<commit_before>---
layout: post
title: "Data Drenched"
modified: 2015-06-01 10:34:44 -0700
tags: [musings, society, data]
image:
  feature:
  credit:
  creditlink:
comments: true
share: true
---

### I post therefore I am.

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist or any other ologist really, I just play one
on blog posts. Even that is shaky at best. This will be my third blog post ever.
So, no, I don't think these conclusions are revolutionary by any means, but do I
think them in a vacuum? Or do I have company? There's one way to know: **post it.**

This has become a near default human action; to exchange our privacy in what we have
lived to extend what we can share and remember.
I believe it's redirected our thinking from the internal analysis of external
stimuli to externalizing internal stimuli for public view, response and even the
occasional vote. You often hear we've become less social through social networks.
I don't think this is the whole pie, merely a sliver. We've become obsessed with
our group consciousness, with consensus.
How that consensus relates to us personally isn't the foundation of the
issue. It's merely what you see on the surface. We're data drenched because we're
opinion poor and we need a democracy of the massess to validate our inner selves.

Yeah, that conclusion escalated quickly, didn't it?

*Okay, here's where I'm going with this...*


### Data, Data, wherefore art thou Data?

Looking at the patterns of humanity from a bird's eye view is revealing. Just
walking around London in May of 2015, I noticed that the iconic red telephone booths have been
converted to makeshift toilets or rubbish receptacles. There are some, however,
that are totally hollowed out save for some writing out front that says "WiFi Here".


![Figure 1: I ain't lying]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/wifi-booth.jpg)

Next to them a swarm of faces in glowing screens, a water cooler where the flow
of liquid is data. There's a pressing need, almost a panic to be connected to the
proverbial hive. If you don't capture experienced moments in a post, it's lost
to the seas of time. It certainly won't persist in our memories because they've
been conditioned to capture very little. Beyond the clutching of experience,
there's a need to demonstrate our lives. It is as if, by being known, we exist.

The connection between the obsolete phone booths to their modern counterpart the wifi
monolith, as I would like to call it, is emblematic of this new human self.
If something can get us known better, faster and more easily, we will gladly
worship it. The data agrees, with cell phones nearly equaling the Earth's population
in 2014 ([source](http://qz.com/179897)). Oddly enough, we seem to be idolizing
our self-propogated extension into deity and impermanence. What the mirror used
to do, selfies now do. What the photo album used to do, posts with geolocation,
associated with some social network handle or another, now do. It appears to me
that our humanity is being changed by our sad attempt to understand it.

Why do I think this matter is entirely existential in nature, and not merely vanity
or bravado playing themselves out in our technology? Frankly, because the desire to
post, for me, feels primal. It's a need not a desire. I don't do FMRIs but if I had
one laying around (mind you FMRIs are scientifically contensted) I would try to
understand what
areas of the brain are highlighted during a selfie. I imagine
that would lead to some interesting conclusions.

One possibility is that I am totally full
of shit. However, I know what I feel is basic need. By posting, even this, I make
a ripple in reality. I evidence my own existence. In some sense, by putting my thoughts,
words, pictures, videos, into the ether, I draw myself on the cave wall of the ages.

Not picking up what I'm putting down? Fair 'nuff but let's take, for instance,
my trip to the Lourve. Let's just talk about this precious moment:

![Figure 2: Still ain't lying]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/our-smartphone.jpg)

Tell me this doesn't look like worship? An iconic image of the Mona Lisa,
she's shrouded in glass with mobs of people facing her visage. Do they care about her?
Is she being worshiped? No, I don't think so. What's being worshipped is this
communal orgy of people performing their ritualistic smartphone-tography. You
could cut the panic in the room with a knife. People needed to capture their moment
of experiencing her. To that point, I call this photo **"Our Smarthphone
Who Art in Heaven"** Humor aside, what really is the need here?

**I WAS HERE.**

You see, "I was here" is not a fresh human concept.

![Figure 3: Not a fresh idea]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/cave-drawings.jpg)

This is what the transition from the red telephone booth to the wifi monolith truly
represents. We worship our own existence. It is a fundamental need.

![Figure 3: Praise Smartphone]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/praise-smartphone.jpg)<commit_msg>image titles<commit_after>---
layout: post
title: "Data Drenched"
modified: 2015-06-01 10:34:44 -0700
tags: [musings, society, data]
image:
  feature:
  credit:
  creditlink:
comments: true
share: true
---

### I post therefore I am.

I'm not a psychologist or sociologist or any other ologist really, I just play one
on blog posts. Even that is shaky at best. This will be my third blog post ever.
So, no, I don't think these conclusions are revolutionary by any means, but do I
think them in a vacuum? Or do I have company? There's one way to know: **post it.**

This has become a near default human action; to exchange our privacy in what we have
lived to extend what we can share and remember.
I believe it's redirected our thinking from the internal analysis of external
stimuli to externalizing internal stimuli for public view, response and even the
occasional vote. You often hear we've become less social through social networks.
I don't think this is the whole pie, merely a sliver. We've become obsessed with
our group consciousness, with consensus.
How that consensus relates to us personally isn't the foundation of the
issue. It's merely what you see on the surface. We're data drenched because we're
opinion poor and we need a democracy of the massess to validate our inner selves.

Yeah, that conclusion escalated quickly, didn't it?

*Okay, here's where I'm going with this...*


### Data, Data, wherefore art thou Data?

Looking at the patterns of humanity from a bird's eye view is revealing. Just
walking around London in May of 2015, I noticed that the iconic red telephone booths have been
converted to makeshift toilets or rubbish receptacles. There are some, however,
that are totally hollowed out save for some writing out front that says "WiFi Here".


![Figure 1: I ain't lying]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/wifi-booth.jpg)

Next to them a swarm of faces in glowing screens, a water cooler where the flow
of liquid is data. There's a pressing need, almost a panic to be connected to the
proverbial hive. If you don't capture experienced moments in a post, it's lost
to the seas of time. It certainly won't persist in our memories because they've
been conditioned to capture very little. Beyond the clutching of experience,
there's a need to demonstrate our lives. It is as if, by being known, we exist.

The connection between the obsolete phone booths to their modern counterpart the wifi
monolith, as I would like to call it, is emblematic of this new human self.
If something can get us known better, faster and more easily, we will gladly
worship it. The data agrees, with cell phones nearly equaling the Earth's population
in 2014 ([source](http://qz.com/179897)). Oddly enough, we seem to be idolizing
our self-propogated extension into deity and impermanence. What the mirror used
to do, selfies now do. What the photo album used to do, posts with geolocation,
associated with some social network handle or another, now do. It appears to me
that our humanity is being changed by our sad attempt to understand it.

Why do I think this matter is entirely existential in nature, and not merely vanity
or bravado playing themselves out in our technology? Frankly, because the desire to
post, for me, feels primal. It's a need not a desire. I don't do FMRIs but if I had
one laying around (mind you FMRIs are scientifically contensted) I would try to
understand what
areas of the brain are highlighted during a selfie. I imagine
that would lead to some interesting conclusions.

One possibility is that I am totally full
of shit. However, I know what I feel is basic need. By posting, even this, I make
a ripple in reality. I evidence my own existence. In some sense, by putting my thoughts,
words, pictures, videos, into the ether, I draw myself on the cave wall of the ages.

Not picking up what I'm putting down? Fair 'nuff but let's take, for instance,
my trip to the Lourve. Let's just talk about this precious moment:

![Figure 2: Still ain't lying]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/Our-smartphone.jpg)

Tell me this doesn't look like worship? An iconic image of the Mona Lisa,
she's shrouded in glass with mobs of people facing her visage. Do they care about her?
Is she being worshiped? No, I don't think so. What's being worshipped is this
communal orgy of people performing their ritualistic smartphone-tography. You
could cut the panic in the room with a knife. People needed to capture their moment
of experiencing her. To that point, I call this photo **"Our Smarthphone
Who Art in Heaven"** Humor aside, what really is the need here?

**I WAS HERE.**

You see, "I was here" is not a fresh human concept.

![Figure 3: Not a fresh idea]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/cave-drawings.jpg)

This is what the transition from the red telephone booth to the wifi monolith truly
represents. We worship our own existence. It is a fundamental need.

![Figure 3: Praise Smartphone]({{ www.dtrapezoid.com }}/images/Praise-smartphone.jpg)
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