 Fundamentally, people excel at doing two things. We invent games. We tell stories.
Most of our daily activity can be placed into one of these bins. Even if we are on autopilot while doing repetitive work, we may tell ourselves stories as we think about our past or future. How is technology shaping our stories and games?
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 Here's your mental exercise tonight. Imagine that, in the photo above, each of those marbles is on a plate that you are holding. Now picture trying to dump them, single file, into a jar.
Well, on the upside, at least you don't need to expend mental energy cleaning up the mess. This exercise has very important implications in your happiness and the overall well-being of this planet.  You are either a product of your circumstances or an observer of your circumstances.
Genuine observers are scarce and difficult to find since they do not seek the limelight. They are also very happy, resilient people. Keep reading to learn about why we need more observers.  Nothing happens in a vacuum. Our entire known universe is interconnected.
Feedback is all around us. It can arrive in the form of verbal comments from a trusted friend. It can be cells in our bodies interacting with each other via biochemistry. Or, on a grand scale, it can be biodiversity in action as one species ensures the survival of another in a very obscure way. Why is it so hard for us to notice and interpret feedback all around us? What happens when feedback is manipulated artificially?  “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” – Marshall McLuhan
What are you thinking about right now? What were you thinking about 5 minutes ago? A month ago? Our attention is our most precious commodity. It determines how we spend every minute of our day. It is also the target of companies operating in the Information Age.  As Shift Sight is primarily concerned with humane, sustainable edtech, the last few posts might have seemed out of place.
They are the preamble for this one. General tech typically becomes edtech due to profiteering, so the previous posts about what is happening outside the classroom is especially relevant. Let's get back to school.  Technology is the great equalizer, we are told. Technology will save us all, we are told. It might be assumed that ownership of more technology creates more social mobility and a better life.
The reality is that we are seeing reduced quality-of-life across the board whether you measure it by health or wealth. Shift Sight believes that technological equity, not equality, is a way to better society. Keep reading to learn more.  Evil never presents itself as evil. There are no corporations standing on street corners twirling their proverbial mustaches.
There are lies and deception. There is whitewashing. And there is technology forced on society without full disclosure. This is a wolf in sheep's clothing. What is a common theme in the tech marketing you will hear? “This technology is helpful!”  Our planet is a very delicate puzzle. There are many interdependent, interlocking pieces. When we remove one of these pieces, the picture becomes incomplete for a bit.
But it does not stay incomplete: like any organic structure, a reorganization occurs to reach a new point that is stable. For example, as the population of a species declines, new predator-prey relationships form in the food chain. The gap closes quickly. Keep reading while we assemble our puzzle for you. Let's start with the corners.  Business failures are all over the place.
Some of the failures make national headlines. But it’s not the headline that you might expect. For example, a multi-billion dollar company releasing a much-anticipated new product. Confused? It’s actually quite simple. These businesses are borrowing too much from the future and calling it the GDP in the present. They are failing your children, and they are failing the planet that your children will inherent. |
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Ty is a Founder of Shift Sight, LLC. Archives
January 2019
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