Why do I feel like there’s not enough time in the world for
all the things I’d like to do? Why do I have this nagging feeling that I’m
missing out the opportunities of my lifetime? Is it even remotely logical for
me to feel frustrated at hours spent sleeping? How is it even possible for me
to doubt the validity of the things that I read, and watch, and listen to? Why
do I feel guilty because I prefer to do something I really enjoy instead of working?
Could it be there’s so much clutter disguised as considerable and substantial content
that I’m feeling lost trying to find the epic?
Why does it feel like everything’s a remix of a remix of a
remix? Is it because there’s nothing original left to create? Or is it because
original stuff created cannot reach me in this day and age of the technology?
Or am I being fed mediocre content cloaked as masterpieces? Does my longing for
the content created in the past fuel this melancholy? Do I even ‘get’ what’s
being produced today? Should I just ‘dig deeper’ until I find the gem that
appeals to my taste?
And is it really true that everything created is a copy of a copy of a copy? Filmmaker Kirby Ferguson tries to shed light into the subject with his four part video series.
I’m watching films adapted from novels emulating comic books
imitating concept rock albums. I’m being fed TV shows reminiscent of other TV
shows. I’m reading thousand-page tomes which could be written as novellas. Same
news, same arguments. Amidst all this junk, I’m brainwashed into reasoning
that, somehow, there are more alternatives to what I watch, and read, and
listen to. After watching this movie, I should watch that one as well. That
novel is a trilogy, so I should read all three to capture the essence. Why don’t
I just try that other band which makes equally crappy music? I just sit, my
spinal cord removed, watching lesbian vampires hunting zombie cowboys, punk
aliens making love to cyborg child molesters. Where do I recall that actor from?
Was he playing on that series by that same producer and same writer that was
telling the exact same story five years ago? And while struggling to catch up
with all that, I try to make time for work, for friends, for family.
Am I actually blinded by abundance of choice? In his 2005
TED Talk, Barry Schwarttz claims that freedom of choice has made us more
paralyzed, dissatisfied and anxious. He’s trying to rationalize our behaviors from
the economical perspective, but his considerations can most definitely be
adopted to analyze our psyche – well, mine at least.
Can this analogy of that infamous professor be more logical
than it sounds?
Upon entering his class a little late, a professor teaching
philosophy picks up a large an empty mayonnaise jar and fills it with golf
balls. He then asks the class if the jar was full. Students all agree that it
was. The professor then picks up a box of pebbles and pours them into the jar. As
he shakes the jar lightly, the pebbles roll into the open areas between the
golf balls. Then he asks again if the jar is full or not. The students all
agree that it is. The professor then picks up a box of sand and pours it into
the jar. Inevitably, the sands fill up everything else. He asks one last time
if the jar is full. And the students all agree that it is. The professor then
produces two beers from under the table and pours everything into the jar,
filling every space. The students laugh.
“Now,” says the professor, “I want you to recognize that
this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your
family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite
passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life
would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your
job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff. If
you put the sand into the jar first,” he continues, “there is no room for the
pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time
and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are
important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your
happiness.”
One of the students raises her hand and inquires what the beer
represents. The professor smiles and says, “I’m glad you asked. The beer just
shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a
couple of beers with a friend.”
In his TED Talk, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert explains
why our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong. Maybe we should
all start taking care of the golf balls first.
İnsanlar birey olduklarını,
yani toplumun birer parçasına dönüştüklerini duyumsadıkları zaman toplumdaki
yerlerini kavrarlar ve bu yerlerini belirlemeye başlarlar. Sosyalliğin kabaca
bir tanımını yapacak olursak, tanımadığımız insanların sorunlarını hissetmek,
onların duygularını paylaşmak, toplumun sorunlarıyla ilgilenmek suretiyle çözüm
üretmek, soru sormak, sorgulamak, öğrenme arzusu duymak, salt kendi dünyası
içindekileri değil, dışındaki dünyayı da araştırıp öğrenmek ve bu iradeye sahip
olabilmek ‘sosyal olmak’ demektir. Bu tanım doğrultusunda, iletişimi dar, eksik
ya da yetersiz olan insan, sosyal olamaz. Bireyin duygu, düşünce veya
bilgilerini başkalarına aktarabilmesi ve bunun için her türlü yola başvurma
çabasıdır sosyal olmak. Sosyal bireyler olmamızın
temel gerekçelerinden biri olarak paylaşmayı gösterebiliriz. Aslında bu
yazımda, değer yargılarının yavaş yavaş bulanıklaştığı, ahlak kavramlarının iç
içe geçtiği, özümseyemesek de farklı topluluklara, kültürlere, dillere, anlayış
biçimlerine ait olduğumuz gerçeğinin giderek çarpıtıldığı, çağdaşlaşmak kisvesi
altında tekdüze yaşamlara kıstırılan bireylerin yetiştirildiği bir neoliberal
sistem içerisinde paylaşmanın farklı boyutlarına değinmek istiyorum. Neden
paylaşıyoruz? Neleri paylaşıyoruz ya da paylaş(a)mıyoruz? Paylaşım araçlarımız
ve ortamlarımız neler? Biz paylaşırken kimler nemalanıyor?
Yaptığımız, düşlediğimiz,
kurguladığımız, iyi ya da kötü, her şeyi birileriyle paylaşma ihtiyacı
duyuyoruz. Düşündüklerimizi, fikirlerimizi, duygularımızı birilerine anlatma
ihtiyacı hissediyoruz. Dinlediklerimizi, izlediklerimizi, okuduklarımızı,
duyduklarımızı, öğrendiklerimizi ortak bir zemine taşımak istiyoruz.
Birikimlerimizi paylaştığımız kişilerin bizi anlamalarını, bu birikimlerimize
onay vermelerini, desteklemelerini, saygı göstermelerini, paylaştıklarımızla
sevinmelerini, kendilerini güvende hissetmelerini istiyoruz. Bu sosyalleşme,
kaynak konumundayken birikimlerimizi paylaşmakla bitmiyor; alıcı konumuna
geçip, başka bireylerin paylaştıklarını da öğrenmek istiyoruz. Bu paylaşma
etkileşimi aslında çift taraflı ve işin özünde, paylaşımla var oluyoruz. Hayatımızın
her anına girmiş olan paylaşma ihtiyacının, paylaşma yöntemlerinin, paylaşım
türevlerinin, paylaşım araçlarının, kısacası paylaşım eyleminin, fazlalaşması
ya da azalmasıyla, etkilediği ve etkilendiği çok farklı alanlar var: Kültür,
sanat, sosyo-ekonomik yapılar, dil, bilim, eğitim, yönetim sistemleri, dinler,
savaşlar vs. Bunların ayrıntılarına girmeyeceğim fakat sosyalleşme ile özleştirebileceğimiz
paylaşımın, aslında insanlığın ve insani olan her türlü etkileşimin temelini
oluşturduğunu belirtmekte yarar var.
Peki bu paylaşma ihtiyacı
nereden doğuyor? Paylaşmak, varlığımızı tanımlayabilmemiz için gerçekten bu kadar
önemli mi? Paylaşmayı, en basit tanımıyla, “elinde olanın bir kısmını
başkalarına vermek, elindekileri beraber kullanmak,” olarak özetleyebiliriz.
Aslında elimizdekilerin bir kısmını paylaştıkça sahip olduklarımızın azalacağı,
birikimlerimizi paylaştıkça bunların değer kaybedeceği izlenimi oluşsa da,
paylaşma eylemi arttırma özelliğine sahiptir. Güzel şeylerin paylaşılmasıyla
alınan keyfin artması, kötü tecrübelerin paylaşılmasıyla direncin artması,
bilginin paylaşılmasıyla farkındalığın artması, hissettiğimiz duyguların
paylaşılmasıyla bizi daha iyi anlayan insanların artması, paylaşmanın özünde güçlendirici
ve birleştirici bir etmen olduğunu doğruluyor.
Paylaşmanın sosyal
boyutunu inceleyecek olursak, aslında çok da farklı bir çıkarımla
karşılaşmıyoruz. Okuduğumuz kitapları, dinlediğimiz müziği, izlediğimiz
filmleri, kendimize yakın hissettiğimiz, bizimle ortak zevkleri olan insanlarla
paylaşmadığımız ya da paylaşamadığımız zaman bu birikimlerimizin gereksiz yere
edinildiğini düşünüyoruz. Bize faydası olmayacağını düşündüğümüz bilgileri ya
da birikimleri, tamamen zaman kaybı olarak algılıyoruz ve faydası olacağını
düşündüğümüz birikimleri (hoşlandığımız müzikler, kitaplar; zevk aldığımız
filmler, diziler, vb.) edinmeden önce, karşılaştırma yöntemi olarak paylaşılan
birikimlerin ne kadar beğenildiğini araştırıyoruz. Artık izleyeceğimiz bir
filmin konusunu ve oyuncularını öğrendikten sonra en çok ilgimizi çeken şey, filmin
ne kadar beğenildiği oluyor. Ortak zevklerimizin olduğunu düşündüğümüz
insanlarla yakınlaşıyor, onların paylaştıklarını ve beğenilerini takip ediyor, kendi
zevklerimize hitap etmeyen paylaşımlar yapan insanlardan uzaklaşıyoruz. Benliğimizi
şekillendiren bu birikimlerimizi daha rahat paylaşabilmek için, daha çok bizim
gibi yemek yemekten, alışverişe çıkmaktan hoşlanan, spor yapmayı seven,
bilgisayar oyunlarına ya da romantik filmlere bayılan, dağcılıktan ya da balık
tutmaktan anlayan insanlarla birlikte olmaya, bu tür insanlarla iletişime
geçmeye, onların beğenilerini öğrenmeye çalışıyoruz. Bu tür bireylerle, yani bizimle
aynı ‘kafa yapısına’ sahip insanlarla buluşabilmek için birikimlerimizi farklı
platformlarda paylaşıyoruz. Artık oynadığımız bilgisayar oyunlarını, çizdiğimiz
resimleri, çektiğimiz fotoğrafları milyonlarca kişiye ulaştırıyoruz; artık bu
aktiviteleri canlı olarak sunabileceğimiz ortak paylaşım alanları var. İş
tecrübelerimize ve çalıştığımız işe dayalı olarak ‘tanıdık’ edinmemizi sağlayan
sosyal ağlar bile mevcut.
Bu ortak beğeniler
üzerinden ‘rafine etme’ işlemi sonucunda, aslında sosyalleşiyormuşuz gibi
görünsek de, ister istemez kendi rahatlık alanımızda büyütebileceğimiz farklı
topluluklar oluşturuyoruz. Bu topluluklarda aidiyet hissimizi güçlendiriyoruz,
bu klanlara ortak zevklerinden emin olmadığımız bireyleri almıyoruz, bu örgütlerin
gerektirdiği ritüelleri eksiksiz gerçekleştiriyoruz ve farkında olmasak da, ‘inwardness’
diye tanımlanan ‘içedönüklüğü’ gerçekleştiriyoruz. Bireylerin yaşları
ilerledikçe, kültür seviyeleri ve ekonomik gelişmişlikleri arttıkça, sosyal
statüleri değiştikçe bu içedönüklüğün bir getirisi olan beğeni sınırlarının
keskin hatlarla belirlenmesi sonucu, ortak zevkler paylaştığımız toplulukların özelleştirme
kriterlerini arttırırken, iletişim içinde olduğumuz insanların sayısını
azaltıyoruz. Kendimizi bir anda, kendi uğraştığımız hobilerin en iyi vakit
geçirme araçları olduklarını savunurken buluyoruz, dinlediğimiz müziğin,
izlediğimiz filmlerin en iyiler olduklarına karar veriyoruz. Bu özelleştirmenin
bir ileri kademesi olarak, bizimle ortak zevkleri paylaşmayan bireyleri
dışlıyoruz, beğenilerini küçümsüyoruz, paylaşımlarını değersiz görüyoruz. Sırf
popüler olmadıkları için gezdikleri yerleri, yedikleri yemekleri, hoşlandıkları
roman türlerini ve ötesinde, seçime dayalı olmasa da, yaşadıkları hayat
tarzlarını, işlerini, medeni hallerini, dinlerini, ırklarını, kültürlerini
beğenmiyoruz. Aslında neleri paylaşmadığımız da bu dışlanma, beğenilmeme,
küçümsenme ya da önemsenmeme korkularımızla ilintili. Farklı ilgi alanlarına
sahip insanlara kendimizi beğendirebilmek için, genellikle popüler olan
birikimlerden bahsediyoruz, popüleri tüketirken (kullanırken) bir bakıma
popüleri de besliyoruz. Ve tüm bu paylaşımların değerlendirmelerini yaparken,
ortaya konan birikimleri, içeriğinden çok, ne kadar beğenildiği üzerinden yargılıyoruz.
Teknolojinin de, bu beğeni
kriterlerinin sağlanmasında belirleyici bir etmen olduğunu unutmamamız gerek.
Artık izlediğimiz filmleri ve dizileri başkalarıyla paylaşacağımız birden çok
platform var. Dinlediğimiz müzikleri, çektiğimiz resimleri, sevdiğimiz
yemekleri, okuduğumuz kitapları artık ortak kullanım alanlarında paylaşıp,
herkesin beğenisine sunuyoruz. Bu ortak kullanım alanlarına en başta Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Instagram gibi siteleri örnek gösterebiliriz. Bizimle
benzer zevklere sahip insanlarla iletişime geçebilmemizin en kolay yolu, belki
de bu tür sitelerde paylaşımlarımıza aldığımız geribildirimler. Artık
okuduğumuz kitabın içeriğinden emin olabilmek ve boşuna okumadığımız ya da
okumayacağımızı sağlamlaştırmak için başkalarından aldığımız geribildirimleri
takip ediyoruz. Yeni müzikleri kendimiz keşfetmek yerine, paylaşılma oranlarına
bakarak popüler olana doğru yöneliyoruz. Herhangi bir makaleyi, köşe yazısını, denemeyi
ya da kısa öyküyü okumadan önce, kimler tarafından, ne kadar beğenildiğini
araştırıyoruz. Paylaşımların ne kadar çok beğenildiği, yorum aldığı ya da yeniden
paylaşıldığı, artık paylaşılan birikimlerin içeriğinden ya da doğruluğundan
bile daha önemli hale gelmiş durumda.
Bireylerin kendilerini
gerçekleştirmeleri için gerekli olan bu paylaşma ihtiyacı, istismar edilen her insani
ihtiyaç gibi güdümlemeye açık bir alan ve bu ihtiyaçtan faydalanmasını bilen
kişiler ve kurumlarca ele geçirilmiş durumda. Satın aldığımız her kitap, müzik
CD’si, sinema, gösteri, konser bileti, izlediğimiz filmler ve diziler, kısacası
bizlerle, insanlıkla birikimlerini paylaşmaya çalışan bireylerin ürünleri
(fikir haklarından ayrı olarak entelektüel mülkiyetleri), bizimle buluşmadan
önce en az iki üç aracı organın elinden geçiyor. Bu aracı organlar arasında dağıtım
şirketlerini, menajerleri, büyük plak şirketlerini, medya kuruluşlarını,
organizatörleri, reklam şirketlerini, yasal temsilcileri ve denetleyici
organlar olarak mahkemeleri, yasa koyucuları ve düzenleyici üst kurulları gösterebiliriz.
Bu entelektüel mülkiyet haklarına sahip bireyler, yani ‘gerçek üretici’
konumundaki kişiler, ürettiklerinin satışından elde edilen karın ancak yüzde
kırkını alabiliyorlar (bu da çok iyimser bir tahminle). Kısacası bu aracı
organların ‘işleminden’ geçmiş, satın aldığımız her entelektüel mülkiyet için,
ederinin (ki bu da tartışmaya çok açık bir konu) yaklaşık iki katından
fazlasını ödüyoruz. Amacım, genel anlamda dağılmaya yüz tutmuş bu
sosyo-ekonomik düzen içerisinde yer alan kapitalist öğelerin araçlarını tek tek
çürütmek değil. Bu ancak başka bir yazının konusu olabilir. Fakat dikkat çekmek
istediğim konu, yerine henüz sağlam temellere dayalı bir sistem geliştirilemese
de, kapitalizm sonrası uygulanabilecek sosyo-ekonomik ve kültürel değişim
dönemi için internetin sağlayabileceği paylaşım ortamlarının da şimdiden ele
geçirilmiş olması.
Teknolojinin, özellikle de
internetin devreye girmesiyle bu paylaşımlara sekte vuran aracı organlar sadece
şekil değiştirip, farklı ortamlarda farklı yasal kuruluşlar, yasa koyucular ve
dağıtım kanalları olarak karşımıza çıkıyorlar. Düzenleyici üst kurullar,
yerlerini internet sağlayıcılarına, büyük plak şirketleri, yerlerini internet
üzerinden ücretli yayın yapan müzik sitelerine, dağıtım şirketleri, yerlerini
YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, iTunes gibi çok amaçlı ortak kullanım alanlarına
bırakıyorlar. Aracıların internete taşınması olarak tanımlayabileceğimiz bu
geçiş dönemi boyunca, büyük şirketlerin küçük ve bağımsız şirketleri
bünyelerine katmaları ya da satın almaları sonucu, rekabet ve özellikle de
muhalefet ortadan kalkıyor. Artık gerçek üretici konumundaki, birikimlerini
paylaşmak isteyen (çıkar amaçlı ya da değil) bireylerin, internet üzerinden de
kitlelere ulaşabilmeleri için, bu tekel konumundaki şirketlerin, devlet
kurumlarının ya da internet sağlayıcılarının uyguladıkları etik düzenlemelere,
tarife fiyatlarına, telif hakkı anlaşmalarına boyun eğmeleri gerekiyor. Bu
düzenlemelerde devletlerin politikalarının da payı büyük. İnternet kullanımının,
dolayısıyla paylaşımın yasaklandığı ülkelerde kalkınmadan, kültürden ve
gelişimden bahsetmek mümkün değil. (Bu linkten daha ayrıntılı bir dünya internet kullanım
haritasına ulaşabilirsiniz.)
Bireylerin birikimlerini
bağımsız kanallar aracılığıyla paylaşmaları da mümkün. Ancak tanınmamış ‘üreticiler’
olarak bu yöntemle geniş kitlelere ulaşabilmeleri çok zor. Genellikle bloglar
ve kişisel web sayfaları üzerinden paylaşım gerçekleştiren bireylerden başarılı
olanların sayfaları da, istisnasız reklam şirketlerinin ya da arama motorları
yoluyla yapılan aldatıcı yönlendirmelerin kurbanı oluyor. Buna bir de fikir ve
telif hakları yasalarının karmaşıklığını ve bulanıklığını da ekleyecek olursak
paylaşmak, içinden çıkılamaz bir duruma dönüşüyor. Ücretsiz olarak kullandığımızı
düşündüğümüz ortak paylaşım alanları da aslında reklamlar, uygulamalar,
oyunlar, kampanyalar, kişisel bilgiler ve istatistiki veriler aracılığıyla
üzerimizden para kazanan girişimler. Bu tür platformlarda kendimizi rahat
hissetmemizi, sıkılmamamızı ve başka arayışlar içine girmememizi sağlamak adına,
sosyal yaşamın bir kopyası olarak her türlü paylaşımımızın beğeniye sunulduğu,
yeniden paylaşılabildiği ve üzerine yorumların eklenebileceği bir ortam
üretiliyor. Benzer beğenilere sahip bireyler, ortak topluluklarda buluşuyor,
beğenilmeyen paylaşımlar dışarıda tutuluyor, izlenmiyor, yeniden paylaşılmıyor.
Ve tüm bunları yaparken hiçbir ücret ödemediğimizi, yaşamın bir uzantısı olarak
gördüğümüz internet paylaşımından ücretsiz faydalandığımızı düşünüyoruz. “Eğer
bir bedel ödemiyorsan, müşteri değil, satılan ürün olursun.” Sadece internet
için söylenmemiş olsa da, artık bir mem haline gelen bu anonim söz,
internetteki paylaşımın doğasını aslında çok yalın bir biçimde anlatıyor.
İnsani bir gereksinim
olarak paylaşım hakkını kullanmak isteyen bireyler üzerinden nemalanan bu
kurumlar ve şirketler dışında, gerçekten faydalı işler yapmak için uğraşan girişimler
de var. Bunlardan en önemlisi ‘Wikipedia – Vikipedi’ ve kurucu vakıf
organizasyonu Wikimedia’nın desteklediği, sözlük, kaynak, medya gibi
uygulamaları bulunan diğer viki projeleri. Wikipedia’yı kısaca kâr amacı
gütmeyen, açık kodlu, ortaklaşa hazırlanan, özgür bir ansiklopedi olarak
tanımlayabiliriz. 100’den fazla dilde, 3.800.00 madde üzerinde çalışan, 48.000
aktif editöre sahip ‘Wikipedia’nın Türkçe sürümü olan Vikipedi’de 200.000’e
yakın madde var ve her gün yüz binlerce ziyaretçi alıyor.
Uzun süredir takip ettiğim
ve internet üzerinde beni en çok heyecanlandıran girişim olarak gördüğüm bir
diğer proje de ‘Kickstarter’. ‘Crowd funding’ sistemiyle çalışan, Türkçe olarak
‘kitle fonlaması’ (benim tercih ettiğim şekliyle ‘kitle yatırımı’)
diyebileceğimiz bu girişimde, bir proje için gereken maddi kaynaklar, projeye ilgi
duyan bireylerden elde ediliyor. Kısaca özetleyecek olursak, projelerine
finansman arayan insanlar, projelerini ayrıntılı olarak açıkladıkları bir sayfa
hazırlayıp, ilgili kişileri iyi bir ürün çıkartacaklarına ikna etmeye
çalışıyorlar. Tamamen kitlelerin beğenileri doğrultusunda çalışan sistemde,
projelere yapılan katkılar (bağışlar), farklı hediye paketleri ile
ödüllendiriliyor (örneğin, yeni çıkacak bir kitap için 10$ yatırım
yaptığınızda kitabın PDF sürümünü, 20$ yatırım yaptığınızda basılı kopyasını elde ediyorsunuz). Elbette
bu girişimin de fikir hırsızlığı ve patent hakları gibi çözülmesi gereken büyük
sorunları var, fakat popüler olandan sıkılmış ve sadece beğendiği birikimlere
para harcamak isteyenler için ara sıra ziyaret edilmesi gereken bir platform.
Burada daha fazla ayrıntıya girmek istemediğim için, yazımın sonunda vereceğim
linklerden Kickstarter sayfasına girip, projeyi kendiniz inceleyebilirsiniz.
Bu yasal ortak kullanım
alanları ve sosyal paylaşım ağlarının dışında, telif haklarını hiçe sayarak korsanlık
yapan girişimler de mevcut. Günümüzde müzikten kitaplara, filmlerden oyunlara,
bilgisayar uygulamalarından dizilere kadar, dijital olarak kullanımda olan
medya materyallerinin büyük bir çoğunluğu, orijinalinden kopyalanıp ücretsiz
bir biçimde yeniden dağıtılabiliyor. Popüler medya tarafından paylaşımın ‘karanlık
yüzü’ olarak değerlendirilen bu korsan eylemlerden en çok etkilendikleri düşünülen
endüstriler, genel anlamda milyonlar, hatta milyarlar kazanmaya devam
ediyorlar. Bu aracı organların tek amacı, çıkartılan yasalarla teknolojinin
kopyalama özelliğini ortadan kaldırmak ve kopyalanamayan, orijinal eserleri
satmak. Kopyalanamayan ürünleri tek bir platformda toplamak için yazılım
ürünlerinin dışında (iTunes, Amazon, Steam, PlayStation Network), kendi
sattıkları orijinal ürünlerin, yine yendi kendi donanımlarında çalışması için
uğraşan, bu uğurda milyon dolarlık davalar açan, hükümetlere baskı yapan
şirketler var (Apple, Sony, Virgin, Verizon). Fakat internet üzerindeki paylaşımlardan
elde edilecek payı kaçırmak istemeyen bu şirketlerin, rekabet ortamının iyice kızışacağı
önümüzdeki günlerde, teknolojinin bütün nimetlerinden faydalanarak, tekelleşme
adına yeni yöntemler geliştirecekleri de kaçınılmaz bir gerçek. Bu şirketlerin
amacının, üretmemizi ve paylaşmamızı ve engelleyerek, bizi sadece kendi
ürettiklerini tüketmeye zorlamak olduğunu unutmamamız gerekiyor.
(Sosyal medya teorisyeni,
Prof. Clay Shirky’nin paylaşma özgürlüğümüzü koruma çağrısı yaptığı bu
konuşmasını, Türkçe altyazısı ile birlikte izleyebilirsiniz.)
Sosyalleşmenin
gerekçelerinden biri olarak paylaşmak, insani bir gereksinim ve her gereksinim
gibi paylaşmayı da istismar eden kurumlar mevcut. Teknoloji yardımıyla sanal ortama
taşınan sosyalleşmenin önünde, sadece bu kurumların istismarıyla ortaya çıkmış bir
yanlış kullanım değil, aynı zamanda bireylerin kendi tercihleri sonucu yol
açtıkları bir ‘yapay popülerlik’ ve kutuplaşma sorunu da var. Paylaşımların
beğenilmesi ya da beğenilmemesi üzerinden çalışan ortak kullanım alanları da bu
sorunları kendi çıkarları için yontup, ‘ücretsiz’ sosyal paylaşım ağları olarak
hizmet sunmaya ve bu girişimlerinin korunması için her türlü ekonomik yaptırım
ve yasal düzenleme için kulis yapmaya devam edeceklerinin sinyallerini
veriyorlar. Çıkar amacı gütmeyen ender örneklerine rastlasak da, aracı
organlardan kurtulmuş, tamamen kendi beğenilerimiz, gereksinimlerimiz ve
paylaşımlarımız doğrultusunda geliştirilebilecek bir sosyalleşmeden, sanal da
olsa, henüz çok uzak görünüyoruz. İnternete attıkları ilk çekingen adımdan
sonra, kazançlı olduğunu anlayıp yerlerini sağlamlaştırmaya çalışan ‘içerik
endüstrilerinin’, bu uğurda getirecekleri yeni
düzenlemelere, yasaklara ve teknolojilere karşı hazırlıklı olmamız gerekiyor.
"The
future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed."
-
William Gibson
We’re definitely living in interesting times as things are
changing rapidly. Nothing stays as it is; mostly in global contexts, there is a
massive collateral damage (global financial crisis, global warming) and there
are plenty of cracks and new, as of yet, largely unregulated areas where
innovative technologies thrive. In the near future, which could be estimated as
five to ten years, we will, no doubt, witness a lot of new and exciting
developments in economic models, administrative bodies, production industries,
data management, social networks, the climate and most importantly, medical
practices. The undisputable indicators of these changes will be the shrinking
of the economies, the development of a new mindset of what sustainability is,
the discovery that governance and administrative systems are failing and the
increased frequency of extreme weather events. And the main consequences of
these changes will be the tendency to concentrate on values, attitudes and
resources that make a difference in the quality of one’s life.
Through implementation of these changes, there will surely
be conflicts and the plausible collisions between social classes will intensify
within and across national sovereignty borders. With the collapse of democracy
and neoliberalism, human rights and obligations will be reengineered
collaboratively. As it is the trend as we witness today, the world is dealing
with the financial euro crisis with putting the squeeze on the taxpayers that
are already overtaxed and leaving the few wealthy living in overabundance and
tax free, instead of restructuring their administrations, reducing costs,
getting a grip on corruption and concentrating on improving the social cohesion
and infrastructure.
Considering the changes we will be facing in the near
future, all our information generating capabilities will only reveal the limits
of knowledge and the confines of our cognitive abilities. But how should we
perceive these exceptional changes? Are our demands, hopes, and desires about
the future frivolous? Consulting Science Advisor at the World Trade Institute
(WTI), Dr. Dannie Jost says, “Which parameters should change is not the
question I would ask. It implies a deterministic approach to a deterministic
world. I would invite exploration and I would include discipline in the
exploration. The exploration will aid in finding the emerging temporary
parameters that can be used to shape the world and create the society that we
want. Techno-determinism is not the way to go. Determinism is just not the way
that the Universe is built. The Universe is evolving and we are interacting
with it albeit on a small scale in the grand scale of things, and in a big way
in the small scope of our planet.”
As most these changes influence and reinforce each other,
there will be plenty of overlap between relevant fields. Let’s have a quick
look into which of these fields we’ll witness the firmest developments and how
will these developments manifest. As stated in this survey, concrete drivers built around technologies
and global external factors will be:
· Connections: Ubiquitous networked
sensors and computers, the Internet of Things. Everything becomes more
networked, with vast implications.
· The Data Layer: Across the world, there
is a layer of data that is growing thicker and denser by the day. It is fed by
our online behavior, by sensor networks, by the Internet of Things (IoT).
· Alternative means of production: The
rise of rapid prototyping, 3D printing & open-source hardware.
· External, global factors: Economic and
environmental woes & aging populations in industrialized countries increase
the pressure to change, adapt and innovate. Stagnation and preserving the
status quo isn’t a viable option.
And some of the key ways these drivers will manifest will
be as follows:
· Small pieces loosely joined: The
network as the dominant paradigm in most fields (economy, work, organization,
technology). This brings with it a trend towards smaller organizational units –
freelancers, single households, startups, local food production, bottom-up
innovation.
· New interfaces, ranging from more
human (gestures, etc.) to machine-readable (robots, sensors, Internet of
Things).
· The time is changing: Massive
disruption across the board. Nothing stays as it was or is, ranging from
economy to organization to education. “Digital” is one of the main drivers, but
not the only one.
What will happen to the economies and industries?
As the global economy remains shaky at best, it is expected
to go smaller, more granular. Doubtless, the globalization will still survive,
even grow prevalent, as the world connects with the third world countries
pulling the derailed train of economy, however the more sophisticated markets
will shrink in size and concept. This will lead to the further rise of
freelancers and talent networks. Innovation will blossom increasingly from the
startup and other independent actors rather than huge Research &
Development departments. Unable to adapt quickly to the new realities, global
governance systems will fail to some degree. As trust in state institutions
will be shrinking, we’ll witness a lot more self-reliant communities. One of
the manifestations of these community projects is the local food movement which
promotes urban gardening while shunning the mass-produced shelf food.
One of the most debated subjects of the last decade was the
global shift in the content industries. In the near future, we will most
certainly see a period where the product design and development industry
will suffer just like the content industry did. Collaborative design
processes, open source hardware and 3D printing in all its shapes and forms
will uproot this whole industry in ways hard to grasp yet. Particularly
the open, flat infrastructures we see evolving in 3D printing today
will have profound impacts driven by hobbyists and free market demand alike.
A whole new industry focused on pre-production
processes will arise, as opposed to those focused on final products.
Instead of IKEA we might go to a cutting and printing place for furniture, toys
or spare parts. Physical goods will face piracy in very similar terms as
digital goods today when consumers can just print knock-off toys and spare
parts. Intellectual property will be redefined yet again.
In the automotive industry, things look a little different
as car manufacturers explore new technologies but won’t just let any hobbyist
play with their software. They get support from the big tech companies like
Facebook and Google. We shouldn’t be surprised as driverless cars start roaming
in the near future. Again, gestural interfaces will also help control both your
car and your home in more human, intuitive ways. And while we’re putting chips
in our environment, let’s not forget pets and humans, either: RFID chips
might make a good implant if there’s a valid, convincing use case that is
so good that it tops the inherent creepiness we associate with chip implants
today.
Even though these new emerging technologies herald an
exciting age, I am still a little skeptic about their applicability; not just
because of their reliability but the pressure groups of the syndicate corporations
holding governance over traditional power supplies. We’ve witnessed to our
utter disgust how new technologies using alternative power sources (the
electric car, power stations running on wind and solar panels) got the hatchet
in the last two decades. And the ongoing struggles to reach more oil reserves to
deplete will definitely continue to invade the socio-political structures of
the new future.
How will the media and networking influence the future?
The fight for control over and profit from the internet is
on and mass media are entering the endgame of this second phase of the web. The
established players (broadcasters, telecommunications and infrastructure
providers like Time Warner, Verizon, etc.) and the new establishments (Google,
Facebook, Apple, etc.) will fight it out. And we can certainly expect
nasty lawsuits, mergers and acquisitions and plenty of chaos. In the short
term, this is likely to be at the expense of consumers. Media and content
industries will have to re-invent themselves bottom-up to cope with change and
harness new technologies.
Media outlets don’t have the basic understanding to see
what’s going on, so how could they even begin to harness the change? It’s
important to note that this is what happens at the organizational level –
individuals inside the media outlets might be very well versed, yet there are
internal and external factors that prevent appropriate action. In some
cases the organization chart gets in the way, in others the profit margin just
doesn’t easily allow major changes to the otherwise “functioning” business.
Working around these organizational restrictions is a major road block. Again,
size matters as smaller units are more agile.
Social media services are run by companies and thus
legitimately need to earn money. The rules of their users’ consent and privacy
will be put to the test. The privacy wars will be one of the big
conflicts in the years to come. And there’s this snippet we should always
remember when social media is concerned: if you’re not paying for the product,
you are the product. If you’re not paying, you’re being sold.
Networking concepts, and especially social networks, are
the absolute paradigm, now more than ever. Decentralization means a
redistribution of power. It also means that if you pull one string, something
might unravel in unexpected places. If there’s one thing that seems certain,
it’s that we’re headed for more complexity, not less. Networks help us overcome
growth barriers. This holds true for the small (self-reliant or mutually
supportive communities) as well as for larger societal challenges. Just to name
a few: finding better solutions for outdated copyright laws and industry
protection. More flexible work visa regulations for a globally mobile workforce
(including tax models and pension plans) that should move with the person.
While easily explained historically, the paperwork associated with moving and
working internationally creates barriers that stand in the way of global talent
distribution and equal chances.
On the other hand, not all things look bright. We are
becoming ever more digitally connected. Yet this does not mean that we will
always feel more connected on a personal level. There will be the occasional
feeling of intense loneliness, as well as a demand and need for smaller,
more protected social networks. Think about Google+ circles and Instagram. The
group/list/circle concept is as yet only rudimentarily developed. We think that
will change as social software and non-human actors grow more sophisticated.
What about the technology leading us?
We've established the dominance of the digital already.
Its younger, but no less powerful sisters, are ubiquitous 3D printing and
rapid prototyping as well as the Internet of Things. Overall, we
expect networked technology to become even more ubiquitous and more invisible.
This is right at the intersection of two notions I mentioned before: everything
becomes smaller and more granular, and there’s a new data layer spanning
all aspects of our lives.
We used to like our technology visible as a sign of high
tech quality – we proudly displayed our TVs, stereos, and computers. That was
the trend back then and it stood out. But as technology became ubiquitous, we
entered a phase of humanized and intuitive technology, popularized by the likes
of Minority Report and iPhones. Now we are seeing the rise of invisible
technology – technology simply baked into daily life, utilized but non-intrusive.
From a design perspective, this changes a few things.
A networked environment can and should be able to react more contextually and
more appropriately to our needs. Interfaces should become more subtle; gestural
interfaces should proliferate and turn technology even more into a true
extension of ourselves. Ambient technology ranging from playful applications to
more work-related tools like interactive whiteboards become more powerful, and
if not more useful, then at least smarter. As the Strategy Director of
Undercut, Mike Arauz says that, “The
proliferation of gestural interfaces (iPhones and Android touch-screen mobile
phones, iPads and other touch-screen tablets, and XBox Kinect-type
motion-driven interfaces) will have a quiet, yet seismic effect on
disintegrating the boundary between the technological and the human. In the
more distant future when we take the integration of digital/computer with our
physical and mental selves for granted, we’ll look back on these few years as
one of the major milestones along that road, due in large part to how gestural
interfaces contributed to making technology a true extension of ourselves.”
Consumer electronics will be better designed and much
better networked then today, thanks to the open web. Once it becomes industry
best practice to put APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) on our gadgets
and services and we can more easily make our things talk to each other, our
experience will be a league better.
(At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help
the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at
his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop.")
The rise of indie tech movements isn’t going to
slow anytime soon. Add the more techy flavor of the DIY/craft (Do It Yourself) scene,
physical computing and group funding and you get a pretty potent mix. This
means a massive change in how we perceive physical goods. If that doesn’t
replace the current system of massive, mainstream-oriented production, then at
least it will complement it through small production runs and mass
customization. This will definitely be the the real thing, not swapping colored
pieces of plastic. Remixing will increasingly be applicable to physical goods,
like toys. Today we see only the tip of the iceberg, the equivalent of the home
computing movement in the 70s. Industrial production as we know it today will
experience a profound disruption.
While multi-purpose devices like the iPad will grow in
popularity, they will not at all kill single-purpose devices like the
Kindle. This follows a rough pattern. New products will end up as features in
multi-purpose devices for less demanding consumers, while power users will
always favor dedicated devices. The core of adaption stays in the software and
the surrounding ecosystem. As iOS and Android have shown us, functionally
largely equivalent devices and services can be used to create very different
types of ecosystems.
What about healthcare?
A field that will see massive change is the health
and fitness sector. Over the last couple of years we’ve gotten a first glimpse
at where things are going through the Quantified Self movement. There’s a
lot more to come, though. What we know today as the Quantified Self (QS),
the measurement of body and behavioral data for further analysis, will become
more embedded in our daily lives as sensors get cheaper and network usage gets
both easier and more ubiquitous. QS will get a simpler, more snappy name; seem
less strange as applications are mainstreamed and become easier to use;
be more hidden and embedded. The challenge will be to find more meaning
and relevance in the measurements and, as boundaries between humans and
technology grow ever more blurry, to make sure that the necessary privacy
safeguards are in place. Non-human actors, namely bots in both the
software and the hardware sense, will find lots of use in medical contexts.
3D printing has been around for a while but now it’s
being applied to medicine in ways such as being able to scan the remaining leg
of a patient that’s missing one from an accident. It can then build a
prosthetic leg with skin and size that matches. 3D printing is integrating with
the fast-moving world of stem cells and regenerative medicine with 3D ink being
replaced by stem cells. In the future we’ll probably use 3D printing and
stem cells to make libraries of replacement parts. It will start with simple
tissues and eventually maybe we’ll be printing organs.
With the implementation of networking and crowdsourcing technologies
into social health networks, we will be able to communicate online with
doctors, share our individual experiences about diseases, treatments and
healthcare facilities and use mobile applications utilizing artificial intelligence.
Education and Culture
More educational material than ever before is
available online for free. Yet questions of how to curate and how to validate
& certify knowledge acquired this way remain. Will a Harvard degree stay
the most desirable standard of education? Which institutions could provide
validation services?
School design, after hardly changing for the better part of
the last century, is taking a sharp turn towards corporate settings. This is
just one of many symptoms of the corporate influence on education. It’s a
double-edged sword: on one hand, big companies step in where governments don’t
provide the best education, and help get students ready for their careers. On
the other hand, this kind of education is aimed primarily at streamlining
corporate careers. Do we want a Google University? How would it be
biased? Is it a bad influence or good for choice? As a researcher at the
Faculty of Art, Brighton University, Dr. Georgina Voss says that, “Increased awareness that the ‘democratization’
of technology is still a limited process, and that people who can engage in it
are still those in regions with fast broadband, access to a free/open internet,
access to tablets/PCs/smartphones etc. Aiming to create inclusive processes of
social/political/cultural participation, rather than privileging those who
already have substantial social and technological capital. In practical terms
this means keeping libraries open – maybe opening more of them – as they may be
the only space where many citizens can access the internet; not shifting
educational tools entirely to ‘e-books’ and online learning; recognizing that
digital techs complement, not replace, paper.”
In the face of even stronger globalization, the need
for cultural identity grows stronger again. What will be the primary point
of cultural reference? Nation, city, block, tribe, operating system?
Cities have always been a focal point for innovation and
early tech adoption. We expect urban spaces to open up to all kinds of
connected things, ranging from smart screen solutions to responsive
buildings and vehicles.
Cultural identity, as I mentioned above, might be provided
or at least fostered on the local level. Think about urban “villages” within
cities, strong tribe-like connections. These “tribes” might be defined
regionally, within the city, or by shared interests, spread out across several
cities.
Either way, we can expect that cities will become more
responsive, both on an architectural and a transportation level. Truly
interesting things won’t happen in the planned corporate cities of East Asia,
but in the messy underbellies of big, organically grown cities like New
York, Hong Kong, Berlin, Rio and Shanghai.
Now where does all that leave us?
The cultural and socio-economic implications of all these
things are huge and there is a massive difference between our expectations and our
hopes. In a nutshell, we expect culture to thrive while parts of the
content industries fail. Yet, the overall global economic structures will lead
to specific uncertainties that foster small, bottom-up business and innovation.
We hope that the Third Industrial Revolution (more
about it on references) will provide apt solutions for the
more-than-just-interesting design challenges the world faces.
We hope that designers will put their skills to use
to design for a better world, and focus on values, attitudes and resources
that increase quality of life.
We hope that governments invest massively in
research and development to foster innovation beyond the high-risk,
financially driven free market.
We hope that we will, on a global as well as local
scale, be able to close the growing technology gap between rich and poor.
Technology can empower and democratize, or it can be exclusive. We think that
inclusion is the key.
We hope to find a balance between access and
security, between convenience and control, between global and local needs.
All of these dichotomies represent legitimate needs and agendas that often
are highly complex. Yet this is where we, as a society, need all the smart
minds we can find.
We hope that our networks, including the Web and the
Internet of Things, will be free and open, as this is the basic foundation
for true innovation. To harness the smarts of the tech community, we need a
true read-write web.
We hope to see more mature and more valuable
social networking software. More nuance and sophistication, more focus on user
needs than marketers’ needs. In other words, not just iterations of Facebook or
Twitter, but a different paradigm.
We see some big drivers of change as outlined in the
beginning. Across the field and in all disciplines, things are getting
more connected. This holds true for the global – world, country, economy,
internet – as well as the super local – our homes, our gadgets, and our
bodies. As I've stated earlier, the network is the absolute paradigm and if there’s one
thing that seems certain, it’s that we’re headed for more complexity, not less.
The illuminating light of science fiction’s ‘Golden Age’ is
finally dimming to leave the stage to the ambiguous darkness of ‘exhausted’
genre crossing. Most of the science fictional and the futuristic visions of the
future nowadays have an inclination towards ambiguity, negativism,
hopelessness, unsightliness and uncertainty – and it is for a good reason to
some extent. We, as humans, have a melancholic tendency for destroying
ourselves, the environment that we were supposed to co-exist with is dying at
our hands, nearly eighty percent of the world’s population is ‘believing in –
living according to the doctrines of’ one of the numerous dogmatic religions,
and our mistrust and misuse of new technologies makes it hard to give up the
past. In times like these, science fiction has always had concrete insights
into the future that would shape the roadmaps for many technological
improvements, sociological theories and economical behaviors. However, as
science fiction writers failed to identify this culture-wide conceptual
blockage of futuristic visions, we started to experience inevitable dystopic
outcomes, insurmountable sense of detachment from the world, and a desperate clinging
to ambiguous ‘fantastic’ as a last resort for backgrounds in today’s ‘science fiction’
(novels, short stories, movies, TV shows, etc.).
Currently, most writers of the genre no longer attempt to
depict the future since the future is now considered to be out of limits. The
world that we’re living in is perceived as ever-changing and any attempt to
predict the future would eventually be deemed as a futile effort. However,
without confronting this particular difficulty, as expected from the genre,
science fiction propounds this intellectual inaccessibility of the future as a
cultural event known as ‘the singularity’. The term was popularized by science
fiction writer Vernor Vinge and futurist Ray Kurzweil, and it is, generally
speaking, the point at which human and machine intelligences concurrently start
to increase in both size and speed, resulting in a cultural change with an
inclination towards the infinite. I won’t go into detail and try to explain
singularity in scientific terms, since that might be a topic for another
write-up and I’m just scrutinizing the fact that the genre writers are using
the term as a professional dodge. As the British critic Paul Kincaid reveals, “Somewhere amidst the ruins of cyberpunk in
the 1980s, we began to feel that the present was changing too rapidly for us to
keep up with. And if we didn’t understand the present, what hope did we have
for the future? The accelerating rate of change has inevitably affected the
futures that appear in our fictions. Things happen as if by magic […] or else
things are so different that there is no connection with the experiences and
perceptions of our present.”
After failing to generate an encouraging insight into
humanity’s future, science fiction writers responded to this issue by promoting
‘inwardness’ and turned their back on the world since they concluded it would
be more fun and less risky to write about less challenging topics instead. As
many critics have pointed out, science fiction’s failure to engage with the future
is a direct reflection of our culture’s dilemma as a whole. We are now so
utterly and indistinguishably wedded to the ideals of neoliberalism and the
doctrines of capitalist democracies, it is merely impossible to imagine a
future without a capitalist system. This issue was prominently evident in the
aftermath of the financial mortgage crisis recently when the banks across the
world began to collapse. However, lacking their own plans to replace these
neoliberal democracies, political warheads just stood back and pumped millions
of dollars into the global economy in hopes that the capitalist system would
find its right course again.
However, the writers of the genre never bothered to inquire
about the facts that led to this socio-economic and cultural exhaustion.
Instead, as I’ve stated before, they turned inwards and started producing
materials depicting an ironic detachment from the world. The ‘fantastical’ and
‘metaphysical’ backgrounds were deemed necessary as the genre writers were
intentionally blurring the boundaries of science-fiction and fantasy-fiction. As
Kincaid writes, “This is a notion that
has clearly taken root with today’s writers since they consistently appropriate
the attire of fantasy for what is ostensibly far-future science fiction, even
to the extent of referring ‘un-ironically’ to wizards and spells and the like.”
This intentional melting of different genres in a pot, this
criss-crossing of different genres with different origins, this ambiguity, this
fogginess is called the “New Weird”, which began in the 1990’s and developed as
a subgenre or continuation of the speculative ‘weird fiction’. After giving a
break to science fiction for more than ten years, I
decided to return to the genre with contemporary writers and award winners and
started reading China Miéville, Peter F. Hamilton, N. K. Jemisin and Nnedi
Okorafor. And what struck me most was the ambiguity of socio-economic
structures of the fictional worlds created in most of the novels of these
writers, the feeling of detachment from the world, the inescapable inclination
towards dystopic futures and the moral fogginess materializing on the face of
total post-apocalyptic scenarios. At first I thought that might just be a
coincidence on my part for choosing those writers and after a brief search I
found some articles tackling with the blurring of the traditional boundaries of
the genres. In one of these essays, author Michael Cisco writes, "The
“New Weird,” as I’ve said, is a topic for critics and not so much for writers.
Nothing could be more unenlightening or useless than a New Weird manifesto.
What strikes the observer is precisely the spontenaiety with which so many
different writers, pursuing such obviously disparate literary styles, should
vaguely intersect in this way. Instead of a set of general aims, we have a
great proliferation of correspondences on a more intimate level, like a
sprawling coincidence of idiosyncratic choices.”
When asked, author Cisco explains that the New Weird does
not promote ideology and purpose but is actually about relationships and
influences. Which writer read what before they started writing and who
influenced whom? Which writer used that really cool twist in my story before?
The genre is under constant danger with the sterile notions and writing
techniques stripped out of context. And according to Mark Fisher, this purging
of the genre, and therefore the culture, of both history and politics is a
by-product of capitalism. He then goes on to explain that, “The power of capitalist realism derives in
part from the way that capitalism subsumes and consumes all of previous
history: one effect of its ‘system of equivalence; which can assign all
cultural objects, whether they are religious iconography, pornography, or Das
Kapital, a monetary value. Walk around the British Museum where you see objects
torn from their lifeworlds and assembled as if on the deck of some Predator
spacecraft and you have a powerful image of this process at work. In the
conversion of practices and rituals into merely aesthetic objects, the beliefs
of previous cultures are objectively ironized, transformed into artifacts.”
(Mark Fisher on our current cultural malaise, recorded at
the DIY Conference, 2012)
As it’s not that hard to guess, literature isn't the only
medium that is plagued with this ambiguity. This exhausted charade can be
experienced through most of the TV shows and movies that are deemed as
science-fiction. I won’t go into too much detail explaining why these
productions lack the sincerity to claim a ‘sci-fi’ tag attached to their
titles, however I’ll just notify the most obtrusive aspects of them. In the critically
acclaimed and criticized Alien prequel ‘Prometheus’, a subversive creation myth
is introduced in the subtext of the movie, however most of the provoking
questions were left unanswered since the writers could not bring the themes
together in a comprehensible way. In the TV series ‘Fringe’, our agents are working
for a special unit called the ‘fringe department’ and that term couldn’t be
used more fittingly since particularly after the second season of the TV show,
the audience is bombarded with ambiguous notions about parallel worlds and paranormal
speculations about alien technologies. ‘Dramatization’ is a huge part of these
shows, however getting the aid of fantastical to account for the phenomena
presented there just adds salt to the wound that is blurring of the genres –
especially when the show claims to be a serious speculative fiction about
science. To exemplify, TV shows like ‘Lost’, ‘Alcatraz’ and ‘Terra Nova’ and
movies like ‘Signs’, ‘The Fountain’ and ‘Knowing’ (and I’m deliberately omitting
Marvel and DC Universe adaptations) are all either creating distinctive detachment
from the world or choosing the fantastical or mystical over scientific facts to
explain phenomena or both. In most of these productions, the science fiction
theme could safely be removed from the background and they could be replaced
within a fantastical or historical setting.
One other deficiency of the contemporary science fiction I
witnessed, though this is experienced largely on novels and short stories, is
that the genre writers are lacking the urge to generate reasonable productivity
and insight for solving real life problems. Instead, some of the writers of the
genre create alternative timelines and history for the Western societies to get
a chance to adopt a fictional past without the white liberal guilt. We actually
had a glimpse of this sub-genre with the Steampunk tradition prominently in the
1980’s. Let’s have another look at the definition of this sub-genre for
argument’s sake and move on from there: Steampunk is a sub-genre of science
fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery, especially in a
setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th
century, or a post-apocalyptic environment. Therefore, steampunk works are
often set in an alternate history of the 19th century's British Victorian era
or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which
steam power has regained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly
employs steam power. Steampunk perhaps most recognizably features anachronistic
technologies or retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might
have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on
fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. Such technology may include
fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules
Verne, or the modern authors Philip Pullman, Scott Westerfeld, and China
Mieville. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style
presentations of such technology as lighter-than-air airships, analog
computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage and Ada
Lovelace's Analytical Engine.
This lack of historical truth and foundation of the
Steampunk is what makes it alluring in the first place, since it offers the
Western societies a way out of their guilt trip. These fictional pasts offered
by the sub-genre give the readers a chance to distance themselves from their
real colonial past, and thus the racism, sexism, homophobia and social
prejudice and inequality. And according to me, while these writers are
re-writing the past and replacing the irritating truths with fictional myths of
the new age, they’re just imposing a postmodern and ironic detachment from both
the historical record and political realities of our era.
Some might ponder whether I’m against the escapism
generated by this sub-genre and I wouldn't hesitate to imply that I’m a daunt
supporter of fantasy-fiction and furthermore, am still working on another
write-up about that specific genre. However, as I've stated before, this article
is mainly about blurring of the genres to create an ambiguous movement that is
detached from the world, unable to create meaningful insight into the future.
And contemporary science fiction writers are facing a challenge to widen the
cracks of the fractured polish of capitalism, peer into the future and write
insightful fiction that would excite the reader. And these futures, although fictional,
should get their feedback from our age, since creating a future is not
necessarily enough – science fiction writers ‘must’ envision futures that is
currently thought of as unimaginable.
As governments, economies and financial enterprises are
stumbling on the brink of devastation and the elite are acquiring riches beyond
measure, the Western dream is shattering. Deprived of new ideas and concepts
and horrified by the responsibility of having to keep the decaying system
alive, the Western political elite are bringing back the feudal hierarchy by
creating artificial enemies and forcing armies to fight outsiders. Having been
stripped of their identity, culture, solidarity, unity and dignity, the
Westerners have dutifully ignored the warning signs and carried on with buying
more useless stuff. What we need right now is interpretations of the future
rooted from our present, since the future is not what just lies ahead; it is
what we’re making with every thought and action of our living each day. The
science fiction genre should definitely think in new terms, interpret the
future by looking from different angles and try innovative ways to project insightful
scenarios.
