I look at the world around me and feel almost disgusted by the entrenched defaultism that I see everywhere. For instance, when the internet came along there was a sense of liberation from the passivity of watching television. We learnt to talk back. We learnt to create our own blogs and express ourselves as opposed to merely imbibing the thoughts of others in a mass daily dose of benign hypnosis. Clay Shirky informed us about the great cognitive surplus that would result from being so freed. And yet here we all are – facebook members all – allowing one site to define the structure of our social relationships. Yes we can comment. Yes we can poke. It’s more than television allowed. But it’s the whole world still watching one tube, one interface – just as it was before. As always we accept the tools on offer without ever questioning whether or not our desires and needs extend beyond it.
Many of you can’t imagine this because you’ve never had the experience of having your desires open out in the sort of way I mean. The way the interfaces with which you interact constrain your awareness of those desires, because as far as you are concened – they exist outside the realm of [imagination]. ~ Source Dan Haggard
