The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in the Age of Distraction, Matthew B. Crawford

Crawford’s starting position is that beginning in the Enlightenment there has been a push for the “individualism” as defined by Kant’s “rational human”, and “freedom” from the monarchy, the government, any outside influence in fact. The author’s argument is that this mode of thinking is both anachronistic and detrimental the modern world in which we find ourselves situated.

We are finding ourselves more ostracized from both our communities and from the physical world.  At the same time, we’re expected to be hyper-responsible for our individual decisions as defined in a Libertarian political philosophy.  Given this position of “rational human” we’re left to make decisions in a sort of vacuum, separated from both culture and context. This leaves our lives (private and public) open to choice architects and consumer capitalism.

Choice architects create experiences to fill the void left when we have no opinion, or choose not to directly engage the physical world. No one explicitly argued we should not have advertisements in the bottom of luggage trays when going through security at the airport. I think this is commonly called the reduction of “the commons”. Public space is becoming more saturated by choice architects whose interests align with corporate entities, not the public.

After reading Hooked (Nir Eyal) about the design of addictive products, this is the disruptive world of technology we live in. It has been said that we didn’t get flying cars to take us through a physical space, we got the instantaneous variability of a Twitter or Instagram feed that satisfies deeply psychological appetites.

The author makes the distinction between a tool using human –  the hockey player whose stick becomes an extension of his body or the motorcyclist who can feel the variations of traction, gravity and … vs. a person playing a video game who is learning only to press a button to get the exact same response/reaction. The direct feedback provides no context between the action and response. We understand the world around us by interacting with it – it informs our reality. The real world is our best model says the author.

The most extreme example in the book is of gamblers playing electronic slot machines and the evolution of the gambling industry.  These games are purposefully designed to drive players to ‘play to extinction’, effectively using gamblers as a financial resource to extract money and then discard. The games are designed for addiction.

The author is addresses how deeply we hold on to our beliefs and succumb to our cognitive biases. It takes real work to first step outside of our perspective to see a new perspective, and even greater effort to then engage with another person in conversation to reach a shared understanding. David Foster Wallace speaks about this problem in his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005. Crawford argues it’s not enough to simply have empathy for our co-passengers but to actively begin a conversation and attempt to reach a shared understanding. I’ve always thought that speech was the pinnacle of DFW’s philosophy, and had never read a counter-argument until now.

There are types of interactions that foster this communication, Crawford uses examples from highly skilled physical work to highlight both the attentional focus and the conversation that occurs when communities of individuals are highly skilled and focused on a shared task. He uses as an example the distinction between learning in a vacuum, explicit book knowledge for example, and the tacit learning that comes about from an apprenticeship model.

One of the precursors of advances in the scientific community  in the 1950’s in the U.S. was the emigration of scientists after World War 2. They brought with them the tacit knowledge of “how to science” vs. what we see in other countries (China) that lack the ability to innovate quickly. Crawford posits this is based on a more flexible model than simply explicit rule-following

Interestingly in technology circles (and software product design), we talk about this idea of magic. “If the product could do anything, even something magical, what would it do?” I’ve posed this question numerous times in design research sessions. The goal is to find out what the customer considers a magical feature and then work backwards to the possible and begin to shape the product that will be designed.

What Crawford is highlighting here is the lack of grounding with the physical world we inhabit with the technology that is becoming ubiquitous. The separation of direction action (agency) from the system response from a click. His argument is that we’re losing our sense-making abilities. An example he provides is of a motorcycle racer feeling the way the machine is interfacing with the road through sight, feel, sound and the lack of sensory insight (the obfuscation of) sensory input in something like electronic braking in a car. We are putting software interfaces between our physical senses and the natural world.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke

Is introducing magic (through technology) in our day to day lives a good thing? Where do we begin to separate from direct manipulation of the physical world. Virtual Reality is a good example here.

The Handy Dandy machine Crawford uses as an example is a Disney invention in current Disney clubhouse cartoons. He’s making the distinction from the physical comedy of old cartoons (where Mickey was beset upon by flying brooms, cast iron pans, etc and the new cartoons where kids are prompted to make a magical choice not grounded in any physical reality). The choice architects have limited what is the possible.

There is a passive interaction going on here – our frustration with reality rises and we sink into the instantaneous feedback loops of digital products.

This is the ubiquitous world of computing we’re inhabiting today. Any piece of knowledge in the world at our fingertips (or ears via a personal assistant like Alexa, Siri or Google Home). There seems to be a “compression” occurring – we are more able to locate and recall information thus expanding our capacity, but we’re losing the context of why the information is important in the world.

We can escape from the physical world into the information space that’s all around us. Crawford describes this arrangement as a new form of autism. People disengaging with the physical world and retreating to information spaces.

Reading this book following Hooked (and being a professional designer) really drives home the questions of ethics of product design (and experience design). What are we actually designing? To what end? What is the value of an experience in the real world?  What is the value of mastering a skill that doesn’t involve the ability to click a button or manipulate a digital interface?

Ultimately the author presents the concept of “ecologies of attention”. Shared experiences of skilled practitioners creating value tied directly to the physical world.

Hipsters explained.

In order to take back our attention, we need to create ‘ecologies of attention’ that provide direct feedback to the physical, not the virtual world.  I love the idea, but it feels like the train has already left  the station. So where do we go from here?

In the design of software products, I think a balance can be found in providing information and designing interactions that ground the user in the concrete. The concrete being a relatable context the user can comprehend.

Finally, it’s helpful to understand the lineage of philosophy, economics and technology from the Enlightenment to the present in order to better understand why it feels so unnatural to immerse ourselves in technology and to better establish a position for how to think about how we think (meta cognition) about ourselves in the technology revolution in which we find ourselves.

More could be said about the value of a liberal arts education or the value of mastering a skill… but I’ll stop here.

For reference:

Nir Eyal – Hooked
David Foster Wallace’s Commencement Speech

I can’t say this book left me hopeful for future political and economic stability. Through a series of vignettes and essays, the author provides an outsiders perspective on modern Russia.  He describes modern Russia based on it’s long history of authoritarian regimes. The book ends in the present describing the new Russian wealth (oil and oligarchies) and “political technologists” being exported to the West (London specifically, 2014).

In some ways it feels like the evolution of globalization, a merging of entertainment and government. Blurring the line between fiction and reality. Sounds familiar, right?

It was written in 2014 – so predates what we’re seeing in American politics, but I think it’s an informative look at how authoritarianism and pseudo-democracy live together.

If you want a primer in Russia’s involvement in influencing political campaigns, how business is conducted and how the general population is kept docile – it’s a great read.

https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006

2:10 … and I wake up.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sustain this, but January was a decent month vert-wise. It’s a combo of cycling, running, climbing… but still.

From the LA Review of Books, excellent read.

A few excerpts:

He pointed to the evolution of the very word “technology” from the 19th to the mid-20th century as particularly revealing in this regard; he argued that the meaning of the word had morphed from “something relatively precise, limited and unimportant to something vague, expansive and highly significant,” laden with both utopic and dystopic import. The word had become “amorphous in the extreme,” a site of semantic confusion — surely a sign, he concluded, that the languages of ordinary life as well as those of the social sciences had “[failed] to keep pace with the reality that needs to be discussed.”

YES! this:

He’s onto something fundamental that’s worth exploring further: scientific knowledge and machines are never just neutral instruments. They embody, express, and naturalize specific cultures — and shape how we live according to the assumptions and priorities of those cultures.

There is another important reason why the algorithm-as-doer is misleading: it conceals the design process of the algorithm, and therefore the human intentions and material conditions that shaped it.

The algorithms considered in these discussions usually use datasets to produce classifications. Burrell’s “opacity” refers to the fact that an output of this sort rarely includes a concrete sense of the original dataset, or of how a given classification was crafted. Opacity can be the outcome of a deliberate choice to hide information.

Link:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/algorithmic-life/

I’ve been keeping my book list in Evernote – when I come across something interesting, I add it to the big list. I took a sizable chunk out of the big list toward the end of 2016. Not sure what I was doing in the first half of the year – running a lot I think.  Here are some of the notables along with a short snippet.  After skimming this list, if you have any recommendations – hit me up.

When Breathe Becomes Air – Kalanathi

Life is short. Remind yourself of that constantly… I read more T.S. Eliot after reading this book. I think what really hit home was that dying is a part of living… and something we’ll all face. A tough read given that you know the outcome. But that’s the same as life, right?

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. – T.S. Eliot

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

The things you think are important… turn out to not really be important.

Midwestern family dysfunction at it’s finest. I have a soft spot for the characters most like Franzen. Chip Lambert in this case. And of course Aslan. Heh.

Purity – Jonathan Franzen

Julian Assange psycho-thriller. Really liked reading about Berlin in the 80’s. Entertaining read. I was on kind of on a Franzen bender… but I stopped. I was searching for more postmodern American Lit – looking for more David Foster Wallace in fact, but that’s never going to happen so I might as well just re-read Infinite Jest

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle – Murakami

I think I may have read this in 2015, but it has stuck with me. I think it’s in my list of top 3… or 5 (ever). Amazing. Highly recommended. Read it.

The Art of Grace, On Moving Well Through Life – Sarah Kaufman

2 words. Cary Grant.  I had no idea Ian Fleming modeled James Bond after Cary Grant. Went back and watched Bringing up Baby. A bit repetitive, but I needed it.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life – William Finnegan

Excellent book. Well written, travelogue, life journey. I’ve been recommending this one to friends. #cantstopwontstop.

The Tower – Kelly Cordes

I thought I was going to be underwhelmed, but Kelly Cordes wrote a well-researched, highly entertaining book about climbing in Patagonia. Some history, some mystery. Fun read.

Competing Against Luck – Clayton Christiansen

I read this for work. Not so good. It’s like design process packaged up for MBAs. *sorry*. It covers Jobs to be Done and the key takeaway is… do more qualitative research.

Hooked – Nir Eyal

Currently reading …and pausing. Initially thumbs up, but it’s a bit of a downer to realize how easily we can be influenced – and how addicted to my phone I am. A little bit of overlap with Kahneman and Tversky  (just a little). May power through it or bail.

The oldest swim memory I have is of hiding in the locker room to avoid getting in the water because it was just so damn cold. That would have been about 1983 in Berlin, Germany and the team was the Berlin Bear-a-Cudas. These weren’t swim lessons, this was the team and we were racing.

The wall was up between East and West. When we traveled to swim meets in Munich or Stuttgart or to SHAPE in Belgium (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe),  we passed through the checkpoints at night. I remember being woken up by the train slowing and stopping just after lights out so that our passports could be checked and then drifting off to sleep again when the train started only to be awoken again in the morning by the attendant calling, “coffee, tea, coca-cola!” pushing the cart down the corridor bottles rattling.

I swam continuously until I started college. My talents left me short of Division I scholarships, but within the grasp of Division II. I didn’t see myself swimming at a Division II school somewhere in the Florida swamplands and so I made other plans.

I swam at the pool in Cole Field House at the University of Maryland, joining some of the masters workouts. And then in the newly constructed natatorium while I was matriculating. This was the mid-90’s when triathlon was coming into it’s own as a sport. I was already doing a lot of cycling – both road and mountain, and working at the bike shop (College Park Bikes) and beginning to run a little bit (very little). A few triathlons followed… though no Ironman.

Fast forward to 2007. I trained at the Jewish Community Center in Albuquerque for the Waikiki Roughwater Swim in Hawaii. Imagine an outdoor pool in the desert at 5000 ft. elevation with the 10,6K Sandia Mountains as a backdrop. Decent. My brother and I swam the Roughwater in 2008. I’ve never felt so close to and part of the planet as during that race. When you’re swimming far out in the Pacific, you’re really in it.

There has been a lot of running in the intermediary years but not much swimming. I’ve hopped in the pool maybe once a year, or every other year and done a few laps.

That brings me to today.

The past two weeks while the girls have been in their swim lessons I’ve gotten in the pool. There aren’t any “legal” swim lanes open, so it goes something like this:

I have my suit on under my jeans and sit for a few minutes with the other parents. The lifeguards come over and take a couple of lane lines out, doubling one up for the water aerobics class starting on the south side of the pool. This leaves one open lane. Once all the classes are in progress, I strip down to my suit, grab my water bottle, goggles and cap and walk to the far end of the pool (opposite the lifeguards) like I own the place. Then I hop in and swim continuously until the girls’ lessons are finished. I have about 20 solid minutes and have been getting in a little over a 1,000 yards.  At that  is why I named the activity “Bandit Laps“.

Feels good to be back in the water.

[Overall it’s been a pretty terrible news (month?). I decided to write a little to take my mind off things. The subtext of all this is that walls are a terrible idea. And Fascists always lose in the end. tl;dr –  If you want to read some deep analytical writing on where the world is… this is one I’ve been coming back to.]