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The Coming Fannish Singularity...
Aug. 17th, 2008 04:53 pmFollowing on from a point I made here, I've ended up getting involved in some unpleasantness over at _another_ place where what I hoped was a comment designed to spur some discussion has ended up with me losing my temper and a lot of people calling me names. C'est La Vie. We're a friendly bunch us fans.
The thing is it got me thinking about my earlier post, and also the nature of the concept of the Technological Singularity.
One of the core features of Singularity reasoning is that people who have gone through that Singularity event don't or can't communicate with people on the other side of the asymptote. What shocked me about the discussion I've just had is the realisation I've just seen part of it up close and it's actually to do with email, which is actually a symptom of a Singularity type activity that's been going on for some time.
My comment which sparked this was intended to be tongue in cheek: Email is Dead.
On the one level this is errant nonsense, email isn't dead. We're using it every day. Vast tonnes of it get spread around the web, most of it being Spam. However, thinking critically about the nature of email, it occured to me that I can't actually remember the last time I sent a letter of any description that wasn't a bill, I can't recall writing a letter to anybody of any kind for decades. I then realised that while I used to exchange dozens of emails with different friends and fans through the course of the day, my general interaction of that kind has dwindled to nothing. Sure I'll send emails for specific purposes: arranging a panel at a con; asking a direction, personal question etc...
But apart from that my email use patterns for what can be called Fannish intent have altered over the last 5 years. Most of it onto online forums, my Blog, LJ etc. I'm down to one email list which comes via a Yahoo Group.
So, while people can talk about the emails they've sent and the email they use for work, the way it is being used it already changing - the thing about change is not noticing it happening when you're doing it.
Which brings me back to some of the snarking that was made and how it applies to the concept of a singularity. A few commentators said words to the effect of; well you can go off and lose your ability to write and we'll stay here thanks very much and we won't really miss your input. [I'm paraphrasing badly here, and lumping several protagonists together, sorry but it's for dramatic effect]
That is true in the short term. But what happens over the medium term?
Yahoo Groups will continue for a while as a means to handle email lists but I'll be honest and say that over 5 years the number of such groups I have actively open has gone from 20 something to about 3 or 4 and only 2 of those have activity on them. Yahoo itself is having problems and will certainly change or sell out in the next 12 months and besides, they have form for changing systems dramatically and without consultion. So while there could be a scenario whereby people drift away, there is a more likely one that everything will be moved onto another format and the email portion is left to drift because it's too linked to spam and everybody is reading an RSS feed of some type.
The good thing about paper as a form for communication and the fanzine is that it is fairly resistant to upgrade problems. OTOH email most certainly isn't, and I fear that even within our own culture we could be among the first to experience the dislocation of having swathes of the culture effectively digitally cut out of the mainstream of discourse and discussion.
In the snarky thread, in which I was misbehaving too, I did point out some really cool stuff that this is leading to. Here's a couple:
- Instant messaging during conversations. At work, especially on large conference calls, we'll have a separate set of IM windows open for group and individual discussions where we'll shape what is being said and factor thoughts and suggestions into presentations IN REAL TIME. If that isn't like telepathy I don't know what is.
- Life Logging. Between Twitter and truly awesome data storage and geo tagging - the sheer amount of ourlives which is being stored is shocking. I've caught up with some old school friends via Facebook and it's almost like finding out that before about 2002/3 none of us actually existed. No digital photos, very little online record that we ever existed. The implications for the generation that started school in this decade are just astonishing.
John Scalzi's Hugo win started me thinking a lot about this, because that win in particular seemed to be seen in some quarters as a bad thing. In some respects and some lights it could be: it is signaling that the change and the way Fan Culture interacts and relates is probably changing quite fast. The question is will we be able to recognise what comes out the other side of that?
If we can't, then we have our answer about Vernor Vinges thought experiment.
Now, all of this won't particularly affect me, in all honesty, but what I do worry about is what happens next when I might be the one railing against the young turk suggesting that we move over to the next thing...
Because, that day will probably happen and that thought actually is quite scary...
The thing is it got me thinking about my earlier post, and also the nature of the concept of the Technological Singularity.
One of the core features of Singularity reasoning is that people who have gone through that Singularity event don't or can't communicate with people on the other side of the asymptote. What shocked me about the discussion I've just had is the realisation I've just seen part of it up close and it's actually to do with email, which is actually a symptom of a Singularity type activity that's been going on for some time.
My comment which sparked this was intended to be tongue in cheek: Email is Dead.
On the one level this is errant nonsense, email isn't dead. We're using it every day. Vast tonnes of it get spread around the web, most of it being Spam. However, thinking critically about the nature of email, it occured to me that I can't actually remember the last time I sent a letter of any description that wasn't a bill, I can't recall writing a letter to anybody of any kind for decades. I then realised that while I used to exchange dozens of emails with different friends and fans through the course of the day, my general interaction of that kind has dwindled to nothing. Sure I'll send emails for specific purposes: arranging a panel at a con; asking a direction, personal question etc...
But apart from that my email use patterns for what can be called Fannish intent have altered over the last 5 years. Most of it onto online forums, my Blog, LJ etc. I'm down to one email list which comes via a Yahoo Group.
So, while people can talk about the emails they've sent and the email they use for work, the way it is being used it already changing - the thing about change is not noticing it happening when you're doing it.
Which brings me back to some of the snarking that was made and how it applies to the concept of a singularity. A few commentators said words to the effect of; well you can go off and lose your ability to write and we'll stay here thanks very much and we won't really miss your input. [I'm paraphrasing badly here, and lumping several protagonists together, sorry but it's for dramatic effect]
That is true in the short term. But what happens over the medium term?
Yahoo Groups will continue for a while as a means to handle email lists but I'll be honest and say that over 5 years the number of such groups I have actively open has gone from 20 something to about 3 or 4 and only 2 of those have activity on them. Yahoo itself is having problems and will certainly change or sell out in the next 12 months and besides, they have form for changing systems dramatically and without consultion. So while there could be a scenario whereby people drift away, there is a more likely one that everything will be moved onto another format and the email portion is left to drift because it's too linked to spam and everybody is reading an RSS feed of some type.
The good thing about paper as a form for communication and the fanzine is that it is fairly resistant to upgrade problems. OTOH email most certainly isn't, and I fear that even within our own culture we could be among the first to experience the dislocation of having swathes of the culture effectively digitally cut out of the mainstream of discourse and discussion.
In the snarky thread, in which I was misbehaving too, I did point out some really cool stuff that this is leading to. Here's a couple:
- Instant messaging during conversations. At work, especially on large conference calls, we'll have a separate set of IM windows open for group and individual discussions where we'll shape what is being said and factor thoughts and suggestions into presentations IN REAL TIME. If that isn't like telepathy I don't know what is.
- Life Logging. Between Twitter and truly awesome data storage and geo tagging - the sheer amount of ourlives which is being stored is shocking. I've caught up with some old school friends via Facebook and it's almost like finding out that before about 2002/3 none of us actually existed. No digital photos, very little online record that we ever existed. The implications for the generation that started school in this decade are just astonishing.
John Scalzi's Hugo win started me thinking a lot about this, because that win in particular seemed to be seen in some quarters as a bad thing. In some respects and some lights it could be: it is signaling that the change and the way Fan Culture interacts and relates is probably changing quite fast. The question is will we be able to recognise what comes out the other side of that?
If we can't, then we have our answer about Vernor Vinges thought experiment.
Now, all of this won't particularly affect me, in all honesty, but what I do worry about is what happens next when I might be the one railing against the young turk suggesting that we move over to the next thing...
Because, that day will probably happen and that thought actually is quite scary...
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