{"id":418,"date":"2017-11-20T20:07:50","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T04:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joesays.ca\/?p=418"},"modified":"2017-11-20T20:13:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T04:13:34","slug":"dont-think-different-just-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"don\u2019t \u2018think different\u2019. just think"},"content":{"rendered":"

My properly English mum would have disapproved of Steve Jobs\u2019 famous slogan purely and simply for its grammatical incorrectness, for the same reason she tut-tutted whenever she saw a highway sign that said \u2018GO SLOW\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 The correct form was go slowly<\/em>.\u00a0 Think differently<\/em>. It requires the adverb, don\u2019t you see?<\/p>\n

I do, Mum, I do; but having spent most of my working life \u2013 to your endless chagrin \u2013 in the shadowy world of marketing, I accept that a certain creative license is allowed when crafting such directives.\u00a0 Sometimes the King\u2019s English must bend to better allow for mouthiness, rythmn, or simple memorability.\u00a0 So I\u2019m okay with the violation.<\/p>\n

No, my issue with Mr Jobs\u2019 imperative runs deeper than simple semantics.\u00a0 Think different, he urged.\u00a0 These days, I\u2019d be happy if people would simply think.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem.\u00a0 The modern world is equipping us with ever more apps and devices that promise to anticipate our needs, respond to our wants, figure out solutions to problems before we even know we have a problem.\u00a0 In other words, to think for us.<\/p>\n

I got a perfect illustration of this on a recent trip to Vancouver.\u00a0 I overheard two people discussing how to get from the ferry terminal to a certain location.\u00a0 Person A said: It\u2019s super simple \u2013 you just stay on the highway until you see the exit marked \u2018X\u2019 and turn right.\u00a0\u00a0 To which person B replied: Oh no, that\u2019s way too complicated \u2013 I\u2019ll just use the GPS.<\/p>\n

Yup: a direction involving a single manouever \u2013 a simple exit off the highway- was too much for Person B to try and carry in their head; they chose to surrender authority for the decision making to a machine.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the rub: the brain is like any other muscle in the human corpus; unexercised, it quickly atrophies.\u00a0 The more we allow apps and tech to assume responsibility for our own thought processes, the more rapidly we will lose the ability to exercise those processes.\u00a0 We will lose the ability to think, and with it, the ability to reason, deduce, judge, assess and all the other cognitive skills that come with sentience.<\/p>\n

Local author Michael Harris summed the situation up well in his book The End of Absence: \u2018Every technology will alienate you from some part of your life.\u00a0 That is its job.\u00a0 Your job is to notice.\u2019<\/p>\n

And, I would add, to exercise agency.\u00a0 Understand what part of your life the technology is planning to take control of, and make a conscious decision whether or not you want to surrender control of it.<\/p>\n

Because every small win for the tech is a surrender for your own brain.\u00a0 And like the old UNCF slogan said: a mind is a terrible thing to waste.<\/p>\n

Especially your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My properly English mum would have disapproved of Steve Jobs\u2019 famous slogan purely and simply for its grammatical incorrectness, for the same reason she tut-tutted whenever she saw a highway sign that said \u2018GO SLOW\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 The correct form was go slowly.\u00a0 Think differently. It requires the adverb, don\u2019t you see? I do, Mum, I do;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-filosofy-c","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}