So here I am, listening to ‘Better Man’, thinking about the unlecture which I, again, did not attend.

I have Victoria Landale’s fantastic notes guiding me. Hi, Victoria, I have no clue who you are but it’s nice to meet you. Your observations are incredibly useful to lazy assholes like me.

The song has ended (it was pretty much over when I started this post). Our tune for this evening is now ‘Round Here’ by the Counting Crows.

Anyway, the symposium this week seemed to cover the same stuff from last week, as well as a few ideas brought up in the Murphy & Potts reading. More scale-free network talk, which is greatly valued. I guess. I get it, I really do, and I’m tired of having it defined to me.

I’m not overly sure that the discussion format works so much. I’ve raised my concerns before, but it seems like the heads of this forum just rehash the same ideas all the time, because they are the same people, with the same ideas, talking about the same subjects. Of course we’re getting repetitive.

‘Jimmy’ by MIA has just peeked in. I enjoy this song, so I might get distracted.

Seemed to me that most of the tutors aren’t really technological determinists. I’m certainly not, but they all had something to say about the contexts of technological development. That’s interesting, a little. Is it?

Ok, I’ll stop bullshitting. I don’t care.

I mean, I am so adamantly against the idea that technology appears out of nowhere and just causes social change. How does that even make sense to people? Part of technology is demand: society asks for something, people try to fulfill their desires. Easy.

‘You Get What You Give’, the New Radicals. Eh, could be worse.

Computers were a slow progress that stemmed from society’s gradual speeding up of calculations. Yes, it’s hard to define its invention outside of technological terms, but you can’t say that it was bound to be invented then, and that it changed everything. Ok, we can with the computer, but we were prepared for it when it arrived. No one can just say ‘and suddenly all these computers just appeared and everyone facebooked’. No, rich people could afford the early prototypes, talk of these spread down, more people bought early computers, more word and advertisements. They became gradually popular (‘Better Be Home Soon’ by Crowded House) and their demand increased, the profit margins of manufacturers increased, computer development increased, their technology improved. Computers became what they are because of the social responses to earlier technologies. Not because they were born out of the ether.

We wanted them, they appeared (That was a short song, ‘Only if for a Night’ by Florence and the Machine has already taken over). And that’s why technological determinism fails, in my opinion.

Any questions?