advanced than ones I usually assign to this level (this is a non-transfer level introductory English composition class), so I designed a "Jigsaw" approach, in which five groups of four or five students were given one section to read, analyze, and outline. Groups then were tasked to create a poster-sized outline (illustrated) and present their outlines to the rest of the class, one section at a time. Gradually, the "puzzle pieces" came together to present a completed whole.

Here are the posters from one of my two sections of English 50 (Section III fell off the wall--I'll add that one later).

A follow up assignment (write a formal summary of their individual sections) came next. When we get together next week, I'll present them with a complete summary of the entire article which I wrote and ask them to identify the sections separately and note how they flow together into a seamless whole.

I learned this Jigsaw method during the TESL Certificate Program that I completed this summer at Cal State University San Marcos and decided I'd test it out on my students this semester. The idea behind the method is that a longer, more complex piece of writing that can seem daunting at first seems less so when tackled in smaller segments. For students who feel overwhelmed by "large blocks of uninterrupted text" (referring to The Onion's parody), this is a pretty nifty exercise.

As for the Carr article itself, it is pretty fascinating. He's written a book on the subject, as well, called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. Personally, I think he's onto something, and I've been trying to push back. More on that later.

Meanwhile, here's my summary and outline.