Her talk then transitioned into a discussion of the relationship between fashion and art or what we might call “high fashion.” Dr Foerster showed a skirt by Hussein Chalayan a designer who created a coffee table skirt (http://museumarteutil.net/projects/coffee-table-skirt/.) This took the talk toward the idea of “wearables” and the Internet of Things (IOT.) She referenced medical technology such as shirts designed for infants that can detect the arrest of breathing and thus help to curb infant mortality.

I was able to ask a question which went something like, “There is all sorts of empirical research that suggests that smartphones are bad for our mental health. That they leach our attention and ability to focus even when not in use. Should we be more concerned about wearables, what is so different about the transition from iphone to iwatch or google glass?”

Dr Foerster’s response was that technology has already infiltrated and mediated the way in which we experience the world (showing her phenomenological dispositions). She didn’t quite take a stance one the matter as I was hoping she might, but did offer a cautionary response suggesting that because the tech is so new (only a few decades), we should be wary of the potential risks.

I wonder how ethicists, sociologists, lawmakers, and community members were consulted to determine what questions should be asked and how they should be weighted? Even seemingly innocuous questions such as where someone lives are tied up in issues of racial and economic segregation in America.

In the 1960’s technological advancements in computing technology produced a manifold of social, economic, and educational impacts. Some touted a Utopian vision of computer programming jobs as a form of liberation for historically disadvantaged identity groups. Abbate problematizes that story with the voice of Walter DeLegall of Columbia University’s CS department who detailed the need for culturally relevant pedagogy.

At the time there was a relatively small labor market of computer programmers and the increasing demand for highly skilled labor. Over the course of that decade two learning languages, PLATO and LOGO were popularized as tools for teaching mathematical concepts and algorithmic thinking to children. Coding trade schools, with varying efficacy, were also developed and marketed to meet the growing demand for skilled labor. However, many social issues that coding claimed to solve were reproduced in the tech labor market.

After the 1960’s, programming was introduced everywhere. From elementary school to politics, movements like Code.org taught the young and old to program so they can fill the gaps in the digital economy. Since minorities had no insider knowledge of the job market, they were left behind. To fix this discrimination, identity-based institutions like #YesWeCode changed the goal of programming from one that fills jobs to one that fosters social change. Using the coding skills taught at these institutions, minorities could solve problems that affected their communities instead of building applications of no relevance to them.

Through outlining the true background of employing the empowerment argument as a push towards coding, beginning decades before the current coding movement, Abbate calls attention to the fact that this argument isn’t new. She notes that much like in many fields, “empowerment”  has acted as a front for other objectives or end games.

Towards the end of the document, Abbate infers that acknowledgment of the deep-rooted discrimination and divide in the computing world (among everywhere else) is needed and must be challenged at a broader level. Abbate herself sets this example by intentionally unifying and using the terms “programming” and “coding” interchangeably in an attempt to bridge the established divide between the words.

Sean: Body I and II

Luis: Body III and IV

Kate: Intro/conclusion 

The more technical background on the development of Unix was enlightening, but it also reminded of the distinction between knowledge of and knowledge that. I have exceptionally little knowledge of how a car works, I couldn’t explain to you the principles behind the combustion engine, but I do know that when I turn the key, the car starts. In other words I think the intricacies of the technological development of OS are interesting, but I’m more interested in learning how to “drive the car” so to speak.

To that end, I was interested in some of the theoretical discussions about labor, property, and capital. One of the greatest potentials of technology is to liberate people from manual labor and to improve standards of living. A Marxist reading might also pose ethical questions about the consequences of the technological revolution and the conditions it has produced. We might question the commodification of our private data and the sale of customer’s personal information to advertising companies on sites like Facebook and Google.

The invention of the integrated circuit is attributed to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce. In 1958, while working at Texas Instruments, Kilby created the first circuit whose resistors and capacitors were made from the same material and interconnected into a single semi-conductor. Two years later, in 1960, Robert Noyce improved on Kilby’s concept and created a circuit out of silicon. Noyce became the co-creator of Intel, and in the following decades the integrated circuit became instrumental in the proliferation of computers and computing technology. Kilby went on to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics.

The second part of the story about the integrated circuit is the about economics. While scientific discovery and advancements in technology created a new field of computing technology, the proliferation of computers did not occur until much later in the 1980’s. This was largely a result of the creation of the personal computer. As the integrated circuits improved and became more efficient and cheaper to produce, the integrated circuits became central to the massive economic expansion of the tech boom.

The third component of the story which also allowed for the profit margins that made the economics possible was the sociological story about the laborers who produced the integrated circuits. Beginning in 1965 Fairchild opened a plant in Shiprock New Mexico on a Navajo reservation. The location was chosen because of government subsidies as well the lack of unions and jobs in the Navajo community. The workers were paid very little given the skilled and precise nature of the work and made possible the massive profit margins of companies

If the history about the origins of computing can be deconstructed, problematized, and challenged, so too can the contemporary discourse about tech and progress. In the modern age, technology is said to connect us to friends and thus create a “global community.” While innovations like the world wide web have made many aspects of our lives better, we also seem to be in an identity crisis of what the future of the internet will be.

Consider for example three tech giants Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Although it began as a search engine google’s revenue stream comes from selling direct advertising space. What does it mean for search engines to privilege content based on who can pay the most? Amazon began as a platform for buying and selling books, but is now a trillion dollar company that makes the majority of its money by selling server space and has well documented cases of abusing its workers. Facebook began as a tool to connect college students and, like google, has monetized its platform by selling direct advertisements and sold advertisements designed to influence the outcome of a presidential election.

In other words, our discussions about modern technology should also include the difficult problems that come with “Progress.”