Technology and Human Scale
An article over at WorldChanging talks about some factors which we need to confront when helping people understand and take seriously the effects of climate change.
Among the list they’re building lurks the following entry:
Being forced to admit that human kind can affect change on scale previously only attributed to a supreme being.
Religion is an entirely different subject, one which is most definitely outside the realm of my thesis. However, the issue of scale is most definitely fodder for my thesis.
I believe that technology can bridge the gap, although it must carefully navigate around information overload. The inherent mutability of computer screens (for example) enables a realization of changing scales which simply wasn’t possible before. Personalization is also enabled by technology, and I would argue that this is the missing link: that the personal connection with information is a powerful force in and of itself.
Nationwide statistics about homelessness, for example, are essentially meaningless: I’d argue that the real value of those statistics lies in illustrating the situation close to home so that people can connect the numbers with the familiar and thereby develop meaning. Think of Google Earth: the real value isn’t in showing the entire earth, but rather lies in the transition between the vast and the small. You don’t and can’t get that from an atlas.
Think about the first time you used an interactive satellite map. I’ll bet that one of the first things you did was look for your house.