Author: hrm305

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Week 1: Response to “Long Live the Web” and “A Network of Fragments” – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

Response to “Long Live the Web”: 

In his section, “Universality is the Foundation,” Berners-Lee states, “A related danger is that one social-networking site—or one search engine or one browser—gets so big that it becomes a monopoly, which tends to limit innovation” (Berners-Lee 82). While reading this, I was struck by the many web-based monopolies that exist today. In social media, Facebook has become a monopoly, not only in its status as a social media platform, but also in the fact that is one of the first/only places users get their news and information about the world around them. This can be problematic, since unlike more mainstream news sources, Facebook algorithms limit the information and news users see based on their preferences and personal views. This can sometimes lead to biased intake of information, which can have consequences, as shown by Facebook’s role in the U.S’s 2016 election. 

“Free speech should be protected, too. The Web should be like
a white sheet of paper: ready to be written on, with no control over what is written. Earlier this year Google accused the Chinese government of hacking into its databases to retrieve the e-mails of dissidents. The alleged break-ins occurred after Google resisted the government’s demand that the company censor certain documents on its Chinese-language search engine” (Berners-Lee 85). Not only is freedom of speech limited in the internet in China, but access to many web-sites/key-words is also highly censored. As a foreigner living in China, I run into this censorship any time I attempt to use Google, Facebook, or certain websites outside of NYU Shanghai’s VPN. I appreciate having unlimited access to the internet, but at the same time find it strange that some Chinese citizens around me without VPNs may not have access to the same information as I do. As Berners-Lee points out, “universality is the foundation” of the internet and in my opinion, such a limiting of freedom of information/speech in China violates this fundamental principle that all people have a basic human right to freedom of information and expression. 

Response to “A Network of Fragments”: 

Burrington ends her article by saying, “I have spent the last few years trying to glimpse the totality of the network in the fragments of network infrastructure, and while it is a far more coherent landscape today than it appeared to me a few years ago, at the end of the day these fragments remain the only forms I trust.” I found her reflections interesting that, in todays focus on data centers and wireless internet connection, we tend to forget the physic, tangible fragments of internet infrastructure.  Fragments such as cable lines and cell towers are often passed by unseen, and often seem less important/impressive than data centers. However, these components are still essential to a functioning internet. While we tend to rely and trust wifi and the more intangible aspects of the internet on a daily basis, these physical fragments perhaps are more trustworthy because they cannot be hacked or altered in the same ways. 

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Week 1: Response to Sophie Woodward – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

I found Woodward’s approach to sustainability very interesting. She argues that ethnography studies of peoples cultural, social, and personal fashion choices can be a good tool to create more sustainable fashion. As part of her argument, she discusses how most people who buy jeans do not think about buying “ethical” denim, however because of peoples’ personal attachments to their jeans, they often are used for many years in a much more sustainable way. Woodard argues that, “This suggests that a more instructive way of understanding sustainable fashion practices emerges from a focus upon what people do with clothes they already own. The ineffectiveness of policy initiatives to provide more ‘information’ about sustainable fashion comes from a misunderstand of what the consumption of clothing is. Instead…how we consume arises more out of routinized or repetitive actions than individual deliberations” (135). While I at first was slightly skeptical of Woodward’s “accidental fashion” approach, I began to be convinced, through her examples such as peoples’ jean habits, that purely providing people with information about what the “ethical” choices are, is not necessarily enough. Part of me is pessimistic about the fact that people do not take ethical actions when provided with enough information, however I do appreciate Woodard’s argument that perhaps there is another approach to sustainability. While I do think that the environmental crisis in our world today is serious enough that her approach is not sufficient by itself, I do think it may be a good starting point to get every day consumers thinking more about sustainability in their own lives. 

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Week 1: Response to “E.M. Forster” – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

While first starting E.M Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” I found the narrative somewhat strange. The more I read however, the more fascinating the premise of the story became. In Forster’s imaginary world, civilization does not resemble humanity as we know it today. Instead, all in the world is all alike and is totally run and controlled by the Machine. Instead of human contact, emotion, and connection, the people of this world are entirely focused on ideas as the main point in life. The machine seems to take away all elements of humanity that we know today and leads people to worship the machine, treating The Book like a bible of sorts. Any deviation from the Machine’s goals was punished by “Homelessness,” which was banishment to the surface, where people couldn’t survive. This attitude is shown in the mother’s reaction to her son’s admission of his self-exploration to the surface. “There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom
she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy.” This quote clearly shows how society values unquestionable loyalty to the Machine, and how any exemplification of human uniqueness is in conflict with that loyalty. This attitude toward her son struck me in that she does not seem to care at all for her son on a personal, familial level, instead she can only feel proud of him when he is participating in the system of the Machine. 

In Section 3, “The Homeless”, there are two developments in the Machine. “The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.” In this section, the author describes how the Machine has now actually become a religion, further solidifying the control the Machine has on all the people in the world. Lecturers of the world discuss how the Machine is omnipotent, implying the God-like nature of the system, and the utter lack of control people have over their own lives and basic needs. I found this concept to be very ironic, as the Machine seemed to have been originally created to be useful for humans and was not indented to control them. In our real world today of increasing reliance on advancing technology, this narrative seems to be a cautionary tale that while technology can be put to good use by humans, there may be a point where it is taken too far and gets beyond our control, permanently altering who we are as a civilization. This story is, of course, and extreme hyperbole of such a scenario, however when I consider how much we, and our daily habits, have changed over the last fifty years due to technology, such a concept does not seem so far stretched. 

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Reflection on Kate Fletcher and Li Edelkoort – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

Reflection on Kate Fletcher’s “Slow Fashion: An Invitation for Systems Change.”:  

In her article, Fletcher begins by defining fast and slow fashion and the inherent environmental, economic, and social problems caused by the fast fashion trend of today. She then discussed the way companies and society at large proposes solutions to the problem of fast fashion. She explains, “Slow culture, rather being allowed to seed a radical new approach, gets passed through the sieve of understanding and hierarchy of priorities and goals prevalent in today’s industry and becomes absorbed not as high-level systems change (where the rules and goals of the industry are transformed) but as a marketing angle or alternative distribution channel in the current model, a tweaked version of today’s practices.” (Fletcher 263). While reading this section of her article, I was struck with how this “tweaked version of today’s practices” plays out in fast fashion clothing stores I myself used to shop at. I recall one day shopping at H&M and seeing a sign behind the check-out counter advertising a clothing return/recycling system where customers could bring back old clothing to be reused/recycles and in exchange get a 10% off discount on their next purchase. I watched a documentary at another time about the fast fashion industry which explained this new marketing strategy. Stores such as H&M, Levi’s, Forever 21, etc are now offering incentives for people to return their old clothing. While this is marketed as a move to try to be more sustainable (i.e a solution to the fast fashion problems of today), the true purpose behind this advertising is to get people to come back and use their discount to buy even more fast-fashion items. Through this approach, consumers feel like they are being more sustainable, while in reality this clothing return system rarely helps sustainability efforts. Because so many fast fashion clothes are made from mixed fibers, it is often difficult for companies to actually turn many of the donated clothes into new products, and it takes a lot of energy to do so. Many of these companies also advertise that they are sending old clothing to poorer countries so they can be reused by locals, instead of being thrown away.  However in actuality, many of these clothes do not get bought by locals in these countries and just end up being thrown away in those countries instead of being thrown away by the company itself. It is clear to me that such marketing strategies are examples of the misconstrued Slow Fashion solution Fletcher discusses in her article. While companies act like they are providing a solution to the fast fashion problem, in reality they are providing solutions which only benefit their own sales and often do not offer any sustainable benefits along the way. This article makes me more determined to question “sustainability” efforts made by companies and provides incentive for me to simply not support these fast fashion companies in the first place, even if they claim to be focused on sustainability. 

Reflection on Li Edelkoort’s “Anti-Fashion: A Manifesto for the Next Decade”: 

As part of her talk, Li shows a movie about a weaving factory which exemplifies a local, slow fashion model. She argues the need for “Labeling the origin, content and labour of a product to better comprehend price” as a new form of marketing strategy that could change the future of fashion. I think such labeling would be a crucial step in encouraging consumers to make smarter, more sustainable fashion choices. As Li exemplifies in her talk, it is not possible to provide a 10 pound evening gown without there being some kind of unethical, unsustainable methods involved in its production.  While some may claim that it is the burden of clothing companies to employ sustainable methods in the making of their products, it is also, I believe, on the collective consumer to demand, through their purchasing decisions, sustainable, slow fashion products. However it can sometimes be difficult for every-day consumers to sort which companies and what fashion items are sustainable and ethical, and so labeling the origin, content and labor of a product would be an easy way for people to make better choices about what they are buying. I myself would find this labeling system extremely helpful when making purchasing decisions. 

I found Li’s talk interesting, because she discusses various ways to fundamentally change the fashion industry to have a “voice” for the 21st century. She doesn’t reject clothing and fashion outright, but instead claims that the current structure of the industry is out of date and inconsistent with our society’s current structure and values.  I think her approach is useful as a method to work with the system to create change, and perhaps it can be combined with other sustainability efforts to create positive future change.