Plurk

I find it amusing that although the entire point of the beginning of Friday’s class was to put a real name to everyone’s face, it seemed to have worked completely opposite for me and simply enforced plurk names. Now, not only do I still not know anyone’s name in class, but everyone’s plurk names have finally been matched to a face. Not only did I completely forget all of the real names people introduced themselves as, but I found that I wasn’t really listening for them to say their real names. What I was waiting for was for them to say their plurk names. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, williamnot’s real name is Billy, and GAtticus’ real name is Greg!” I was thinking “Oh, that’s what williamnot looks like!” It would seem that everyone in the nanotext class will forever be defined by their plurk names to me (which will make it harder when anyone decides to change their plurk name). Even Prichard has changed from Prichard to nanotext is my conversations sometimes.
Alex (facecrook) even mentioned to me today over coffee that Brian (el8_br), even though he has known me for over a year (or thereabouts) referred to me as coffeeondemand in a conversation earlier. Now how is it possible that in the span of four weeks a plurk name can actually replace someone’s real name? How much has plurk been able to infiltrate our lives in such a small period of time? I find myself getting distracted by plurk ALL THE TIME. It takes me twice as long to do anything now on the computer because I always have plurk up in another window. Just yesterday it took me over two hours to watch a 40 minute episode of house online. Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter have never consumed my life nearly as much as Plurk has managed to. Is it because plurking is twenty percent of my grade in our English class? Or is there some other reason that Plurk has managed to weasel its way into my life in such a dominating way?

Like many people... A post about Friday's class.

Despite the fact that some people really didn’t enjoy class on Friday, I thought it was pretty fucking amazing. I think that it might have been better for people if having class on plurk had been a pre decided idea so that students could either bring their laptops or go to the computer lab. Regardless of how ‘substantial’ the discussion was on plurk, I think that just the idea of plurking as a class in itself was thought provoking enough. I especially thought it was quite wonderful that even though Hollyann was absent in class on Friday she was just as able to partake in class discussion as everyone else was. Nanotext’s comment of “it is good to have you here” and low’s comment “wow you’re here more than I am” really embodies my entire opinion of plurk. Nanotext’s and low’s use of the word ‘here’ is indicating space and close proximity, and yet Hollyann could have been on the complete opposite end of the planet from Bellingham. And low’s comment that even though he is physically in the classroom, in close proximity of us, Hollyann is capable of being more ‘here’ than he is. So where exactly is here? Where exactly is this class being held?

The ability of a class to have the choice to communicate through simple voice or through technology is quite amazing. That we can all be together in a room yet not have a single sound uttered, and continue to communicate through other means. This is not something out of the ordinary, hell you see it everywhere you look, with friends hanging out with each other yet all texting other people, but to incorporate that in the classroom, to create a bridge between our education and the technological addictions that have consumed most people, is an entire matter all together.

Just the other day I was sitting outside enjoying the quiet night when I heard two people talking behind me, in what seemed to be a conversation with each other. As they passed, I noticed that not only were they walking five feet apart from each other, but they were both talking to other people on their phones. And yet each of their sides of the conversations seemed to fit together. Without looking at them I thought I was listening to two friends talking, and yet the reality of it was that two complete strangers just happened to be in the same vicinity of each other while having separate conversations. Just the idea of that intrigued me and got me thinking on the way the methods of communication have changed in my lifetime alone. In some ways, the ability to text someone at anytime has greatly increased communication between people (seeing as I talk to my father much more now that we both text then I ever would if I actually had to call him all the time to catch up). On the other hand, how much has texting/twittering/plurking depersonalized and almost restricted ourselves from basic verbal communication? I find that when I’m in a crowd of people and by myself that I will usually start texting a friend opposed to meeting and starting a conversation with someone, which I used to do before I got my cell phone.

In terms of depersonalizing our classroom alone, it’s strange that I’ve had conversations on plurk with probably every single student in the class and yet I have no idea who they are. I would never recognize them outside of class. I didn’t even know the name of one of the girl’s in my book group and only referred to her as kc mea for over a week even though we’d sent over 50 plurks back and forth to each other. In every English class that I have ever had, the constant class discussions led to the formation of acquaintances or friendships pretty quickly, but even after three weeks in this class I don’t even know people’s names. (Though I can more often than not be able to refer to them as their plurk name. Even though low’s name seems to really be Cody, in my mind he is and will always be low). Does that help or hinder our class? Is it good that I’ve related to people in ways that I most likely wouldn’t have if not for plurk? Are the things I know and perceive about the students in the class at all similar to what they would be if plurk was not involved? Does plurk add or take away the personal touch to our classroom?

The idea of reality has always been something that I never questioned, never even thought about. It wasn’t until I hit the seventh grade when I began using books as a way to escape my own reality, a way to strip away my everyday life in order to be absorbed in a world that wasn’t my own. Pretty soon, this idea of reality, and the newfound knowledge that I could leave it, left me slightly addicted. If I didn’t want to be somewhere, I could fully and completely shut my surroundings down by opening a book. I could get myself into a sort of meditative state, where I couldn’t hear people speaking to me, where I couldn’t feel my heart beating, sort of like an out-of-body experience.

Later, this desire to leave reality blossomed into a need for a way to escape (the screaming resonating off the walls of my house, the drunks stumbling down the stairs, my hands shaking while I dialed 911 on Christmas Eve and the cops questioning me). I found how easy it was to resort to drugs as a means of losing my awareness of what was happening around me. And in our society, finding escape is so goddamn easy, I could get my hands on anything at anytime.
After effectively finding ways to completely block about periods of my life (and realizing that I did in fact lose entire large chunks of time) I began the search to find my way back to reality again. I know in class people discussed how everyone’s reality is different, and I do agree with that. While spending much of my time intoxicated on whatever I was able to get, I had absorbed myself into a new reality, I had built my own form of release. I consider my true reality as where I would be if I wasn’t intoxicated, wasn’t escaping, wasn’t trapped by the thing I originally thought was freeing me. Pretty soon I became desperate to get back to my reality, get back to where I could acknowledge my parents, my friends, things that were real that I had seemed to have lost my grip on.

Then again coming back to my own reality left me at the hands of a drug addicted society. Without being able to handle (hide) from things that I fucking hated experiencing, I was quickly diagnosed with a list full of psychotic disorders and pumped full of medication. So now my reality, (the one that is making it so I can think clearly, go to class, interact and socialize; hell even write this damn blog) is only a distorted version of what it would be. My need to escape a dependence on drugs led me to a society-approved addiction that turns me into what can only be described as a robot. My brain releases specific chemicals when the medication tells it to, locking itself in a routine that leaves me in a new form of imprisonment. Yeah, I have the ability to stop taking my medications, but I can’t help but think that my real reality is not one that I want to live in anymore. That even trapped in this body that suffers the shitty side effects of my meds, I’m much more afraid of going back to my reality than to continue the robotic abuse.

The first time that I ever heard about nanobots was when I was in the 7th grade an reading a teen vampire book. In this alternate world, where vampires lived amongst humans, it was explained that the introduction of nanobots in common society lead to the creation of what we know as common day vampires. At the time, having no idea what the hell nanobots were, I quickly looked it up on Wikipedia in order to find an explanation of what vampires were. After reading about nanobots, the idea of having little robots, as big as a red blood cell, active in my veins was intriguing. I remember thinking about how great it would be to not have to worry about getting sick, knowing that if (and mostly when) I got cancer, or HIV, or even a common cold, the nanobots in my body would take immediately kill the virus or mutating cells. When looking up the keywords on Google, nanobots + vampirism, the following statement occurred:

"Nanobots, created either by renegade scientists or a race of reptilians, were introduced into a handful of human bodies in order to repair damaged cells. These nanobots performed so well that they rendered their hosts immortal. However, the Nanobots themselves are not immortal and must self-replicate by utilizing the iron atoms from the hemoglobin in the host's red blood cells. The result of this nanoreplication process is the constant need for sufficient supplies of blood. Unable to keep up with the demand, the host has no choice but to seek out blood from others. If the colony of Nanobots exceeds the host's ability to supply sufficient RBCs, some nanobots may migrate into another host, usually the next victim of the primary host's bite." (Vampire theories)

Now six years later, after watched Part 1 of Technocolaspe and discussed it in class, I began thinking about the idea of nanobots again. Despite my fascination with the idea of nanobots, the idea of being transhuman, I can’t help but start considering the negative outcomes of what would happen in our society. I think that if it does in fact get to the point where we reach a level that being transhuman means being part of a superior race, there will be too many people, especially low class people that will be completely left behind. I think that the human race would eventually split into two species, the transhumans (who will be the upper and middle class) and then the simple humans, which would include everyone else. Now intriguing as that idea is to me, to create an entire different race of people that are more robot than human, it is also quite terrifying. And more importantly (at least to me) which species would I end up in? (If indeed I was still alive when technology gets this advanced.)