• As I See It: In the Shadow of The West Wing

  March 9, 2020 Victor Rozek

  Twenty years ago, I developed an addiction. Not to one of the usual recreational substances, but to Aaron Sorkin’s writing. The West Wing was like no other show I had ever seen. It had gravitas. It explored issues of significance. The dialogue was crisp and quick. The characters had range, from funny and wise, to playful and profound. For the first time since I began watching television, I didn’t want to miss a single word.

  It aired at a difficult time for the country. The Bush administration was in the process of orchestrating two major wars, the housing bubble, and …

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• As I See It: Digitally Enhanced Loneliness

  February 24, 2020 Victor Rozek

  A friend of mine was dating a woman he met on social media who became frustrated because their relationship wasn’t “deep” enough. It eventually floundered which was unfortunate because outside of his primal fear of commitment, he is basically a nice guy with extensive interests and bountiful skills. I suggested, in his defense, he explain to her that although he may not be deep, given his wide-ranging pursuits he could be thought of as shallow but wide. This apparently didn’t assuage her concerns since they are no longer together, but it is indicative of two things: The disposable nature of …

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• As I See It: Digital Trafficking

  January 13, 2020 Victor Rozek

  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights contain many fine words but “privacy” is not among them. At best the right to privacy is implied in the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, and the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment that protects against the arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property.

  One would think that the systematic and deliberate tracking of our movements would constitute an unreasonable search and seizure or, at the very least, an infringement on our liberty. But the founding fathers could not have conceived of a technology that digitized human beings …

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• As I See It: When Gates Was Young

  December 9, 2019 Victor Rozek

  You would have to be of a certain age to remember how excited and optimistic users once were about computer technology. It all seems Paleolithic by today’s standards, but those heavy boxes and bulky monitors were wondrous tools and novel toys in their day. Technology transformed us into Harry Potter and a personal computer became our magic stick.

  My first computer was a PS/2. No, not a PlayStation, an IBM Personal System/2 that boasted a whopping 2 MB of RAM and 20 MB of disk storage – who could ever need anything more? It also contained a VGA graphic cards. …

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• As I See It: Speech On Steroids

  November 11, 2019 Victor Rozek

  When Guttenberg first started cranking out Bibles, the religious authorities who dominated life and discourse in the 15th century were cautiously optimistic. Not only could it save monks years of lugubrious work copying and illustrating the volume, but they assumed this new technology would be used solely to propagate a Medieval version of approved speech.

  But of course that didn’t last long.

  Since its Feudal inception, communication technology and free speech have always had a turbulent and tenuous relationship. The easier it became to disseminate information, the more efficient the spread of heretical, seditious, and unpopular ideas. And the more …

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• As I See It: De-Meritocracy

  September 30, 2019 Victor Rozek

  I don’t recall high school being a particularly joyous experience, but it wasn’t debilitating either. It was mostly leaden, with an occasional splash of color, spiced with alternating doses of bravado, awkwardness, and frustration. It wasn’t optimal, but it seems remarkably benign compared to today’s reality. A recent study of kids in an affluent Silicon Valley high school “found that 54 percent of students displayed moderate to severe symptoms of depression and 80 percent displayed moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety.”

  Beyond the very real anxiety-inducing possibility of getting shot in the classroom, Daniel Markovits has another explanation for the …

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• As I See It: Restless

  September 23, 2019 Victor Rozek

  The more entangled I become with technology the more restless I feel when I’m away from it. The nervous system gets accustomed to the stimulation, the steady drip of dopamine from the little validations, the comforting illusion of wide-ranging intimacy, the ease of attachment without exertion. The Internet is fast food for lazy, twitchy synapses. And I’ve become conditioned to crave it.

  Like an alcoholic past due for a drink, I look around for my digital bottle.

  It’s on the coffee table. A swipe of a finger and I have access to a distorted world of dramatic headlines, lurid images, …

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• As I See It: In The Face Of Bad Behavior

  June 3, 2019 Victor Rozek

  I can’t remember precisely what was worrying my manager that day. But as we walked down a long hallway, she expounded on some issue having to do with one of the employees under my supervision. Whatever the specific problem, she seemed more troubled than was common, and in an attempt to reassure her, I put my arm around her shoulders and said: “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  That was it. The whole incident took no more than three seconds and I thought no more about it. But months later, over a quiet cup of coffee, she shared the …

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• As I See It: A Taxing Situation

  May 6, 2019 Victor Rozek

  A few weeks ago, millions of us took a deep, resentment-laden breath before signing our name to a check and sending it off to the federal government. Taxes, the eternal pebble in the workingperson’s shoe, are as unpopular as they are necessary, and remain the subject of endless debate over who should pay and how much.

  In a system rigged to favor those with money-wielding lobbyists, IT professionals are part of that vast pool of middle-class dupes who neither make so little as to be exempt from taxes, nor so much as to be able to avoid paying them altogether. …

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• As I See It: Why The Long Face?

  April 8, 2019 Victor Rozek

  For an increasing number of Americans, the elusive search for happiness starts and ends each day with screen time. Smartphones, symbolic of a larger attachment to, and dependence on technology, have become the fifth appendage, glued to their owners like fake fingernails. They amplify and simplify, offering seemingly endless relationships without the need for relating, and limitless connection without the bother of bonding.

  To keep the voracious social media beast fed, most of us have become both content providers and consumers. Everyone, it seems, is flogging their own reality show. Each day we post our next episode and anxiously await …

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