Here's an idea, there is no such thing as offline.
OK, before you get all riled up,
we're not going to talk about how
the internet doesn't exist because here it is,
in your face.
I'm in your face.
We are going to talk about our relationship to it
though and how that relationship to it
is confusing, sort of like the relationship
between Dr. Pepper and Mr. PIB.
Are they work associates, cousins, lovers?
Our relationship to the internet is confusing
because we use all of these action verbs and location
words.
You visit websites, you surf and you bookmarks things.
We talk about the deep web like it has a size.
We talk about the dark web like it has shadowy bits.
In fact, this is how we talk about computers in general.
We have mice, which are not actually small animals,
and desktops, which are not actually the top of the desk,
and all of these other things that are so second nature,
they're metaphoric base has totally eroded.
The ways that we talk about our computers and the internet
have this residue of the past.
Like when the technology which would eventually
become the internet was first strung together in the 1950s,
it was a closed network of machines working together.
Computers connected to the network were said to be online.
They were part of the process.
But as the internet grew to a nearly ungrokkable spaghetti
mountain of worldwide connections, anything
and everything connected, collectible, accessible and
verifiable through the internet, its ubiquity and complexity
invites the question is someone or something ever not online.
I don't mean to suggest we're always using the internet.
There are plenty of situations where
that would be inappropriate or downright dangerous.
But more like, do you have to be using the internet
to be online?
And if you're in the middle of the woods, are you offline?
If you're looking at Twitter on your phone
or playing Halo multiplayer, then of course you're online.
But are you online if you're sending a text message,
or what if you're being forced to watch
this video in a classroom?
Sorry.
What if you have a Tumblr with an auto posting
queue or a Wikipedia entry?
What if, while away from your computer,
you think to yourself that would make a great animated GIF?
Are you online if you keep your money in a bank
or have a driver's license?
I would say yes to all of these, but especially the animated GIF
one.
I think that all the time.
Even media which are not online are online insofar
as you can arrange access to them online.
I mean if you can get Frank Stallone in "Terror
in Beverly Hills" online, you can get anything online.
Fact.
But really, the way that we talk about
the online, offline distinction is sort of
like the heap paradox.
When adding grains of sand to a pile,
when does the pile officially become a heap?
At what point, while providing connectivity
to a person or piece of media is online officially achieved?
It is impossible to say and maybe unhelpful to boot.
In social relationships and identity online and offline,
sociologist Don Slater says that "it
is the making of the online offline distinction that
needs studying, rather than assuming it exists
and then studying its consequences.
Any boundaries drawn between online
and offline will always be contingent, variable,
and unstable."
How and why we make this distinction
is like the weather and Taylor Swift's love life.
It is always changing and always in your face.
I'm in your face.
Which might lead you to wonder, does this limit us in some way,
drawing an imaginary line between online
and offline in the sand, maybe even
claiming that one is more real than the other?
And when the time comes to erase the distinction,
we might not see it for what it is
because influenced by the language we use to describe it,
we'll hold onto it because it's the only way we
know how to think about it.
And what if, now hold onto your unusual hats,
the time to erase the distinction between online
and offline is right now?
I mean our proximity to the network
is only shrinking what with phones constantly at hand,
internet in our watches, and laps you can text message.
We might, in some sense, never be not using the internet,
let alone offline.
Maybe it's time to resurrect ye old away from keyboard,
or AFK, because it's more appropriate to describe
our method of interaction with the internet as opposed
to some unclear on or offness.
Cyberspace and meatspace sort of just converge,
kind of like the dimensional gateway from "Event Horizon."
Look at Google Glass, and the Fuel Band, and the Pebble
Watch, and the Internet Fridge.
I mean go and google wearable technology and just be amazed.
Some people, Sherry Turkle, might
say that this is uh-uh, no good, slow your roll technology,
and take a chill pill.
They might say that the online, offline distinction
is something that we need to maintain our relationships,
to communicate with one another, to stay human.
But after rolling my eyes so hard they almost
get stuck in the top of my head, I
wonder if you're not a monk survivalist or pile of rocks
if you could ever actually be offline.
And if this idea that we behave or connect differently
online from off is just an effective linguistically
inspired line in the sand where in reality there's
just sand, smooth, smooth sand.
What do you guys thing?
Is there an online and offline?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you're not stuck in the deep web, please subscribe.
Bonk, let's see what you guys had
to say about bitcoins and unusual hats.
HankGreen makes a really great point about the way
that value is generated in a currency,
and that algorithmically generated
value might be a little fishy.
Brumagem and metroid on Twitter pointed out
that you don't necessarily have to pay to get objects
to turn into refined metal.
That you can just play the game, and you'll
be given those things automatically,
which is a very important thing that we didn't mention.
You are still getting paid in some sense
for working, whether or not idling counts as working.
MRV958 and a bunch of other people
got really upset that I said gold has intrinsic value, which
I understand your argument.
I think from my point of view what
I mean is that as a currency, it's kind of irreducible.
It doesn't combine with anything else.
It won't degrade and we think of dollars a lot
of times as referencing gold.
But gold only references itself, more gold.
So thank you for asking me to clarify.
David Banville brings us a quote from a Jane McGonigal book
where she talks about the devaluation of the yuan because
of virtual economy.
So we'll pause here so you can read it.
It's really interesting.
To Meito Anizawa, so admittedly it's
been awhile since I play a lot of TF2.
I used to go back and forth between the spy
and the sniper a lot.
If there's too many snipers, I will just play the scout.
[MUSIC - BAAUER, "HARLEM SHAKE"]