Information as a Feedback Loop
Information is the feedback loop of the entire system. How we could find out about Zipcar, or electric cars at all and especially how we would come to feel the desire to seek out an alternative mode of transportation, are all entirely dependant on what information our attention is turned towards. Information as a term includes direct experience, and now, because of the techno-social structures enabling the contemporary nature of information, we are receiving informational representations generated by the direct experience of others, which feeds back into our perception, weaving with our experience, creating our map of the world. Information our idea of reality and how it works.
There is an intensity to the kinds of shock and overwhelming anxiety that can be caused by the nature of information as it corresponds to real issues going on in the world. Mario says he feels that people like him, who are involved in studying environmental issues, are suffering from a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The information he is being turned towards is literally that distressing, the feeling of isolation and powerlessness that strong. In dealing with the overwhelming volume of information and, often, the intense emotional response to the content, we must limit. As subjects competently navigating the social world we must choose what we care about, what we actively open our perceptual sphere to.
Receiving information, we transmute our emotional response into action and now, increasingly, we create an informational representation of that action, feeding it back into the system. Making our addition to the collective map of what the world is and what is possible, generating the information that others then respond to. The more that people follow this pattern, producing informational representations of their experience, the more it becomes a social category to be fulfilled. Which is to say, the more we as people feel the desire to follow the form of this pattern, the need to express ourselves in this way. This is a self-perpetuating cycle shaped by techno-social structures. The increase in access to the techno-social means of producing and receiving information seems to be accelerating exponentially. Meaning that, right now, this cycle is self-perpetuating exponentially. And it is all this information, all this representation, all of this voice emerging from everyone, everywhere, sharing what they are doing, that is ushering in the need for a Pluralism paradigm. Information being a Pluralist generator, informing ourselves of ourselves.
Information to Action:
Information --> Limiting Subject --> Point of Entry-->
<--Informational Representation <-- Course of Action
*A self-perpetuating cycle
Here is an example from David, an 7th grade school teacher at The Sunnyside School in Portland, Oregon. At the Sunnyside School, the month of January is framed as a month of service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The theme for David’s class was deforestation. Originally, David felt at a loss for how to tackle such a large topic, but ultimately, he found a point of entry.
My buddy works at this place Green Empowerment, and they work in third world communities helping them practice sustainable farming and be able to keep doing what they’re doing, but not do it in a way where they are destroying the environment at the same time. And so our class spent a month learning about this one biosphere in Nicaragua (through a Green Empowerment project) and finding out ways that we could support it and talk about it.
The students then conceived of their own project ideas for how to raise money to support this organization. All of the student’s projects were uploaded on a website about this one class’s service project about this one biosphere in Nicaragua and was made accessible through a link on the school’s main webpage. Although David voiced his opinion that their contributions were modest, both with respect to helping Green Empowerment and to the larger issue of deforestation, what he felt the project accomplished was transmitting a method for dealing with harsh informational awareness in a constructive way.
I think it teaches them how to figure out more stuff, and then act on this stuff and do things… instead of being overwhelmed with everything that’s going on in the world. I mean, I’m overwhelmed with everything that’s going on in the world, you know? They’re able- even though it’s small scale stuff- they’re able to feel empowered in what they’re doing, like,“(one quotation mark, not 2)Hey, I’m doing something cool, I’m making a difference.’ The four girls who raised a hundred dollars in a bake sale felt pretty cool about themselves. I had some boys who wrote a song and recorded it on the computer. And we made a website… and it’s all out in the world wide web and you can search it on Google and they feel like it’s just- they’ve just really gotten up there.
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