Tyler Shores

Ken Auletta’s Googled: A Brave New Digital World?

March 5th, 2010 § 0

(Brief excerpt of my latest book review)

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It

Ken Auletta

Penguin Press, 2009

400 pages

“I fear theirs is an old story about how good people deceive themselves.”

The sentence sounds more befitting of a Thomas Hardy novel – instead, it’s a vaguely foreboding sentiment about one the world’s most trusted and ubiquitous companies: Google. Despite the title of Ken Auletta’s book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, the narrative that Auletta traces is not just the story of a single company, but rather a story of how the advent of Internet and new media innovation have altered society in long-reaching ways (Think of “The End of the World as We Know It” more in the R.E.M., and less in the post-apocalyptic sense, and you follow Auletta’s logic). The author sees Google as an ideal focal point through which to examine this brave new digital world, primarily because it has for many people Google has become seemingly synonymous with the Internet. “The world has been Googled,” writes Auletta. “Googled” in the usage which Auletta employs throughout the book denotes anything which is swept up and fundamentally altered by the wave of technological change that has characterized the past decade. Sometimes this technological know-how outpaces our capacity to fully grasp its significance or to fully adapt around it – “Googled” in this context carries both a positive and negative connotation. Such is the nature of the Internet as a medium – or perhaps any medium – that can be characterized by rapid change: “because the Internet inevitably destroys old ways of doing things,” Auletta writes that it entails “creative destruction.”

It’s clear that Auletta—a longtime writer for The New Yorker on the Internet’s cultural impact—wants the reader to recognize Google as a profoundly influential media company with far-reaching ambitions: “If you can solve search, that means you can answer any question. Which means you can do basically anything.”

[Full review will be up soon on The Oxonian Review website]

updates coming soon

February 28th, 2010 § 0

Sorry for the delay, it’s been a busy few weeks. The Clay Shirky interview will be posted soon, as well as a new book review and some other related news.

Coming Soon: 30 Rock & Philosophy!

February 2nd, 2010 § 0

I can’t wait for this! Perhaps I should spend less time posting things on blogs and more time actually finishing my chapter …

For die-hard fans, here is an excellent 30 Rock website — especially useful for remembering scenes from episodes, favorite jokes, etc. Hey, it still counts as research for me.

More details coming soon.

Upcoming Interview with Clay Shirky

January 28th, 2010 § 1

Clay Shirky will be taking part in an interview for the the Oxonian Review in February. Mr. Shirky, one of the world’s leading experts on the way in which the internet has shaped decentralized interaction in our everyday lives, is currently a professor at NYU and author of the influential best-selling book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. As part of an exciting new “crowdsourced” format, portions of the interview will be taken from the University of Oxford community.

If you would like your question considered for submission and use during the interview, please drop me an email (tyler@tylershores.com) or leave a reply in the comments section below. All credit will be given for any audience-submitted questions used and published from the interview.

Question submitters will also be entered into a drawing to win a free copy of Here Comes Everybody.

The full article will be posted as soon as it is available.

For more information about Mr. Shirky, please visit his website: http://www.shirky.com/

Click here for more information on his best-selling book, Here Comes Everybody.

[UPDATE. 7:00pm GMT Feb. 8, 2010]

Here are some of the top questions submitted so far. We will continue to take submitted questions until next Monday, Feb. 8. Thanks for all of the participation so far!

- Is social media good or bad for social interaction?

- Can you ask him about his views on the relation between charismatic leadership and communal decision-making? It seems to me that most open/crowd-sourced projects have a figure-head, be it Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, Linus Torvalds of Linux etc. Is there still a need for a visionary/motivator/champion in a self-organized “headless” community?

- Is the Internet pulling us apart or drawing us together?

- Brave New World or 1984?

- Given the recent butting-of-heads between Amazon, publishers, Apple (?) and now Rupert Murdoch, what do you think is the future of the eBook and publishing industry? Or books, for that matter?

- Many people no longer subscribe to a newspaper, given that articles are freely available online and are no longer as current by the time they are printed. Where do you see the news media in 20 or 50 years? Will there still be dominant players that set the agenda for national and international debates/discussions, or will there be a plethora of special-interest groups only interested in a narrow range of topics and ignoring everyone else?

- We are seeing increasing discussions about the ethics of social reporting - what do you think of things such as Twitter which are becoming more and more alternative forms of reporting than traditional media and journalism?

- I am currently working for a company, wildearth.tv, that broadcasts nine hours of daily live safaris from South Africa as web streaming. We use Twitter to draw attention i.e. “Lions are hunting”. Thousands of viewers share their thoughts in the chat rooms. And one of our animals, a black bear has 80,000 Facebook fans. Do you think that the future of TV makes use of existing interactive web2.0 plattforms such as Facebook or Twitter, or will it be an embedded technologies like “the red button” on the remote control or Yahoo! connected TV?

- Can a technological medium, even something as radical and pervasive as new media, actually shape society?

Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser

January 24th, 2010 § 0

Just in time for the release of the much anticipated new movie (March 5, 2010), Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy is now available!

Ever since Lewis Carroll first dreamt up the Alice stories at Oxford in 1865, the fantastical, nonsensical inversions of Wonderland have presented an ideal setting for philosophical reflection. While over time we’ve seen a Wittgenstein essay here, a Carl Jung quote there, this is the first book devoted solely to exploring philosophy through Alice in Wonderland. When we stop to consider it, the need to know and the search for meaning are fundamental characteristics to both children’s literature and philosophical writings alike. Perhaps why there has been such a profound and enduring love for Alice in Wonderland for so many readers over time is that its deeply imaginative sense of wonder has an ability, like all great works of fiction, to take on different shades of meaning and to grow along with its readers.

I’ll include more thoughts on the book and additional Alice-related posts … once I can get my hands on a copy. (Do you think the Blackwell’s bookstore will give me a discount on a book I helped write?)

And now you can even become a fan of our Blackwell Philosophy and Popular Culture Book Series on Facebook.

In the meantime, here’s a brief excerpt from my chapter on Alice and the Philosophy of Memory:

…………………………………………………………………………………………

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly,“I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then” (p. 47).

Alice’s conversation with the Caterpillar shows us how sometimes even the most complicated and important philosophical questions can lie just beneath a seemingly straightforward exchange. The ordinary question “Who are you?” leads Alice to confront one of the fundamental philosophical questions: “Who am I?” As the Caterpillar’s cryptic responses begin to bewilder her more and more, Alice wonders at the Caterpillar’s question, “So you think you’re changed, do you?”—

“I’m afraid I am, sir,” said Alice. “I can’t remember things as I used”. . .

“Can’t remember what things?” said the Caterpillar (p. 48).

Alice cannot answer the question of who she is, because she can’t seem to remember who she was. From this, we can begin to understand how memory is inextricably tied to questions of what we know (or perhaps think we know). Indeed, memory is crucially important for understanding ourselves as conscious, thinking individuals. But what is memory?

Interview on The Simpsons

January 8th, 2010 § 0

In celebration of The Simpsons reaching 450 episodes, KCBS had a feature on the show this morning, where I was invited to speak along with Paul Cantor, Professor of English at University of Virginia. By the way — be sure to check out this Sunday’s The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice hosted by Morgan Spurlock (of Super Size Me fame). While you’re waiting for Sunday, you might also enjoy this article or this blog post on the upcoming event.

Teaching a college course on The Simpsons? Anytime I get to mention Foucault and a Simpsons episode in the same sentence, it’s a pretty good day. Click on the image below for the full podcast of the show!

Paul Cantor is brilliant, and certainly a highly-regarded figure in American popular culture studies (check out his book, Gilligan Unbound) – so this was quite a thrill for me! I particularly enjoyed his comparison of The Simpsons and Charles Dickens during the interview. You can check out an excerpt from one of Cantor’s essays on The Simpsons here.

Interview on The Simpsons

It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure

December 22nd, 2009 § 0

Exciting news - my six-word memoir will be included in the newest Six-Word Memoir book. What an honor!

Legend has it that Earnest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story using six words. His response: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Eh. But, from this a fascinating book concept was born, inviting readers to share their own unique, poignant, and bizarre six-word memoirs.

The first six-word collection featured neat contributions from writers famous and obscure, including the likes of Stephen Colbert, Dave Eggers, and Amy Sedaris.

I love the six-word concept. As a writing exercise, it was actually quite challenging and I found myself spending days with questions swirling around in my head like, “who am I?”; “what do I have to say about myself?”; “what’s most important to me?” — not to mention the six words form seems to lend a certain air of of poetic brevity and mystery to a story. (For the sake of comparison, Winston Churchill’s Official Biography checks in at a whopping thirty-one volumes).

If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to submit your own story. Thinking in terms of how to tell your own six-word story can be an unexpectedly enlightening exercise. How do you capture who you think you are in six words?

Check out Smith Magazine’s great website for inspiration:

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords/

Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine

Six Words to a Digital Life was one of my favorites — there are some gems (“Needed to find myself. Used Google”). Think of it as an interesting sociological look, for better or for worse, into the collective consciousness on life in the Internet Age.

http://www.smithmag.net/sixwords-digital-life/

Six Words to a Digital Life

Alice in Wonderland & Philosophy: Coming Soon!

December 7th, 2009 § 0

The book’s set to be released next month, in time for the exciting new Alice in Wonderland movie coming out on March 5, 2010. Mark your calendars!

Who isn’t at least a little curious to see what a Tim Burton-version of Alice in Wonderland is going to look like? Here’s the trailer for a sneak preview:

Alice in Wonderland The Movie Trailer

Written in 1865 by Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), the origins of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland can be traced back to the halls of Christ Church at Oxford.

[Random Fun Fact]: Many Alice in Wonderland fans will remember when Alice finds that mysterious bottle labelled DRINK ME, which causes her to grow to enormous proportion, and then shrink to a tiny size. But did you know that there’s even a known medical condition (“Alice in Wonderland syndrome“) describing such hallucinatory and distorted changes of size perception?

(Hope to add a new entry on Alice in Wonderland trivia, folklore, and real-life pictures next time!)

The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History

October 30th, 2009 § 0

I hear there’s mention of a certain UC Berkeley-based Simpsons class in here. I’ll have to check it out. (I hope I had something interesting to say in there!).

[Fun Trivia Update] While we’re on that subject, here’s the “12 college courses we wish our schools had offered” list from the always-interesting mental_floss magazine. I really think “The Simpsons and Philosophy” is a much cooler class than “The Horror Film in Context,” but I can’t possibly imagine a more biased person on this topic than me anyways.

Hello Oxford!

September 24th, 2009 § 0

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