GD+Brainstorm+--+Query

Thomas Solley STSH 4980-01 Senior Thesis Costelloe-Kuehn

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Notes from 10/1/2014, 

Transcript is as follows;

[BEGIN TRANSCRIPT] I think I’m done for now… I’m feeling fairly saturated…. Though I know I’ll be going back through these in the near future (hopefully to choose research questions and not to continue at “finding” a social question)... [END TRANSCRIPT]
 * Need to update social/theoretical/research/interview questions
 * Professor sent another Harroway article to look-through, have not done that yet…
 * Where I stand today…
 * Need interview questions for Facebook survey?
 * Late by 2 weeks
 * … As per Greg’s feedback, need to re-define HOW and WHY certain groups useful
 * … Find H+ group, need to add them to Poll?
 * Reddit forums?
 * … original forums?
 * Find this somehow….
 * Specific questions…
 * What use smartphones for…
 * Thoughts on netowrking of tech?
 * Better for experts?
 * Woodhouse?
 * Swersey?
 * …. more ppl in STS, CogSci, need more ppl…
 * Market analysts?
 * Colin?
 * Thomas Reddington?
 * Blaise Hartley?
 * Paul Pfann?
 * Casey Goodwin?
 * John Burke?
 * How often use smartphones?
 * How often use email?
 * “ Facebook?
 * “ Twitter?
 * LinkedIn?
 * There may be existing studies on this
 * There may be existing studies on this, FIND THEM
 * Find existing studies on this…
 * How to frame my search-questions to find this information?
 * Where do I look?
 * EBSCOHost may have stuff
 * Google Scholar may have stuff
 * …… need more than this?
 * LIBRARY
 * Still late on Zotero structuring by 2 weeks
 * Made some progress this past week, but…. still behind. Not everything fits anymore in the structure or TOPIC I had in mind.
 * Planned obsclelescence…
 * This is a thing; will be a part of “dependance”?
 * Spencer Parker may have info I need on this… Contacts….
 * What is perceived as planned-obselesence, versus things that just break?
 * What is viewed as “dependant” on technology?
 * Who makes this distinction?
 * Who defines it?
 * What are the criteria for being considered “dependant”?
 * What happens to users when removed/seperated from their “technology”?
 * Probably SOME scenario/ case-study on this at least…
 * David J Hess dot org? Used to be an STS professor… theory of “incorporaiton and transformation”... slash tellus … [pdf?]
 * Systems… what happens when you try to change the system…
 * Zeitgheist, revolution
 * Chnage form withiin the system….
 * Mainstream, selling-out? loses some affordances that seemed radical, but does moce the “big beast,” the system…
 * Product introductions… work your way from there…. Market the way to revolutonary dream-product….
 * Could eb interesting to psuch-off his idea… His book?
 * product-focus resonates with his book….
 * “Research Data Alliance”? Is this a source I can look-to for more literatures? Another search engine?
 * I suppose that if I wanted-to, questions of “humanity” might not even enter into the topic of “dependant on tehcnology,”
 * Except that I’m suggesting a new definition based-upon technological dependance… That “homo sapiens sapiens” today can be considered a low-level cybernetic being?
 * … trend, towards Clarke’s vision from “Childhood’s end”? Of “hive” mind…
 * There may be books on this already tooo…
 * What are “homo sapiens sapiens”? I don’t have a definiton right now of WHAT “humans” are considered ot be today (or at least, the most recent definiton”
 * From an anthropological perspective?
 * …. Other perspectives? Where does my perspective come from or fit-in with existing categories/lenses?
 * …. consider Anthro experts too?
 * Are there physical changes that have been noted?
 * Well… Cancer…
 * What of changes to brain-use and mapping? more of an info-processing and visual/auditory growth?
 * Even if not physical, education has shifted as tehcnology has evolved…
 * Kindof reminds me of that qs i had about Glass in edu.
 * Need new sources for annotations
 * Need to be longer too, use template
 * Shift in focus from “tackling older concerns and history fo evolutin” to “with these trends in mind, what changes to society are needed”?
 * “manuelle Castelle”
 * “Rise of the network society”
 * “internet realm”
 * “end of the galaxy”
 * information sphere….
 * “power of identity”
 * sociological dimensions to increasingly networked selves…
 * lots of convos around his work...
 * noosphere…
 * how has the introduction of DXHR affected social and scientific views of technology, within the questions of “how has the Internet shaped
 * REDACTED
 * How has the propogation of the Internet shaped social notions of definitions of “human” within the transhumanist community?
 * How has the “internet” shaped public policy?
 * Net neutrality debate…
 * How has it shaped technology?
 * ….. different approach…
 * …. how has “networking” and the Internet changed what it means to be “human,” compared to transhumanist goals, in the years 2000-2011?
 * ...application or use-case of sci-fi
 * when did the term “networking” emerge…
 * … could be used 2009-2014?
 * … in what communities? Only in certain cultures and communities….
 * HAS the Internet changed transhumanist views of “what it means to be human” (e.g. current) OR what it means to be “transhuman” (future goals)?
 * How has the propogation of smartphones changed transhumanist goals of what is ideally “transhuman” in the years 2007--2014?
 * much better, more specific… ethnographic community….
 * How has the “experience with” smartphones changed the ideals of what it means to be transhuman, in the transhumanist community? (2007-2014)
 * cool way of asking how other people view the future…
 * good scale for research question, smaller-scale questions for interview questions, and above all are the social-questions….
 * AND/OR
 * Do you see this as a trned towards hive mentality? [too specific, sub-question]
 * How has the experience with smartphones changed social views of “hive-connected minds” within the transhumanist community within the past 7 years?
 * How has the experience with smartphones changed social views of “human augmentation” within the transhumanist community within the past 7 years?
 * How has the experience with smartphones changed social views of “what it means to be transhuman” within the transhumanist community within the past 7 years?
 * These are off-shoots… Not sure if they can ALL be done… Not sure if all relevant… Might be branching…. Still trying to get closer to a “profound” question...
 * THIS seems better, nice and specific…
 * need social-theoretical questions off of this…
 * What forces in industry/technology have changed the way we view ourselves?
 * “ the way we view “humanity”?
 * “... the way we view networking?
 * “... the way we view communication?
 * no, too narrow now, losing it…
 * “how have institutional views been changed by this trend in technology…”
 * just bs-ing that one off the top of my head….
 * how have transhumanist views been changed by recent trends in technology in the past 7 years?
 * also too broad… or too narrow… not “social” or theoretical enough….
 * having problems coming-up with appropriate social questions… direct to Professor for help?
 * what does it mean to be “human” in this age of technology and networking?
 * how has technology shaped social views of “humanity” in fiction and industry?
 * closer but not yet…
 * how has technology re-shaped our definition of the “self”?
 * “... of the virtual self?
 * how has technological dependance shaped the way we view ourselves...with regards to human augmentation?
 * how has the possibility of hive minds shaped technology in industry and fiction?
 * how has human augmentation shaped the fabric of society?
 * how has human augmentation (as in DXHR) changed our notions of what it means to be “human”?
 * where do we draw the line between man and machine?
 * where do we draw the line between augmented man and inhuman machine?
 * thats nice and profound…
 * where do we, in a technology-dependant society, draw the line between “technology-augmented man” and “inhuman machine”?
 * where does transhumanism, in a tehcnology-dependent society, draw the line between “augmentation” and “enhancement”?
 * closer still (though not strictly related to the above) -- still trying to get out what’s in my head… The thoughts after re-viewing the DXHR short…
 * what seperates humans today from cyborgs?
 * what seperates homo sapiens sapiens of today from the cyborgs of the 1980s?
 * thats a very nice research question…. but not very social…
 * what limits shoudl society place on human augmentation?
 * … unrelated
 * keep thinking of that quote… “this is an industry that is driven by fear. If i don’t upgrade myself, if I don’t -- augment myself -- I’ll be less strong, less capable, than the rest of society…”
 * what seperates humans today from the “networked intelligence” of __?
 * too shallow… not broad enough, not enough meat…
 * in a society that has become technologically dependent on networked technologies, what is there for us to fear from cybernetics?
 * “.... from augmentation technologies?
 * in a society that has become technologically-dependent on netowrking and information -- such as cell-phones, IM, and the Internet -- what reason do we have to stay human?
 * …” what keeps us human, as opposed to cyborgs?
 * “... what shapes our expectations, of what it means to be human?
 * …. getting too close to that speaker’s style with the format so far… gotta get back on-point…
 * “.... what seperates smartphone-users of today from the transhumans of tomorrow?
 * …. diverging here… getting off-point…
 * In a society that has become technologically-dependent on networking and shared-information, what seperates smartphone users of today from cyborgs of transhumanism?
 * I think I like this one the most. I’ll mull that over tonight, see what the professor thinks…
 * how are cultural expectations shaped by the technology of today?
 * how are transhumanist definitions of “humanity” shaped by technology?
 * probably a research question…