Homework assignment 7: Why I'm learning to use a dvorak keyboard

[rhyll]

I'm sure that this is argued more cogently in other places - Jessica and Robert inform me that there's a terribly persuasive zine about it around somewhere, and there's also a bit about the QWERTY vs Dvorak debate on wikipedia. But this is why I'm doing it. It's also a fair bit of rambling on only peripherally-related topics, so bear with me here.

Firstly, of course, it's because of the two main factors that drive many of my decisions: whimsy and curiosity. I heard about the dvorak-layout keyboard, the thought kicked around in my mind for a while, then on Saturday I finally got curious and read up on it, and on a whim decided that now is the time to learn.

Mostly, I think I'm curious about the keyboard because of a broader interest in the way that structures shape our lives. For me a lot of this goes into thinking about political and economic structures...the way that representative democracy influences our view of citizenship, for example. Or how and why our concern about global inequalities gets channeled into decisions about what to buy. The way the minutae of our life our influenced by these structures - how we travel, what we eat, what work we do, the lines we draw between work and play, the shapes love takes.

So what does that have to do with a keyboard layout? Arguably one of the most fundamental aspects of being human is our use of tools. Our worldview seems to be almost as shaken by seeing animals other than ourselves use tools as it is when they show other traits that we think of as being our unique province - the ability to feel love, exhibit signs of self-consciousness, or use language. Technology is very, very important to us. Not just to our vision of humanity, but also to our view of ourselves as fundamentally rational beings.

Most of us seem to have this weird idea that science and technology evolve to develop the best possible solutions. This is pretty stupid of us, really. [You may want to skip this bit if you've thought at all about the problems with the usual view of 'science'.] Firstly, science and technology often create more problems than they solve. Unintended consequences are occasionally felicitous, but frequently disastrous. Secondly, "science" and "technology" really don't exist. They're only real insofar as they're systems created by particular people in particular contexts. That means that they're subject to being shaped by these contexts. What does it mean for the supposedly 'pure' progress of science that it's been dominated for much of its history by men? Or that funding needs to come either from business or the state? That the developed world has much more money to spend on research?

Thirdly, and this is getting to be at least slightly relevant now, the technologies that win out and become widely adopted aren't necessarily those that are best. Often, they're the ones with biggest financial backer, or the ones that are marketed best. Or the ones that come bundled with another ubiquitous technology, like Internet Explorer and Windows. Or ones that were useful at one point (the QWERTY keyboard worked well for typewriters), but are no longer necessary. Some of these anachronistic holdovers don't really have much of an effect on our lives, like the buttoning of men's and women's clothing, while others are more problematic. Often, the technologies we use aren't "best possible," but rather "good enough": it works, and it would be a hassle changing it, so why not stick with it?

And once a technology wins out and is widely adopted for one reason or another, more and more infrastructure is layered on top of and around it, and it becomes harder and harder to change. Cars won out because they served a practical purpose, but also because they had powerful backers who stood to make a lot of money from them. Now many cities are designed so that it's difficult or even dangerous to get around without a car.

So in a roundabout way I'm trying to say: why not try doing things the clever way for once? There are a lot of technological infrastructures that we, as individuals, can't really play around with much. (Deciding to suddenly start using Beta cassettes, for example, won't get you very far.) But there are things that we can tinker with, on an individual or a community level. Using a dvorak layout is one of them, but there are plenty of others. Using open or free software is one that I'm pretty enthusiatic about the moment. Using bicycles instead of cars can work on an individual level, but even better if you can convince your council to make changes to transport infrastructure. You can tinker with the systems we use to grow food, or the way we prepare and eat food (cooking communally more often, for example, or using solar cookers.)

Some of these things are "technologies" only in the expansive sense of the word - not a particular tool, but a set of processes and tools, or a particular system. Some of this tinkering with technology will, hopefully, end up with better technologies being adopted at an individual, community or even (occasionally) societal level. Often, I'm sure, it won't. I'm not arguing that every time someone says that technology X (be it a dvorak keyboard or Ubuntu or whatever) is better than technology Y they'll be right. All I'm arguing for is an increased willingness to try out new tools and systems, and to question the ones that are handed to us.

I also think it's important, when tinkering, to evaluate our technologies across multiple systems. Not just asking if it's more efficient but also about the other effects it will have on our lives. I've ranted about the cars vs bicycles choice along these lines before, so I won't go over it again. In the case of the dvorak keyboard: it might be more efficient, in that it could help me type faster. By most accounts its more comfortable, and far less likely to cause RSI. Even if it doesn't do either of these things, though, I'm happy to try it. Remapping your brain and muscle memory is good practice - kind of like the light version of learning a new language. Most of all, I think I enjoy being someone who tries new things, even (or especially) ones that are a little difficult, for the joy of learning and growing and exploring the world around me.

Comments

[boxer-the-horse.livejournal.com]

Sky, your argument there is compelling and what I have to say in this comment doesn't apply to your reasons for doing things like learning to type Dvorak. What concerns me is a kind of Leninism that a lot of the people who are proponents of things like Dvorak or open source software as well as people who are activists. It seems like a kind of Vanguardist idea where an exclusive club of people establish a discourse of superiority (of technology, opinion etc) over a proletariat stricken with the false-consciousness that marketing or mainstream media creates. There's definitely truth to the idea that people often fail to act in better and more efficient ways, or to look at a social or geopolitcal issues in a more subtle or reasonable ways because of the dominance of corporate controlled media and marketing. However, I think there's frequently an arrogance attached to the way that many of the afforementioned activists or proponents of open source etc view their insights. It certainly doesn't make what they have to say wrong, but it also doesn't in any way encourage people from outside their circles to engage with these better ideas. To me this wider engagement has always been something that activists etc have very much given up on, preferring instead to propagandise the litany of mistakes we are making (and there are certainly an assload of mistakes). Now I don't have an extensive knowledge of this stuff, so clearly I'm not trying to make a definitive statement on it, I'm really just expressing a personal frustration with what I perceive to be a widely held attitude.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this?

[alexmoon.livejournal.com]

I started reading a book called The Rebel Sell a while ago, and I was quite taken with. Unfortunately had to stop half-way through, but I've got it on order so I'll be able to finish it and then pass it on to you.

As far as I remember, the authors are arguing something similar to what you're saying here. Part of the attraction of things (products, behaviours, whatever) that people profess to be adopting because they're better or more ethical is actually that they're cooler, and coolness is something that can only be held by a finite percentage of the population. One of the examples that they cite is Naomi Klein's complaint (in No Logo, I think) about the gentrification of her neighbourhood. She emphasises, basically, that she had her lovely loft apartment in her arty neighbourhood before all those others decided to move in, and hence is different from them . Which of course leaves out the fact that her neighbourhood has been expensive (in a bohemian kind of way) for a while.

I'm not sure that I'm conveying this all that well. But I get what you mean and I think The Rebel Sell expands on the idea, in part by talking about how it ties in to consumerism. Wearing 'no sweat' shoes or shopping at Oxfam or using Ubuntu or being vegan get a lot of their cultural cachet from the fact that they're not mainstream. If everyone did those things, they wouldn't have the same attraction - "cool" doesn't work like that. So once fair trade or environmental standards attain a broader level of acceptance, what's "cool" has to move on... which of course means buying new niche products, as well as declaring the previously-cool flawed. And this ties in to one of my common complaints, too... a lot of these things that are meant to show how terribly radical you are are really just a way of expressing your supposed difference through niche products, which is hardly a radical act.

Anyway. And about 'false consciousness'... I get what you're saying, and I'm loathe to buy into the idea of "a proletariat stricken with false consciousness", but at the same time I think we all operate at a sub-optimal level that's brought about by a kind of false consciousness. This is still an idea I'm trying to work through, but to give a rough outline of my current thinking... I don't really agree with the Marxist idea of false consciousness, although I don't have enough knowledge about it to talk about it in depth. I think everyone takes on a variety of behaviours that aren't necessarily rational or ideal, for a few different reasons. The two main reasons, though, are that:

1) one of the things that makes complex human societies run is our ability to pass on systems or technologies. Rather than having to create the world anew each generation we take on 'recipes' for how to live, from how to run a democracy to how to make toast. We need these. Everyone uses them, and everyone probably questions some of them, but to question them all would just take too much time and wouldn't do much to make us happy.

2) most of the 'recipes' we get work "well enough," even if they're not "best possible."

And I don't think that there are a set of "best possible" recipes out there, which I guess is what differentiates my current way of thinking from the 'false consciousness' argument (at least to me). I think you can keep aiming for more optimal recipes, but because they'll differ across people and contexts, there's no point thinking anyone's solved it.

And I guess to address the difference between advocating something just to be a 'hipster' (albeit in a geeky or activist garb) and trying to create real change, one way to go about it might be to look at:
a) does it just lead to buying more crap, or in some other way just affirming the values of the culture it claims to be protesting against?
b) can it work for 'the masses'? and
c) will whatever's nifty about it remain nifty if it's adopted on a broad scale?

I don't think that advocating change needs to be about singing a dirge for humanity's stupidity. I think that it can work by saying (repeatedly, and in a very excited voice), "Hey! look at this cool thing! Want to try it? It's pretty awesome."

*** LAUGHS ***

[claeswijk.livejournal.com]

I really like your rebellious attitude, Sky! ;-)

Emails?

[threewordlimit.livejournal.com]

Hi sky- your email addresses seem to be in flux, I'm not sure if the recent ones i sent you have actually got through. I sent them from pax365(at)gmail so maybe they've been junked by your mail server. If further inspection reveals that nothing has reached you, let me know at the gmail address.

Thami