Letter: The Machine

As a follow-up to my last piece, I will discuss the horizons I see in the other, perhaps more noticeable focus of Iowa State in engineering. If agriculture has as its core cultivation, I believe the essence of engineering– the act of designing and building things– should include the creation of virtual structures and experiences.

When considering that technology in its earliest guise granted us the freedom to pursue matters not immediately related to survival, it is a great irony that digital technology has left us atomized and at the mercy of distractions. To consume personalized content that leaves us confined within a bounded plot of perspectives is the very antithesis of freedom.

Freedom-centric virtual technology offers an opportunity to place power back in the hands of its users. Much as Cyride grants students a convenient means of transit, virtuality can facilitate journeys through art, ideas, and perspectives that grant us the realization that the world is larger than the room, campus, or town with which we have become all too familiar. I believe the institution has the potential to break new ground by developing means of information traversal much as we have worked to build better roads and vehicles, and take one beyond what is already known.

As a concluding remark, I believe that being in the Midwest comes with its own unexpected benefits–remoteness from established cultural centers presents an opportunity to create a culture where it has yet to exist. Our ancestors’ farming may have led to a new sedentary reality, but the technologies of the future, birthed from their legacy, can grant our children an unprecedented degree of freedom and experience that will return them to the unconstrained spirit of motion exceeding that of our own distant nomadic predecessors.

Djuno Jung

Ames

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Letter: The Machine