Reading Annotation Blog 3.4
The rhetoric of the empathy machine asks us to endorse technology without questioning the politics of its construction or who profits from it … Do you really need to wear a VR headset in order to empathize with someone? Can’t you just fucking listen to them and believe them? You need to be entertained as well? Are you sure this isn’t about you ? … I don’t want your empathy, I want justice! ” 23
Benjamin, Ruha. Race after Technology : Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Polity Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wsu/detail.action?docID=5820427.
Created from wsu on 2023-04-20 02:13:49.
Now for this week's blog, it main not pertain to the main topic of this well, topic, the quote I had chosen for it really stood out to me. The paragraph that this was pulled from was referencing how Mark Zuckerberg - Founder of Facebook was talking about VR and how VR can be used as an "empathy machine". This made me feel genuine anger as I personally don't think that the purposed ways of using VR to help people experience the hardships that other people face on a day to day basis is a fair or good way to go about it. As the quote mentions above, people should be able to talk to each other and help each other that way rather than use something like VR to bridge the gap, as all it provides is an artificial sense of empathy.
"Selling empathy" should not be a thing, empathy cannot be sold, it should be experienced, understood and used to help others. This kind of purposed technological benevolence is something that isn't good, and could lead to there being less empathetic people and a bigger gap between our already segregated social groups.
Benjamin, Ruha. Race after Technology : Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Polity Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wsu/detail.action?docID=5820427.
Created from wsu on 2023-04-20 02:13:49.
Now for this week's blog, it main not pertain to the main topic of this well, topic, the quote I had chosen for it really stood out to me. The paragraph that this was pulled from was referencing how Mark Zuckerberg - Founder of Facebook was talking about VR and how VR can be used as an "empathy machine". This made me feel genuine anger as I personally don't think that the purposed ways of using VR to help people experience the hardships that other people face on a day to day basis is a fair or good way to go about it. As the quote mentions above, people should be able to talk to each other and help each other that way rather than use something like VR to bridge the gap, as all it provides is an artificial sense of empathy.
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