{"id":5496,"date":"2015-01-27T14:16:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T21:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=5496"},"modified":"2015-01-27T14:16:55","modified_gmt":"2015-01-27T21:16:55","slug":"maps-mind-and-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=5496","title":{"rendered":"Maps, mind and memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"london<\/a><\/p>\n

In concert with the UK publication of The Glass Cage<\/em>, Penguin Books’ Think Smarter site\u00a0is running\u00a0an article <\/a>by me on satellite navigation. Titled “Welcome to Nowheresville,” it’s adapted from a chapter in the book called “World and Screen.” Here’s a taste of the piece:<\/p>\n

A GPS device, by allowing us to get from point A to point B with the least possible effort and nuisance, can make our lives easier. But what it steals from us, when we turn to it too often, is the joy and satisfaction of apprehending the world around us \u2014 and of making that world a part of us. In his book\u00a0Being Alive<\/em>, Tim Ingold, an anthropologist at the University of Aberdeen, draws a distinction between two very different modes of travel:\u00a0wayfaring<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0transport<\/em>. Wayfaring, he explains, is \u201cour most fundamental way of being in the world.\u201d Immersed in the landscape, attuned to its textures and features, the wayfarer enjoys \u201can experience of movement in which action and perception are intimately coupled.\u201d Wayfaring becomes \u201can ongoing process of growth and development, or self-renewal.\u201d Transport, on the other hand, is \u201cessentially destination-oriented.\u201d It\u2019s not so much a process of discovery \u201calong<\/em>\u00a0a way of life\u201d as a mere \u201ccarrying\u00a0across<\/em>, from location to location, of people and goods in such a way as to leave their basic natures unaffected.\u201d In transport, the traveller doesn\u2019t actually move in any meaningful way. \u201cRather, he is moved, becoming a passenger in his own body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wayfaring is messier and less efficient than transport, which is why it has become a target for automation. \u201cIf you have a mobile phone with Google Maps,\u201d says Michael Jones, an executive in Google\u2019s mapping division, \u201cyou can go anywhere on the planet and have confidence that we can give you directions to get to where you want to go safely and easily.\u201d As a result, he declares, \u201cNo human ever has to feel lost again.\u201d That certainly sounds appealing, as if some basic problem in our existence had been solved forever. And it fits the Silicon Valley obsession with using software to rid people\u2019s lives of \u201cfriction.\u201d But the more you think about it, the more you realise that to never confront the possibility of getting lost is to live in a state of perpetual dislocation. If you never have to worry about not knowing where you are, then you never have to know where you are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In concert with the UK publication of The Glass Cage, Penguin Books’ Think Smarter site\u00a0is running\u00a0an article by me on satellite navigation. Titled “Welcome to Nowheresville,” it’s adapted from a chapter in the book called “World and Screen.” Here’s a taste of the piece: A GPS device, by allowing us to get from point A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5498,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5496\/revisions\/5498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}