Welcome to another late post Interwebs,

Going back to week 7’s readings, we had the Potts Murphy Theory on Technological Determinism (To my displeasure) and an interesting collage reading – screenshotted directly from “Adrian’s kindle for mac”.

So for those who don’t know Technological Determinism is a theory and belief that our culture and society are primarily motivated by the development of technology. A good example is the use of mobile phones, they have quickly grown within the past 20 years and nowadays the majority of people carry them.

A technological determinist might argue that due to mobiles we can not communicate more efficiently and that without them we would still be stuck making phone calls at home. Of course that also comes with risk such as texting whilst driving, online predators…etc. However, maybe a non-technological determinist (someone who is against this theory) challenges this argument with the fact that mobile phones have changed the way we live, the drive of our society is not dependent on the fact that mobiles have been invented.

Despite the fact that I never want to really talk, let alone think about technological determinism (along with the rest of the year level) I do concur that I don’t necessarily see myself as a technological determinist, rather I believe that many factors drive our society. Things such as pop-culture, government, economy… there just seems to be too many things to take into account before we can come back to technology as the main motivator. Maybe us humans simply evolve… because we do? We change not because someone has invented a new mobile device, but rather because we crave change. Any agree? Yes? No? Meh…

The other reading we did was a collage. Super weird, basically there were patches of text that were listed down the page, of course when looking at a collage is it important to never reading in a particular direction or manner, just be random. I think since we’ve been talking about reading books lately in class, this was a good reading to relate to the idea of “when does a book begin and end?” or “When does a story begin or end?”. Same question applies here I guess, where do I begin reading and when do I stop? God knows, I like to be told what’s in my meals rather than just putting it in my mouth and taking a guess. Which is probably why I was a little uncomfortable about the concept of having a reading with no beginning or end, just our own decisions. Well…Crap.

During the Week 7 Symposium we talked about both the conscious and unconscious of our minds. Things that we consciously do and things that we subconsciously do. I mean, they talked about how easy is it to trick our bodies. You can trick your body into doing plenty of things these days, some people even attempt to trick themselves into losing weight!

The questions posed:

1. Which is more important in making a great book, form or content?
2. Without a conventional narrative structure, how much control does an author lose?

Which to be honest, I think we strayed pretty far from…

We ended up on the idea of semiotics, and how the way we are taught as we grow can affect the way we view certain things. Words are not necessarily linked with an object, but with the way we perceive that object on a personal level. Example, when I was growing up I was really bad at sitting still when we were driving around in our car, so a way to get me to stop bouncing off the walls was to tell me that Taxi cars were in fact Police Cars. I literally spent all my childhood being afraid of taxi cars… My parents thought it was hilarious of course, but I guess it had to end sometime. By sometime I mean one of the many 10000 embarrassing moments that were my life, basically, I was hanging with a couple of neighbours and they were running around on an EMPTY (I emphasis the empty) road, and I see this taxi car parked across from us. So obviously the first thing that I did was start screaming at them to get off the street before we get in trouble to the other kids confusion, and that my friends was how I learnt that taxi are not police cars.

So in this case, the object (Taxi) for me up to a certain point was a symbol of police, although thats not what they really are and probably don’t give two shits of all us kids running around, but it was what I was told and so I associated the two.

ANYWAYS, the point that was summed up with the idea: words are only defined by what is difference, a word can only mean something only by what it is not rather than what it is.

The Magic Bullet theory was also brought up, not the theory about the assassination of the US President, but the Hypodermic Needle Theory (different name, same theory) suggests that us humans all will wholly receive information in the same way and react in the same way. It’s not difficult to believe that this theory isn’t very popular these days.

And finally the question was asked: Are we egocentric? Narcissistic?
I honestly can’t talk for everyone else but my answer? FUCK YEAH. I am someone who can be shameless and be selfish during certain times in my life. Which also shines through when I’m blogging and so what? Didn’t people realise that it’s all about the online persona that gains the attention of readers? If you’ve read XiaXue’s blog then you’d know that despite her pretentious and vain personality, people love her!

Remember kids, even if you’re a egotistical bitch and I, along with the rest of the world hate you, I’d still love to hate you 😛

“I am better than you and my blog will forever be better than yours” 
– XiaXue via this video