Technocalypse Now?

 Since Friday, I have been trying to figure out how I feel about the Plurk-only architecture of that class. At the time, I thought it was frustrating because of the sheer volume of material presented and my own inability to process it all effectively. As I think about it more though, I wonder if the fault lay less in the class’s overwhelming content and more in my deficient multitasking ability. After all, despite the fact that it was all in 140 character format, and despite the fact that typing something typically takes longer than writing it, didn’t we accumulate a much larger stockpile of information? In a “normal” class, one person at a time can talk, occasionally directly to each other, but usually through the professor/TA/teacher/instructor/whoever as a moderator. Although each idea is likely brought to the table faster, it must follow the previous one linearly. There is no possibility of overlap, whereas in Plurk, many ideas can be brought up simultaneously. And, although there is more of a lag from thought to keyboard than from thought to mouth, there is no waiting for the current speaker to be finished, and likewise, no interruptions. In a way it reminds me of the difference between sequential engineering and concurrent engineering. In sequential engineering, a concept is created, then given to the engineers, then given to the manufacturer, then given to the packaging team, then given to the marketing team, then distributed. In concurrent engineering, every level of the design process is integrated together, and while each step might take longer, the overall process is much faster because of the overlap. The concurrent engineering model is the newer concept, and by far the more efficient of the two. This is part of the reason for the Japanese car industry’s success in the 80s; they could take a car from concept to production in half the time it took the American car companies to do it. Isn’t that what’s going on here? By using a non-linear system, don’t we allow for a more efferent system? And doesn’t the fact that we can’t track such a large volume of information say more about our own inefficiency than that of the system? Perhaps the “technocalypse” is already happening in this regard; we are becoming obsolete.
 I remember reading an article while back regarding the amount of published information (electronic and otherwise) in existence. The idea was that this information is increasing exponentially and at present, doubles every few years, a much higher rate than, say, the 50s. The author extrapolated this out and calculated that in something like 5 years (I don’t remember specific numbers), the number would double every 6 months, then every month, then every week, then every day, and in about 20 years, the amount of published information would be doubling every few minutes. He (or she, I don’t remember) went on to say that most of this information would be written by computers and would only be comprehensible to other computers. In other words, the whole world will become a Plurk of sorts, with more information than anyone can deal with, and more and more of it every day. Perhaps Friday’s class was a glimpse into our upcoming obsolescence. 
 In some ways, maybe we already have reached the singularity. After all, the greatest strength of computers is their ability to multitask, our greatest weakness. Another thing to think about is our increasing reliance on computers. If they were to become intelligent, would we be able to shut them off? Of course not. We would accept a limited amount of servitude in order to maintain our way of life. Think about it; we are willing to deal with countries like Saudi Arabia, which we normally would have nothing to do with, because they have a commodity we need. We could very easily stop using oil from this region, as it makes up a fairly small portion of the total oil we use, but gas prices would go up and life would be a little less comfortable, so we put up with it. It would be the same thing with computers. They are the key to a resource infinitely more important than oil: information. Computers hold an immense amount of power over us; all it takes is for them to realize it.