Tech Surveillance

Technology enables totalitarianism- without the consent of the people or to their knowledge. Because of the ability of technology to recognize and differentiate person to person, the government has the ability to use this (without people realizing) and monitor everyone's location. After reading the article handed out in class, it's scary to hear of advances being made that your TV, cell phone, and even random billboards are all monitoring you 24/7. Especially in the privacy of your own home- being under surveillance by your own TV or computer or tablet is uncomfortable and a violation of privacy, What if you don't wear clothes around the house- now the government and whomever else has access to that? No thank you. There has to be a line drawn for the sake of our privacy.

Technology is Forever

The fact of it is that technology will be around for centuries to come, and it is advancing day by day as we speak. Do I think that the government, or authoritative figures/organizations are abusing the means of technology to control/monitor society ? Yes.  If you have ever seen the movie Snowden, centered around the life and discoveries of Edward Snowden, you can clearly see how authoritative organizations take advantage of technology and its functions and frankly, it's quite scary.

Technology controls society nowadays based on the media that is portrayed through our TV's, our smart phones, and what we see on electronic billboards, as well as electronic displays on the sides of buildings! The media can control what people buy and consumption of a product by advertising constantly how "great" a product is, making the public eye desire that item, therefore almost controlling us by trying to tempt us into buying it. If an item were not being advertised so glamorously, we would not be running to stores to buy that item, but since the media portrays the items that way, that's why we buy it.

Technology is something that will always be present in society, and it is NOT going anywhere anytime soon...in fact, it is only advancing each and every single day, and we can't anything about that.  Technology is thrown in our faces wherever we go.  Just think for a second, could you imagine life without technology?? Could you imagine life where you would actually have to go to the movie theatre and pick which movie you wanted to watch instead of having "NUMBER 1 MOVIE IN AMERICA" sprawled across your TV for every single movie trailer that is portrayed?

Technology even wiggles it's way into your eyesight when you play games or apps or even listen to music. You probably cant play a game or listen to songs for a solid 15 minutes without an ad popping up and at least playing for 25 seconds before you can skip it.

Technology is annoying...and frankly quite pushy, and controlling.

Authority Everywhere

In regards to totalitarianism and technology, I feel that it is everywhere around us today, although not nearly as aggressive as Hitler had shown it during World War II. What I am referring to today is something as simple as the media. There is no doubt in my mind that the media is essentially a way of controlling society. Like I had stated before, it is not as nearly as aggressive back then, however I feel it is similar and this is only one comparison I am really making. In what I mean by the way the media is controlling society, it seeks to distract the public with news that quite frankly causes absolute chaos. I am not stating my political stance here, but a perfect example is all the "fake news" or whatever you want to consider it. Spewing information that might not even be true to information that is not even true in general is obviously nothing but controversial. But I feel that all of that "nonsense" is just distracting us from what is really going on in the world, what is occurring beyond closed doors. Totalitarianism is seen today through the use of our computers, and the internet as well. We had discussed this in class briefly but I feel it is important to add here. The fact that the internet has the ability to track what we search and then create advertisements that appeal to our search histories is a way of control. The government being able to tap into any of our devices at any given time is control as well, it just hasn't necessarily happened to any of us so I feel we really do not think about it. We had spoke about the use of symbols in class, and I feel this is something so important in regards to totalitarianism. In a way, technology created these symbols and they were printed, and spread for the world to see. These symbols have a certain message or rhetoric embedded within them. I feel the exposure to such symbols is a way of controlling, for you are surrounding people with them and making them believe what they stand for in a way. For example, the swastika became such a prominent symbol in Nazi Germany at the time, it was there flag, it was everywhere, etc. Everyone was so wrapped up in it, it was seen at every corner, it was what everyone believed was normal at the time.

I feel this political cartoon does nothing but depict totalitarianism perfectly, not just with Hitler, but with any authoritarian type of leader and what they essentially seek to accomplish.

 

Superiority In Regards To Technology

In regards to technology and the technological advances within the 19th and 20th centuries, especially during wartime, the one who possesses the newest most efficient technology has already one half of the battle. Specifically, there are two types of technology: Technology itself and Military Technology. Military Technology is simply technology that is applied to the concepts of war, and exemplifies the qualities of being distinctly military. This obviously includes, for example, weapon engineering. Weapon engineering pertains to the design or development of a particular firearm or defense machine.
I was doing a little research and came across the various components of what actually goes into Military Technology, which includes mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, mechatronics, electro-optics, aerospace engineering, materials engineering, and chemical engineering. Now clearly we have seen all of these, whether it be in movies or even lectures in regards to any war. Specifically, with World War 1, there is the development of mustard gas. This if anything defined what it meant to be superior amongst the enemy, in regards to having better and more efficient technology equipped. If anything, these technological advances within the realm of Military Technology have absolutely changed the game of warfare. The evolution of technology, for civilian use and military use, has proved to be efficient even today. Technology is constantly growing and changing as I write this blog post.
One relationship I find prevalent amongst warfare and technology is that the individuals that possess the most advanced or efficient technology (better weapons, better defense, better ways of wiping out the enemy) will remain superior over others

World War 1 Political Cartoon

Vital Advances

I think that technology being utilized by troops and armies everywhere is a vital advancement in our defense mechanisms as well as our attack strategies when necessary. Some of the biggest technological advances used in warfare have been drones, which can be used for multiple purposes, and also submarines, which allow soldiers (or whatever groups) to monitor from miles and miles below the shoreline.

Combat drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, enable troops to deploy weapons in war while safely remaining thousands of miles away from the front lines of the battlefield. As such, the lives of drone pilots are not in danger, helping the military limit the number of combat fatalities. In the U.S. military, the use of drones is expanding across all branches of operational forces.

Submarines were important because they basically revolutionized naval warfare by introducing underwater vessels capable of attacking enemy ships. The first successful submarine attack on a warship occurred during the American Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. Today, the military uses submarines to carry missiles, conduct reconnaissance, support land attacks, and establish blockades.

There are also a ton of other technological advancements in warfare, but in my opinion, these two that I talked about above are some of the most important and necessary.  I find that researching military techniques and attack mechanisms are actually quite fascinating to see how some objects are utilized; and some in more ways than one.   

Relationships corrupted by technology.....

When it comes to dating and the use of technology, it is very obvious that as technology evolves, the concept of being in a relationship changes as well. Excluding the help that technology gives with long distance relationships, it has become a "cancer" to many. All the new apps and devices allows individuals to lose their minds consistently checking up on their partners. What are they checking up on? Their partners snapchat friends and messages, their Facebook, their instagram likes and followers and oh so much more.  Technology has become toxic to many relationships and many people including myself believe this will get much worse.

Just Do It!

   This cartoon shows a negative aspect of the Industrial Revolution. In the cartoon, it shows the owner of the company named "Nike" along with the slogan "Just Do It." This shows when children were working in factories with horrible conditions. Because they were small, they would have to crawl into the tiny, dangerous crevices to fix things that could only be fixed by small hands. They also were taken advantage of and had to follow cruel instructions from the company owners that the adults did not. Although this cartoon shows the negative aspect of the revolution, it did in fact have some positive aspects as well. Many jobs became available to women and children for the first time. Women no longer had to stay home all day, they could now get payed for doing jobs such as sewing. Children could now also help out their family if they were extremely poor by getting a job to contribute to their families bills.

Instagram, Snapchat and Find my Iphone

 Liking other girls pictures on Instagram has become a huge problem within relationships today. Back then, if someone were to cheat they would have an affair and it would be somewhat hard to figure out. Nowadays, couples are getting in fights over the most ridiculous things. If a boy "likes" another girls picture, his girlfriend will most likely freak out and before you know it you are in a fight over simply tapping a phone screen. There are so many hacks in a cell phone like: recently deleted, clear conversations, and remove chat history.. that people are able to do if they are talking to someone they are not supposed to. Couples become obsessed with checking each others phones and social media that they can not even focus on loving each other. Not only that, Find my IPhone gives you the ability to track your partner and before you know it u are sitting on ur phone watching them drive all over town. Therefore, I can definitely say technology is ruining relationships.