Efficiency and Human Nature

Efficiency as defined by Wikipedia:

Efficiency in general describes the extent to which time or effort is well used for the intended task or purpose. It is often used with the specific purpose of relaying the capability of a specific application of effort to produce a specific outcome effectively with a minimum amount or quantity of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.

     In the late 1800's, Frederick Winslow Taylor developed methods of labor productivity, one of many types of efficiency, called Taylorism. Taylorism was largely accepted by industries seeking to increase profits and reduce waste. Despite looking good initially, this "efficiency" also met a lot of criticism. In the early 1900's the Senate in fact banned Taylor's methods when an investigation found the majority of workers to be hostile towards the amount of control the managers had over them. Similarly, in Taylorism, workers with talent and potential were treated the same as unskilled workers creating a system that catered to drones, not humans. I find this historical context helpful because it is an example of how "efficiency" does not often work well with human nature.

     In Blade Runner, Ridley Scott shows us a world full of "efficiency". Technology has advanced far enough to enable street vendors to do DNA tests on synthetically manufactured snake scales and housing shortages are clearly no longer an issue. However despite such advances there are clearly major problems still plaguing the city and in fact the majority of people have fled off-world. In the world of Blade Runner, replicants have been created for the purpose of colonizing other planets. Such a feat by genetic designers, creating robots that are superior to the creators themselves, would be looked at by our society today as amazing and extremely beneficial. However, as seen by the goal of the Blade Runners which is to "retire" the replicants, these technological advances have gotten too far out of hand and the efficient city which we had been working towards for hundreds of years is no longer efficient for humans.

City Flash Mob

City Flash Mob

    
   A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, respect or artistic expression. Flash mobs are often organized via telecommunications. social media or viral emails.
   The term flash mob, first coined in May 2003 in Manhattan, has became one of the defining terms for a urban, liberal and richly cultural city. Most of the major cities in the world, for example, New York City, Shanghai, Sydney, Paris, etc,  have had flash mobs in the urban center. Surprisingly, even Austin has its own flash mob organization, see here.

    

  Flash mob shows how closely related the city is. With the aid of current technology, almost everybody can participate in a flash mob despite his color, race, language or culture. Words spread via social networking sites like Facebook or blogs, as well as by word of mouth, text or email. Various groups of people converge together and function as a whole. Flash mob reveals a city's unity at its best.

These are the cities where the most famous flash mobs happened.

                                                    NYC

                                                                     Paris

                                                             Shanghai

                                                                Sydney

The Imperfection of Perfection within Cities

Tron Legacy is a science fiction film directed by Joseph Kosinski. The main characters of this movie are Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn and Clu, and Garret Hedlund as Sam (Kevin Flynn's son). Tron is a movie about Sam's journey into a virtual reality world that his father, Kevin Flynn created, called The Grid. After the disaperance of his father, Sam became the biggest share holder of his father's company, ENCOM. However, Sam was not interested in his father's company. One day, Alan Bradley, ENCOM's executive, approached Sam about a mysterious "page" that was sent from his father's computer from an old abandoned arcade. While investigating the arcade, Sam found a secret computer room, where he accidentally sent himself into the virtual reality world created by his father: The Grid.

While watching the movie, I noticed parallels and contrast between Tron city and the city in reality.

Compared to the authorities in the real city, the authorities in Tron city were much stricter. In the beginning of the movie, before Sam teleported himself to Tron city, he violated the law several times, but got away: speeding on the highway and breaking into his father's company. However, when Sam arrived at Tron city, he was viewed as a flaw within the system and was immediately captured. Authorities in Tron city seek out all flaws and imperfections in the city, in order to make it the perfect city, as his father had programmed it to be. Flawed “programs” (humans in Tron city) were either "rectified" or forced to play a game, a battle to the death. Corruption and violation of the laws in Tron city was strictly punished or corrected immediately. In contrast, in the real city, the human system is not as effective in dealing with crimes.

In addition, both cities represent modernization. In the real city, we see modernization from the old brick building of the arcade to the tall, glistering glass skyscraper of ENCOM. In the Grid, the city of Tron is located in a middle of nowhere, surrounded by the barren, rocky terrain. The contrast between the structured and lighted city of Tron to the bare and wild terrain that surrounds the city, emphasizes how modernization of a city creates a boundary between humans and nature. The motor bikes used to travel around Tron city, could not be used in the rocky terrain. Compared to the arcade, the ENCOM building was much more sophisticated and technologically advanced. Similarly, Tron city is a technologically advanced city, but it separates itself from the natural world.Finally, this movie wrestles with the idea of the “perfect” city and the corruption of technology. Technological advances and development has always been seen as beneficial to human needs. However, in Tron Legacy, Kevin Flynn attempted to use technology to create the perfect world for humans to live in. He created Clu, and programmed him to help create the “perfect” world. However, Clu saw human qualities as an imperfection that needed to be destroyed. This shows how technology can be useful and beneficial, but we should not depend on technology to do human responsibilities.