Symbolic Transformation, #

June 18, 2013 — 4 Comments

# is a symbol. It has meaning, and it conveys something like punctuation. It says, “This is digital, not linear, not even physical.” It says, “2013 is all about #.” Yet there are those who never use it and maybe do not grasp the power contained in the #.  It is clearly and obviously a make-believe entity, the digital reality.  If anthropologists of the future go through the twitter accounts of the most famous people in the 21st century to learn about our culture, they will be flabbergasted.

Knowing the code, from secret societies to Morse code has always been significant.  Writing code to make the computer world exist is a skill, an art, and a secret to those who do not know how to do it.  The dewey decimal system was the grandparent to the #.  We no longer have a paper file at the library, and there is no need to go to a library to find reference materials.  If we Google, Bing, or # we go straight to the stuff we seek.  Hide and seek is not played outdoors, but in search.  I have often expressed the opinion here that there is nothing evil about technology.  There is a big question about the morality of those who have access to the best technology to act in the best interests of society.

There is no conspiracy to push wealth away from most people and into the pockets of those who have the most data and the fastest computers.  The shift from placing value on material goods to mining information about people’s habits has been in play for a long time. The society has participated in this shift willingly, and now is starting to wonder where the path leads. I believe it takes the individual where they intend to go, much like telegraphs and libraries. The choice is wider, but the choice of how to use and misuse is still a personal issue. The broader society, however, is suffering from the concentration of wealth and power in too few #’s.