Depending on which words are used to describe it, the idea of enhancing human intellect and physiology beyond their current capabilities are often met with rejection based on ethical grounds. Compared to other emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, human enhancement may seem distant and undemanding of our immediate attention, yet recent developments allude to the contrary. As of today, humanity is able to conduct reproductive enhancement via embryonic selection and artificial gamete generation. We can alter our appearance with cosmetic surgery, replace missing body parts with neuroprosthetics, and install medical implants. Every day, we are being mentally assisted by electronic devices – some of which are wearable – to store and manage information. Most of these current applications are used for the purpose of healing or remedying the body to a societally accepted standard, but humanity remains either fearful or cautious of going beyond that standard. That is what distinguishes current human enhancement from transhumanism; the philosophical notion that the human condition should not be restricted to its current limitations and instead be expanded with the use of technology. In an age of rapid developments in genetic engineering and neurotechnology, society might have to deal with the idea of what it means to be physically human sooner than anticipated. In fact, several enhancement technologies already exist: genes can be edited with the CRISPR/Cas system, neural implants have been used to treat movement disorders, accessible fabrication of biomaterials is made possible with 3D bioprinting, and researchers have figured out a method to connect implants to Wi-Fi. Whether society accepts anything more than treatment is becoming a more relevant discussion, with major backlash already occurring even towards well-meaning applications. One example is Genspace, a non-profit community biolab that was deemed unethical by many despite its advocacy for ethical biohacking. Another example is cochlear implants, which some in the deaf community view as an affront to their culture, feeling like a “minority threatened by the hearing majority.” Such conversations open up multiple avenues of nuance: the need to define a human standard, the cultural, political, and social ramifications, and the tangible repercussions of a resulting uneven playing ground between individuals, both physical and mental. With recent claims by Chinese scientist He Jiankui regarding the world’s first gene-edited babies and the ensuing outrage, this topic seems more pertinent than ever.

For my rewire experiment, I decided to implement a simple change and see just how much my daily information intake changes based on that. I began by thinking about the ways I’m exposed to news, and realized that I don’t really have a consistent way to stay connected to global events. For international news, I rely on stories popping up as I scroll through different media like Reddit and Facebook. For news about my home country and the Middle East, I am even more limited in my exposure as my main go-to platforms do not cover this part of the world, so I rely on my social media circles and again, exposure through random scrolling. While the pages I choose to follow and the circles I choose to keep have not failed to keep me up to date on significant events, it’s become apparent to me that there are some flaws in using this approach. First, I am not as connected to Jordanian news as I’d like to be. Second, my exposure to “international news” has devolved into an oversaturation of Trump. Third, the nature of these platforms make it easy for me to skim through the latest global events in favor of seeing the latest in NYUAD confessions or r/aww. While it’s true that both Facebook and Reddit allow me to cater my experience towards my interests, with reddit dedicating a whole subreddit to world news, they’re still extremely distracting platforms that are easily susceptible to echo-chambering, good for entertainment with light news exposure rather than the other way around. I decided to find an unbiased source of international news to replace Reddit and Facebook for whenever I feel like scrolling through something, and found this chart on Quora:

Choosing to unquestionably trust the chart for the purposes of this experiment, I chose Reuters. (I also wanted to try the Al-Ghad app for Jordanian/Arab news, but it never loaded).

Scrolling through Reuters was definitely a more focused and informative way to get my news, and it seemed like a step up in international news coverage when compared to others. A large percentage of the articles are still focused on the US and UK, but I also encountered news about Yemen, Syria, Saudi, Germany, China, and more within a day. I learned about some of the international response to Khashoggi’s murder, the latest occurences regarding Houthis in Yemen and opposition to ISIS in Syria, and news on corporations like Careem and Nissan. When I briefly opened Reddit to compare, I noticed two political posts, one about a US congresswoman and the other about mass arrests in the UK.

Replacing Reddit/social media with Reuters definitely made me aware of more relevant world events, but it was also a ‘dry’ experience. On the one hand, I can just get the facts and go on with my day, but on the other hand, I miss out on the user interaction that the other less-serious platforms make available, which can provide everything from further analysis and different viewpoints to memes relevant to the news article in question. Additionally, while Reuters covered a variety of businesses and countries, a lot of it still seemed to cater to US interests rather than a digital cosmopolitan’s. All in all, this experiment paved the way for me to continue looking for a method of obtaining news that I’m satisfied with, whether that involves social media, news media, or a mix of both.

My only interaction with Stack Exchange prior to this assignment were the questions that would pop up whenever I googled an engineering problem that I was stuck on. For that purpose, the website has always been useless to me since most questions are extremely specific and irrelevant to my own inquiries. I never thought of posting in fear of asking something too trivial for such a knowledgeable community. Basically, I didn’t know much about the website, and I was a bit intimidated by it.

I already knew going in that the answers provided would be incredibly well-researched, complex, and detailed compared to many other Q&A platforms. On top of that, the questions are rarely easy to answer, as they are often obscure or require someone with expertise. I spent some time going through the different communities, which to my surprise included more than just engineering, coding, and math. The communities varied in their levels of user interactions and even strictness, but all followed the general rule of “just questions and answers” as well as the same voting process (most voted answer goes to top). I think it’s a very interesting take on eliminating distractions and off-topic discussions that appear in any other forum, as both the person asking the question and future readers can directly access the answers they want. Also, some light discussion can occur in a non-distracting manner as comments. I ended up joining the Woodworking, Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and French Language communities.

I know very little about Woodworking, but there was a genuine question that Raitis and I had during our work on SDME (building a house): is this expensive power tool going to blow up? I rephrased that into a proper question and initially got a comment telling me to add more information on the tool, which I provided to the best of my ability. That same person then provided a detailed answer complete with technical jargon and concepts that I never even knew existed. Needless to say, after some googling to clarify the answer’s terminology, I ended up learning a lot about saw blades from a complete stranger who had no incentive other than an urge to help other strangers on the Internet (and maybe earn some fake pixel points). I ended up selecting that answer as the best one.

Edit: the post ended up attracting more attention than I thought, with more than just one solution to my issue.

• 

• 

• 

After that, I took a quick look at the Engineering community and it crushed me. The questions were much more practical than my experience in university and far beyond my level of knowledge, so I moved on hoping that one day my education will amount to something. I then decided to post a past problem from one of my engineering courses to Electrical Engineering just to see how quickly users can solve a difficult problem, but was relieved to see that a commenter was as confused as I was. This wasn’t as positive of an experience as the woodworking one, but because of its technical nature it might take more time to answer.

I then tried to find a question that I could answer myself, which took a while, but eventually I answered a French language question on how to reserve a table at a restaurant, which was relatively straightforward. The post did not have any other interactions and only 12 views at the time of writing this, possibly due to the simplicity of the question (maybe Stack Exchange users prefer to be challenged than earn easy points?) or the relative lack of activity in that specific community.

As much as I loved learning about saw blades, I enjoyed “lurking” around communities more. Some questions are genuinely interesting with informative answers, and others are just weird/fun. It was difficult to impress anyone enough to get upvoted, probably because I’m not a woodworker, a practicing engineer, or good at French, but I was able to learn something and teach something in return. It definitely sounds like a rewarding loop, and I see myself coming back every once in a while whenever I have an impossible question to ask or to one day find an engineering question that I can answer, but not much else.

With our entry in the semaphore competition, we tried to solve the global issue of young people not communicating with each other in person. We hypothesized that one reason why nobody has managed to solve this is that adults are trying to press their means of communication upon the kids. Meaning, adults want kids to talk using words. However, we believe that utilizing the technique dabbing is the way to proceed.  

Our semaphore system did not start out with the arbitrary idea of dabbing, but it was more of a natural progression of ideas. We first wanted an intuitive framework upon which we can build our final system. We had conversations about avoiding one-to-one correspondence between a code and the letter it represents, whether we want to sacrifice creativity for efficiency, and the significance of mental associations to make things easier. From the start, we did not want our code to rely on a piece of paper for deciphering, but rather on the receiver’s visual/mental intuition. Our first few ideas involved utilizing a mirror/light combination, acting out scenarios corresponding to each letter, and using the four corners of the sender box to signify a different ‘mode’ of sending. All of these did not meet our criteria so we scrapped them.

We ended up using an already-established character grouping system, the old phone keypad. It was perfect for our purposes, as it allows both the sender and the receiver to have a mental map of the system they’re using without a piece of paper to guide them. We then moved on to the challenge of physically representing this code. We had many ideas that would utilize objects, but ultimately we decided that our system would become too obvious. Instead, we decided to use our bodies. We went through many iterations before settling on dabbing, not only because it’s a fad but because it, like the phone keypad, represents a popular concept that is recognizable and was once cool (but now really isn’t), suitable for the receiver’s ease of mental recognition.

• 

• 

We settled on a simple system: the arms represent the screen, and the head represents the presser (like the thumbs when texting). When Raitis (the sender) wants to represent a certain block, say abc2, he would lower his arms so his head (the presser) is at the top of the “screen”, then nod his head a certain number of times to indicate a specific character, like 3 nods for ‘c’. The dabs were used for the side blocks, as they clearly marked the side meant by the sender to the receiver. One difficulty presented by this system was the fact that it was mirrored for Hani (the receiver), who had to mentally flip the side of Raitis’s head. For spaces, a simple space bar movement with the arms was used, and for 0, the “Wakanda forever” move was used in the spirit of fads. For repeats, Raitis would raise his arm before repeating the move.

The last part of our system is a skipping movement, used for when the character indicated is obvious and can be guessed by the receiver by context. For example, for the word “perfect”, the sender could spell out “perfec” and do the skipping movement for the last character, which the receiver would then guess to be a ‘t’.

• 

• 

Our system, while tricky to master initially, was fast and efficient after some practice (3 minutes for 40 characters). We realized that it relied heavily on the sender and receiver and was prone to some error, so practice was a must. In addition, we could easily employ error correction in the case of sending wrong characters, as most errors were a result of the receiver (Hani) failing to mirror the message, and simply mirroring the wrong character again would fix it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time given to error correction after sending the message in the competition, and we were slower and less accurate than we anticipated. However, we still believe that this attempt at visual/mental association offers a promising basis for semaphore communication, as it is quick to grasp, obscure enough to hide, and only requires arms.

• 

• 

The Printing Press

The printing press arrived a few centuries late in the Arab world due to Ottoman declarations prohibiting it throughout the empire. This was mainly out of fear of tampering with Islamic texts and later on as censorship by the Ottoman government continuing until the 19^th century. Christian and Jewish communities started using the printing press much earlier, as ways of promulgating their respective religions. This was especially present in Palestine due to its significance as a center of the three faiths. In the 19^th century, the region experienced a cultural shake-up from the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire’s reforms. By the turn of the century, constitutional reforms allowing the use of the printing press led to a renaissance of Arabic literature, journalism/political activity, and the emergence of modern nationalistic tendencies across the region. This was a focal point in the region’s history, with the printing press contributing to many elements of society and consequences felt to this day. It would be interesting to explore the technology under a different context than usual: delayed and popularized at a very tumultuous time in history.

Cryptography

Al-Kindi was an Arab polymath living during the Islamic Golden Age in the Abbasid Caliphate. His book titled “Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages” was the first of its kind to explore methods of cryptoanalysis, and for that he is considered to be one of the fathers of cryptography. His main contribution was the Frequency Analysis, a way of decrypting substitution ciphers via the frequency of letter occurrence in a language (for example, knowing that e is the most common letter in English and substituting it for the most common letter in the ciphered text). This method proved effective in deciphering most classical texts and incentivized the rise of more complex encryption methods. This raises interesting questions about the demand for cryptoanalysis during the Golden Age and its usage in the region, since Arab scholars continued to explore the topic well beyond Al-Kindi’s manuscript was written.

Note

Since Jordan didn’t actually exist before 1921, I decided to do this assignment as a “Levantine” Arab.

My excuse: In the 19^th century, Jordan was part of “Vilayet Syria” under the Ottoman Empire’s control, a division of Greater Syria. Before Ottoman rule, it was part of countless other empires and dynasties such as the Abbasid Dynasty (Islamic Golden Age). Basically, people in the area either identified as part of Syria or the Arabian Peninsula. I thought this was important to explain since the area of what is now Jordan was part of the encompassing region, not defined by its modern borders. Countries of the region share many historical, cultural, political, and lingual aspects, and the spread of communication technology in one area usually applied to others in the region.

References

“Printing History in the Arabic-Speaking World”. Yale University Library, 2009, http://exhibits.library.yale.edu/exhibits/show/arabicprinting/printing_history_arabic_world. Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

Al-Tayeb, Tariq. “Al-Kindi, Cryptography, Code Breaking and Ciphers”. Muslim Heritage, http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/al-kindi-cryptography-code-breaking-and-ciphers. Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

Najeeb, Huda. “Cryptographic Algorithms in Arabic Countries in Recent and Distant History”. Slovak University of Technology, 2010.

Suleiman, Mohammed. “Early Printing Presses in Palestine: A Historical Note”. Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 36, 2009, pp. 79-91., http://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/JQ%2036_Early%20Printing.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct 2018.

For my emojis, I decided to experiment with three different categories (food, face, and building) all relating to Jordan. Listening to the 99% Invisible Podcast gave me some insight on how to approach this process. Initially, I was going to illustrate niche topics and Jordanian inside jokes, but I realized the importance of universality in the creation of emojis, even if their themes belong to a specific culture. I do not expect everyone to know what the emojis represent, but I aimed to at least make them universal within the defined domain of Jordan, its surrounding areas, and to people who have heard a thing or two about the country.

Mansaf ­­­– the national dish of Jordan. Everyone has seen it, and most people fall in love with it. The main ingredients include rice, lamb, and jameed (yogurt). This simple but delicious dish is served in special occasions and celebrations in large trays, allowing groups of people to stand around it and eat together (traditionally with their hands). For the emoji, I wanted to emphasize the tray, and give the ingredients their characteristic colors for ease of identification. Admittedly, my lack of talent made it difficult to make the emoji look as appetizing as its real-life counterpart, so I sprinkled almonds on the rice to make it more appealing.

Jordanian Man with Shmagh – a symbol of the country and its traditions. It was vital to get the red and white pattern right, as well as the top piece (‘gal).
I tried to make it look as close to the current set of face emojis as possible, for consistency’s sake. I had a hard time deciding on one expression to represent the population, so I left the face with a blank look so that any expression can be added later. 

Petra – one of the wonders of the world. I decided to go for the most recognizable construction in Petra, the treasury. I tried to imitate the general positioning of its features (columns, walls, doors, etc) without sacrificing the simple emoji-like look. I also made sure to get as close a color scheme as possible to the real thing. Despite that, I found it difficult to create an easily recognizable treasury, and looking up icons on Google made it clear that a more stylized approach could fix that problem.

• 

• 

I sent the emojis to two friends with the caption “missing Jo” (which confused them), so I had to explain that this was part of a class and wanted feedback. Apart from some hesitation with the Petra one, they easily identified the emojis. I wasn’t sure whether the face emoji gave context that these things were Jordan-related, making them easier to identify. In retrospect, I should have sent the Mansaf/Petra emojis before the face to make sure that they’re separately identifiable. One friend mentioned that there’s too much going on in the Mansaf emoji. The other friend mentioned that the “face is too funny” and suggested that I should fix it. For version 2, I set out to add an expression to the face, simplify the Mansaf, and make the Treasury more easily recognizable.

• 

• 

For the second version responses, I sent the emojis without context to two different friends and asked them to identify what they represent. They easily identified all three emojis and mentioned that they generally liked them, but were more critical towards specifics that could be further improved in a third iteration. The most pressing change would be to the Mansaf emoji, since both friends mentioned the fact that the lamb looks like donuts.

• 

• 

As for the process itself, I used GIMP 2.10 to draw all emojis. I used path/selection tools to create general shapes, followed by fill/gradient/bordering/shrinking tools to add details. For color selection, I downloaded online images and used the Eyedropper tool to obtain the correct RGBs.

All in all, I learned how much goes into the process of coming up with proper illustrations to represent things in an identifiable way, specially with food and buildings. This was despite working on unambiguous things, as opposed to emojis that have vaguer/global applications. As a person who uses a grand total of 2 emojis (as seen in my chats below) and doesn’t really understand their overall appeal, I at least appreciate the intent of this method of communication now that I got to create a few of them.

Both E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” and Sherry Turkle’s “Reclaiming Conversations” set out to admonish the consequences of our reliance on technology, albeit with vastly different approaches. Forster takes the fictional approach, attempting to reflect society’s obsession with technology, at times to the point of worship. Turkle’s approach is rooted in our daily experiences with phones, which have taken the role of our personal companions and stripped away much of our emotion and empathy. Both readings, coupled with my 8-hour-technology detox, have made me rethink the way I use technology.

Although the issues Turkle brings up are widespread, I do not find myself affected by many of them. I have went through a phase of using a phone in the middle of a conversation or while eating with friends, but quickly became aware of the implications of doing so. I found that face-to-face conversations will always be more meaningful than other means of communication, and that one should take precedence over the other. At the same time, there are people in my life that I almost only text, because as Turkle mentions, it is much easier to maintain relationships comfortably that way.

Other than the fact that I have no idea how to make plans with people without texting, the main lessons that I got from the detox exercise were not social at all, but rather personal. I find that I can focus more, make use of my time better, and fully engage in activities without a phone. For the first time in a while, I remembered what it was like to be bored without having an instant gratification device to save me, and as Turkle mentions, being bored is not entirely a bad thing. Like technology, it can be great in doses.

I find that the availability of technology that makes us less empathetic eventually allows us to be aware of the things that we had taken for granted before that technology’s advent. Forster’s fictional characters are aware of certain things before their world became inhospitable, but choose to shun them as they did not experience them, satisfied by the luxuries provided by The Machine. This contrasts our generation, which had grown up with the explosion of the Internet and smartphones, and is therefore aware of what things were like before, or otherwise, as Turkle heartily suggests, we can hear about it from the older generations. This awareness can help us compare and draw valid conclusions about the advantages and disadvantages of the newest tech. Turkle’s suggestion that the older generations need to step in and engage in meaningful conversations with their children is vital, because as dramatic as it may seem, the world that Forster has created is rooted in at least some reality, where people are completely ignorant of the upsides of a pre-technological age and choose to embrace familiarity.

• 

• 

“Man the food-gatherer reappears incongruously as information-gatherer.”

Modern methods of communication, whether intentionally or not, seem to be quickly zeroing in on optimal ways to reward users. Corporate techniques like instant gratification and reward loops are not secrets, nor are they problematic in the eyes of users who wish for such norms to stay. Paralleling this, in its quest to understand the universe, science has been constantly expanding humanity’s capability of gathering, storing, and sharing information, with no signs of stopping. This scientific hunger for answers gives rise to technological advancements in information technology, which result in easier, novel means of communication and media consumption.

I find it hard to imagine that such a cyclical relationship between information, technology, and communication could ever wind down until it’s been satisfied. In his book The Information, James Gleick mentions that “we have information fatigue, anxiety, and glut” and that “every new medium transforms the nature of human thought” (11, 12). Taking into account the world’s rapid progress since the invention of transistors, and the negligible amount of time we’ve spent in the “Information Era” compared to the rest of human history, it’s slightly worrying to think about the unforeseen consequences of our new toys. Collectively and individually, how we manage our digital “hygiene” and presence could affect many aspects of our lives going forward.

On a more positive note, there are more options available with digital communication than ever before. It’s possible to practice some self-restraint, go fully digital, or live like it’s the 1960s. On the one hand, the constant exposure and easy access does draw people away from personal, tactile moments; or even from cultural inventiveness like the shift from the African talking drum to cellphones. On the other hand, a family like mine, spread across multiple continents, can set up a video chat in seconds. To me, it’s a matter of finding the right balance and using a communication medium when I truly need it. I don’t see the switch to digital communication as a deathblow to the concept of the talking drum, but as yet another addition to a long list of platforms, each with their own pros and cons, and each existing only as needed based on our demands as users (which, to be expected, are constantly evolving).