Chuck Klosterman, in his essay, “Fail,” (one of several collected in the book, Eating the Dinosaur) wrote:
“We are latently enslaved by our own ingenuity and we have unknowingly constructed a simulated world. As a species, we have never been less human than we are right now.”Is this really true? I tend toward thinking it is, particularly from my vantage point in a technology-driven industry as well as, frankly, my own tendency toward techno-pessimism. In a post from last month, I explored this theme a bit in terms of how we augment our bodies and experience with technology—that there is almost no separation between us and our technology. This quote from Klosterman gets at the same point, but it also brought to mind some trends that I see specifically in the workplace. Much of what we do is enabled by communications technology. In particular, email, instant messaging, shared calendars, project management applications, social media tools and the like enable a team to quickly mobilize and complete projects even if the resources are spread out geographically. This is the modern, web-working paradigm. While most of these tools have been a revelation as functional enablers of otherwise dysfunctional team setups, efficiency and cost savings, I wonder if they are always the most effective thing available to us. Actually, I’m willing to just come out and say that at least sometimes they’re not.
From the moment we threw the first spear, we projected our bodies and nervous systems into something that extended us. From the moment we spoke the first word, we threw our minds across space to another. Creating simulated worlds, extending ourselves beyond ourselves, is what we do - as naturally as a lichen spreads across a tree stump. So I don’t believe that it’s less than human or the slightest bit other than human. I do wonder where it’s taking us although individually each of us is just along for the ride.
