How do ranking systems benefit you What does it mean for society if they only benefit you if your scores are good How can they hurt you Who controls the majority of these systems Not having control over so many of these things means ID: 736690
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Slide1
How are you ranked?Slide2Slide3
Which ranking systems do we have control over, in terms of participation?
How do ranking systems benefit you?
What does it mean for society if they only benefit you if your scores are good?
How can they hurt you?
Who controls the majority of these systems?Slide4
Not having control over so many of these things means:
“maybe our destiny is set, or harder to control”
“Meritocracy doesn’t exist”Slide5
Smith’s Thesis: Social Media/Ranking Systems
haVE the potential to turn into a dystopian control over the people
Dystopian Themes:
pressure
to conform,
dehumanization
,
mass
surveillance Slide6
Final (culminating points) question:
Based on
Black Mirror
, the Tom Scott
TedX
video, and
Super Sad But True Love Story
; what aspects
– related to social media or ranking systems–
are dystopian authors warning us about in contemporary society?
How valid are these fears, in your opinion, based on the current social media/ranking landscape in the world? Slide7
How does social media relate to our rankings?
What scores do you have
?
Battery percentage over last 7 days?
Can you think of a time you weren’t in control of your social media or online presence? E-bullying, etc.
Is your social media used against you? How? When?
Can your social
media be used to control your behaviors
? How?Slide8
What are the pros and cons of social media?Slide9
Creative Quick-write:
Regardless of whether you believe Social Media to be utopian or dystopian; spend 5-10 minutes writing a creative idea for a dystopian fiction book for teens where Social Media is the ultimate tool of Totalitarian control.
How would the government use social media to influence people?
How would this relate to the themes of: dehumanization, conformity, oppression, etc. Slide10
Totalitarianism (FYI)
The system of government where the citizen is subject to an absolute state authority
. A centralized government has
NO limits to its power
and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever possible.
Totalitarian governments are often lead by either an authoritarian leader or an oligarchy
. There are no free elections or unbiased media. Citizens and political opponents are often murdered by the state without trials, or with fake trials. A distinctive feature of totalitarian governments is an "elaborate … set of ideas that gives meaning and direction to the whole society".Slide11
Creative Quick-write:
Regardless of whether you believe Social Media to be utopian or dystopian; spend 5-10 minutes writing a creative idea for a dystopian fiction book for teens where Social Media is the ultimate tool of Totalitarian control.
How would the government use social media to influence people?
How would this relate to the themes of: dehumanization, conformity, oppression, etc. Slide12
Social Media Dystopia - Tom Scott -
TEDxSheffield
2010
Q: Is Social Media utopian or dystopian?
Tom
Scott pops the utopian bubble surrounding social media in a way that is uniquely
believable
, insightful and dramatic
.
https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE3azAS2e9k
Slide13
Black Mirror: “Nosedive”
Netflix
Season 3, episode 1
https://www.netflix.com/watch/80104627?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2C0429cfc3-8510-412f-974e-1e33d4e18f6f-398814761
Slide14
Black Mirror
discussion
Do you feel empathy for
Lacie
Pound?
Describe
the society and social norms of the
Black Mirror
episode “Nosedive.”
Does
the imaginary US government support the social media system? How? Why?Do people still have authentic interactions in “Nosedive”? How does the social media ranking system dehumanize
people
? What is
the
emotional range people exhibit publically and privately?
What is the significance of the truck driver asking
Lacie
how yelling felt
?
What is the significance of the end?Slide15
Black Mirror
discussion
Are
there any benefits to the social media system? What classes of people would be empowered? Who would be oppressed
?Slide16
Black Mirror
discussion
Do
you think the star ranking system is at all similar to current ‘swipe-right, swipe-left’ social media movement?
How would the star system change the culture here at
Skyline?
Would a finite star system make a big impact?Slide17Slide18Slide19
What do you think about this
? Does it matter?Slide20
Thought-BOX
:Sesame Credit
other appropriate questions and comments will be read/answered
PG13/R
border
Ask Mr. Smith questions are usually fair game
Topic is just a guide
do not use student’s names
its supposed to be fun
the thought-box is meant to be
anonymous, but doesn’t have to beThis is your chance to democratically participate by having your voice heard?Slide21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI
Slide22
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
“Gary
Shteyngart
might be too funny for his own good. His novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a spectacularly clever near-future dystopian satire… At first, the book seems like
Shteyngart
business-as-usual as we delve into the diary of one Lenny Abramov, a pure exemplar of this writer's favorite species of comic protagonist: a self-deprecating Russian-American Jewish male, self-conscious about his appearance, uselessly well-educated, wry, passionate, neither old nor young, and helplessly prone to error
.”
-- Slate Slide23
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
“Consumerism
; youth-worship;
subliteracy
; and developed societies' obsessions with money, class, health, and entertainment—the most prestigious occupations in this society are Media and Credit, followed at a discreet distance by Retail—are easy sport for a wit as gifted as Gary
Shteyngart
. He takes aim and the targets go down, unerringly. For the first half of Super Sad True Love Story, quick, bitter little jokes pop on every page, one after the other, like rifle fire on opening day of hunting season. Like every good satirist, he's observant and annoyed, nursing innumerable beefs, both major and minor, with the state of the world
.
And
, more to the point, how do you live in a culture like that? The beauty of this novel is that its hero and its heroine, in their hugely different ways, really do attempt to negotiate this trashed and trashy world with some tiny measure of dignity. Lenny, the romantic schlemiel, keeps reading—Chekhov, Tolstoy, Kundera—and keeps believing, against the best evidence, in love. Eunice, confused and scattered though she is, keeps trying to give her inchoate life some recognizable form, and to fix, or at least come to terms with, her terrible family. They're fighting a losing battle, one whose outcome is as inevitable as
the
war on mortality, but their persistence is genuinely touching
.”
-- Slate Slide24
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
“
It doesn’t let America go, either. The “prematurely old country” of the novel is run as a kind of war zone by the “Bipartisan” secretary of state, Rubenstein, who has installed the youthful Jimmy Cortez as a puppet president. The state of emergency is permanent, tanks are all over the place, and in a particularly brilliant invention, people are required to deny the existence of all the weaponry they see and to consent formally to the act of denial they have just performed. The only thing that keeps people really happy is their credit rating, if they have one that’s high enough. Scores are publicly available on screens posted on every street and can always be checked on the devices everyone carries, instruments that work like iPhones designed for Orwell, providing instant background checks on anyone you might like to know, along with helpful ratings like that of your perceived desirability for sex or anything else as compared to other members of the group you’re in. The area that used to house the Security Council is now the U.N.R.C. (United Nations Retail Corridor), a mammoth cross between a mall and a North African bazaar. A euro costs you nearly $9, and by the end of the novel this America, with all its “loud, dying wealth” and its quiet and ubiquitous poverty, has been taken over by a combination of Chinese and Norwegian business interests
.
”
--
NYTimesSlide25
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
Terms to know:
ä
ppärät
= iPhone type device
"my
äppärät
buzzing with contacts, data, pictures, projections, maps, incomes, sound,
fury“"I’m learning to worship my new äppärät’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows every last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors
.“
"he wasn’t there. He didn’t have an
äppärät
, or it wasn’t set on “social” mode, or maybe he had paid some young Russian kid to have the outbound transmission blocked
.“
"my
äppärät
picked up on some scan-able faces, an old-time porno star and a slick guy from Mumbai just starting out on his first worldwide Retail empire
.“
"But even he seemed unimpressed, glancing impatiently at his
äppärät
, which was alive with at least seven degrees of information, numbers and letters and Images stacked on the screen, flowing and eddying against one another as the waters of the Tiber once did."
Global Teens = some combination of ALL social media
"I put the name of my oldest Media pal, Noah Weinberg, into my
äppärät
and learned that he would be airing our reunion live on his
GlobalTeens
stream, “The Noah Weinberg Show!,” which made me nervous at first, but, then, this is exactly the kind of thing I have to get used to if I’m going to make it in this world"
SUK DIK = a clothing brand
Yuan= Chinese money
Solvency= having more money than debtSlide26
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
Characters:
Lenny Abramov = main character, you’re reading his diary; he loves Eunice
Eunice, or
Euny
= Lenny fell in love with her in Italy
The
Abramovs= Lenny’s parentsNoah Weinberg= Lenny’s friendVishnu Cohen-Clark= Lenny’s
friend
Joshie
= Lenny’s immortal* boss and
firendSlide27
Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary
Shteyngart
How is the social media climate/ranking in
Super Sad
similar to “Nosedive”?
Are the people dehumanized? Slide28
76-96 or 151-168
in
Super Sad True Love
StorySlide29
Lacie
Pound: “Maybe you’re just too old to get it– you have to play the numbers game, it’s the way the fucking world works
.”
Is
Lacie
Pound right about
our
world?Slide30
Is Social Media a
dystopian or utopian force?
Utopian
Aspects of Social Media
Dystopian
Aspects
of Social MediaSlide31
Final (culminating points) question:
Based on
Black Mirror
, the Tom Scott
TedX
video, and
Super Sad But True Love Story
; what aspects
– related to social media or ranking systems–
are dystopian authors warning us about in contemporary society?
How valid are these fears, in your opinion, based on the current social media/ranking landscape in the world?