Issue 2
GUM
The Future Edition Glasgow University Magazine
March 2016 Price: Free
GUM
Issue 2
EDITOR’S NOTE
Editor in Chief Sofia Lindén Deputy Editor Hanna Markkanen
Sofia Lindén
Online Editors Robbie Orr & Louis Brown Events Manager Saara Antikainen Features Editor Anne Devlin Culture Editor Alice Lannon Fashion Editor Jeannemarie Hamilton Politics Editor Rhys Harper Business Editor Joanna Velikov Science Editor Daniel Kelsey Photo Editor Kati Brunk
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hen I was ten years old, I watched the sky explode in a million apocalyptic colours. It was at once beautiful and terrible, because the sky was too big and the time period was too vast for one ten-year-old to imagine. This particular New Year’s Eve had not happened for one thousand years and it would not happen again for another one thousand years. I silently watched, poised between two different eras, struggling to make sense of something nonsensical.
Since our last issue, a few things have happened. We celebrated the end of 2015 with a successful launch party. We have welcomed a new graphic designer, Kamilla Hu-Yang, an Art School student in Communication Design. We have extended our presence on campus with monthly socials for all students to attend. Also, this issue will be special, with an extra four pages to delight our readers. If you are interested in getting involved with GUM or applying for any position on the next editorial team, please visit our website, drop us an e-mail or come along to one of our meetings.
Graphic Design Kamilla Hu-Yang Writers Amelia Bayler Mirjami Lantto Laura Castro Lara Sindelar Murdo Homewood Heather O’Donnell Lucy Chislett Youngwon Do Tortajada Querol Natalie Little Cover illustration Eunjoo Lee Illustrators/Photographers Kristyna Steflova Verity Pease Ryan Rivers Silvia Sani Sophie Rowan Kamilla Hu-Yang
editor’s note
This feeling of wonder has seeped through our whole generation. We are hyper-aware of our place in the history of time, constantly looking to the future, awaiting some extraordinary change. And yet, we are always anxious what that change might be or how it will affect us. We can’t visualise what will come, so we imagine a black void, as if we are standing on the precipice of everyone’s last days. Our history then becomes a source of comfort and our identities are coloured by this sentimentality. It seems like every stumbling step forward requires a glance backwards.
We wanted to dedicate an issue of GUM for stories about The Future. Whether you share the view that robots will kill humanity or if you are worried democracy is slowly eroding; whether you are a nostalgia junkie or you believe the world is ending due to climate change; whether you have an interest in the development of eco-friendly fashion or if you think Hollywood is gender oppressive; there will be something for you in the next 37 pages.
Competition Winners Tom McDonald Bethany Hutton
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The Future of Food Amelia Bayler ments drawer. I’ve also recently purchased a huge jacket and I’m going to keep potatoes in one pocket, meat in the other and gravy in a hipflask. This way I can always access the essential sources of nutrition (protein, fat and carbs) ready-to-eat. If this becomes trendy, food will always be consumed while on the go. People in the future might eat Ferrero Rocher straight out of their handbags or drink the final crumbs of crisps from the bottom of a tube of Pringles. They will thus be at risk of becoming human piñatas. If one person accidentally knocks into another, several items of food might spill out of their pockets.
Verity Pease
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ig supermarkets today are filled with take-away groceries and ready meals, such as Dairylea Lunchables, plastic cheese, Pot Noodles and Frubes. When you taste their artificial goodness you can visualize various board meetings in which people are jumping on tables and shouting: “Now this! This is the future of food!”.
contents 5 Features The Future of Food Sentimentality Syndrome The Entangled Future of Nature and Culture
10 Culture
15 Philantrobeats 16 Fashion Editorial: A Platform For Diversity Eco-fashion
The Future of the British Establishment Tuition Fees or Foes? Megalia: The Unsung Feminist Warriors Response to‘Orange (Bang Out Of) Order’
29 Business
The Hashtag Has Marketing Strategists Puzzled Cause-Led Marketing: Deceptive or Sincere?
32 Science
Robots Will Annihilate Humanity Should I Stay or Should I Swerve? Future Cities
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Talking with your mouth full will then be a problem of the past. Everyone knows how Christmas can be a nightmare, because we have to talk to people while consuming delicious food. Personally, I can’t even show my family my best skill (successfully manoeuvring food into my mouth whilst keeping my eyes on Netflix), because apparently Christmas time is ‘family time’. Well, JustEat and Netflix are my family now: the first cooks for me and the latter teaches me about life.
“People will even stop sharing photos of food and start to eat in the shadows as they begin to suffer from ‘over-sharing syndrome’.” But what’s going to be left behind? There might be a backlash against those horrendous ‘iced’ coffee drinks you get in Supermarkets, the fake-healthy snacks and the flavoured water, since they’re not as healthy as they suggest. Eventually the white of the egg will be abandoned, as everyone is too obsessed with runny yolks. Brunch will be banned in favour of snacking. People will even stop sharing photos of food and start to eat in the shadows as they begin to suffer from ‘over-sharing syndrome’. It will become rude to even glance at someone else while they’re eating and validating anyone via their tastes will be classed as an offence. No matter what happens, my main hope for the future of food is that I can get a Big Mac delivered straight to my bed.
FEATURES
contents
Time, The Butterfly Effect and Literature Instagram is Changing the World of Art Can the Film Industry Change its Ways?
22 Politics
I wondered if I could look backwards to find any key-points in history that show how food has changed. The introduction of self-service machines in McDonald’s and the invention of JustEat are relatively new examples of events that have impacted the way we shop for food, because we don’t need to talk to anyone when ordering it. If this development continues, we might never need to talk to anyone anymore.
Another way to save time is to always eat in bed. In that case, it won’t be long before someone invents an ‘Anti-Crumbs’ bedding. The print could potentially be a special design that looks like food stains, so that no one can tell if they’re looking at tomato sauce or a work of art. On the bright side, when you order a milkshake to your door (because cleaning a blender is a real pain), you can drink it in bed without worrying about spills.
This change in food consumption could eventually lead to that people only eat food either in bed or on the go. People will have to compromise their time, incorporate dinner with relaxation time and eat whilst moving from point A to point B. There will just not be enough time for everything. In order to save time in a future stressful environment, I have prepared myself by replacing my under-bed storage with a condi-
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GUM
Issue 2 Ryan Rivers
EDITOR’S NOTE
sentimentality syndrome
Sofia Lindén
Anne Devlin
I
, like many, constantly relay previous events in my head. It isn’t unusual for us to go over things again and again, coming up with new ways to think about our history. Analysing the past is one of the unhealthiest processes we can go through as individuals, especially when attempting to move on. Surely, for a better future, we need to look forwards. So why is everyone so obsessed with nostalgia and looking backwards? Once considered a medical condition, the definition of nostalgia has developed greatly over the years – even nostalgia itself can move on – to encompass the feeling of a positive impression of some element of the past. Psychologists have argued over both its possible affirmative and detrimental effects on an individual. However, I am no psychologist. What I do know is that this romanticism is everywhere. Social media promotes our rose tinted view of the bygone. Facebook encourages us to remember and even share our “memories”, while the app Timehop horrifyingly slips into all of our accounts like a nosey mum to give you a daily dose of “look how fat so and so got”. The most bizarre thing about all of this is that we can access these memories easily enough as it is, without the need for prompts. We are all just one procrastination-fuelled session away from flicking through that album entitled “Girls on Tour 2k9” and tagging Claire in that picture of her puking her guts up.
we as individuals can learn from life. I’m not saying don’t look at your wedding pictures on your anniversary, but was that Buzzfeed quiz on which Cheers character you are really contributing anything to society?
“Sentimentality can be beautiful and it is a crucial part of being human.” The Internet isn’t the only culprit. Fashion has its manicured claws into all things “retro” and “vintage”. At one point it seemed like we would never see an edgy fashion editorial again that didn’t involve chokers, crop tops, bubble gum and tartan skirts. The 90s revival saw the likes of Miley Cyrus and Charlie XCX revel in all things Clueless. I loved Clueless’ Cher but I also know that she was a part of a specific girl power moment in postfeminist culture that was a response to the financial and social mess that was the 80s. Influence is a natural and healthy part of creating yet setting trends should be about learning from the past and offering the new and exciting instead of rehashing past triumphs. Don’t try and tamper with a classic like Fish and Chips, create your own new dish. “Instead of wasting your time hankering back to an idealised past, work on the times to come.”
“What is the point in doing anything if the only reason is to reminisce later on?”
Just last year, the real life date of Back to the Future II arrived (21st October 2015) and while we all appreciated a bit more Marty McFly in our lives, wasn’t it depressing knowing we haven’t advanced as much as they had hoped? The 21st Century has been pivotal in technological advancements and it isn’t even 20 years old yet. However, I still see no hover boards.
Instagram is the worst offender. Its encouragement of the throwback Thursday hashtag #tbt persuades thousands upon thousands of users to post sentimental references to old pictures and events weekly. Unless you’re somehow personally involved in said event, it hardly makes for stimulating scrolling. Instagram is innovative in that it fosters creative talent, inspiration and culture through its focus on the visual. Yet somehow once a week, it gets bogged down in the past like someone facing their final days.
“Instead of wasting your time hankering back to an idealised past, work on the times to come.”
What is the point in doing anything if the only reason is to reminisce later on? Sharing is definitely caring. But if the sole contribution is some kind of romanticised outburst, it wastes what
We are all guilty of excessive nostalgia, including me. Sentimentality can be beautiful and it is a crucial part of being human. Looking back on what has shaped our lives for the good and bad is a necessary part of development. However, once you develop, keep going. The constant ironic recalling of tragic fashions and ugly pictures is tedious. What’s more, you hear people refer to “the good old days”. I can’t recall any historian discussing a perfect moment in history. Instead of wasting your time hankering back to an idealised past, work on the times to come. You definitely don’t need to be a psychologist to know that replaying the past is not healthy for your future. So why do we repeat so much of what is useless. Let’s move on from the needless sentimentality syndrome. The future is hover boards.
FEATURES
Perhaps our obsession with nostalgia hasn’t changed in recent years. Its intensity is more likely the result of these developments in technology and the Internet, which allow us to easily share our spur-of-the-moment thoughts and memories. Social media is one of the most important things to happen to computing and communication since Benedict Cumberbatch did that stuff with all the wires during that war. Nostalgia is becoming so omnipresent it’s consuming what content we can offer to the rest of the world.
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the entangled future of nature and culture Mirjami Lantto It seems that in order to change how we interact with nature, we need to re-consider our ways of thinking about it. Words may seem irrelevant, yet it is through a change in attitude that also our actions begin to change. But how should we re-think the relationship between humans and nature? We might begin with regarding nature as culture, as merely an idea created by a species troubled by its modernisation; nature as an ideal of something pure and ‘uncontaminated’ by human culture. Or we could approach culture as nature; humans as well as their cultures are emerging from the natural fabric of the world – everything we are, think or create is physically made from the matter of the world that has existed for billions of years. We could also approach nature and culture in terms of ’agency’. Recognizing the agency of nature could act as a way of re-thinking the binary of nature and culture.
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ake a look around. I would imagine you are sitting in a profoundly ’cultural’ environment, if you like, rather than a ‘natural’ one; inside four walls, surrounded by human-made objects, filled with cultural meanings. Such simple words, culture and nature, often left unquestioned. As in so many other contexts, we tend to see the world in terms of binaries; nature/culture, subject/object, human/non-human. We tend to think of nature and culture as separate; nature as an inert, material base on which our cultural processes may take place.
Agency, the ability to act creatively, is often regarded as a purely human quality. Animals, plants, let alone materiality are seen as simply following a set of instincts or natural laws. Recognizing the agency of nature could act as a way of re-thinking the binary of nature and culture. Through stepping down from our throne of culture and seeing the ‘non-humans’ around us as active agents moulding their environment, affecting the humans and non-humans around them, nature would become a living being deserving ethical considerations. Perhaps it is bizarre to regard a rock or a river as ‘living’, having the ability to act creatively, but are humans any more capable of breaking the ’chains’ of nature and stepping into a higher dimension of creative thought and action? Life itself is a creative force; we, humans, would not exist on the planet without millions of years of non-human processes. Our cultural spaces are not a sole achievement of humans but a product of a creative engagement between a species and its environment.
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“Recognizing the agency of nature could act as a way of re-thinking the binary of nature and culture.”
“Nature and culture are undeniably entangled – we need to develop our cultures in such directions that this entanglement may be harmonious.” The future of nature and culture is not to try to keep the two separate. Indeed, it is an unavoidable fact they are anything but separate; the future of our cultures is inherently depended on ‘natural’ processes and how they respond to our actions on the planet. Nature and culture are undeniably entangled – we need to recognize this and develop our cultures in such directions that this entanglement may be harmonious. Changing our way of thinking about the relationship between nature and culture is crucial in creating a better future for us on Planet Earth, which is currently heading towards an environmental disaster. Through recognizing the ‘livingness’ of nature, such ideas may have a fertile ground to grow on. It has the potential to ‘end’ nature and culture as separate beings, and create a future of nature-culture where the two are emergent from the same fabric of the world, as indistinguishably one.
FEATURES
Academics Owain Jones and William Cronon have, among others, argued that the tendency to regard nature and culture as separate may have more severe implications than we might think; that the range of environmental problems the planet faces today may in fact be the bare product of this binary. It may be precisely because we regard nature as something separate from ourselves that we have been capable of driving the planet on a verge of environmental disaster; degradation of ecosystems, a mass extinction and a changing climate. Even our current method of environmental conservation, i. e. excluding human influence from delimited areas, paradoxically excuses us from trying to develop harmonious forms of co-existence of nature and culture.
Silvia Sani
“the range of environmental problems the planet faces today may in fact be the bare product of regarding nature and culture as separate”
Let’s take an example; cities, a habitat humans have developed for the sole purpose of their cultures. Even so, cities are a place for the ‘wild’ as well. For instance Berlin is considered to be the biodiversity hot spot of Germany. Unexpectedly, and certainly unintentionally, cities may be more hospitable to non-human forms of life than countryside - it is impossible to create places that are purely ‘human’. ‘Nature’ does not care if we have labelled certain places as ‘wild’ or ‘cultural’ – it lives in the pavement rocks, building structures, wastelands. We should embrace cities as a place for the non-human, and further invite such life forms – trees, insects, mammals, water – to be full participants in that environment. For instance, networks of green spaces, roof gardens, unpaved streets, clean rivers and clean air could create desirable spaces not only for the non-human, but for the human as well.
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Lara Sindelar Kati Brunk
O
ne way of thinking about the future is to begin by picturing a butterfly: a small creature, exquisite and harmless. Now imagine this: when its delicate wings flutter, a minuscule breeze is created, almost completely unnoticeable. A breeze that only so slightly changes the direction of another, somewhat stronger breeze. This in turn affects a gale and another and then, a thousand miles from here, the tiny flutter has turned into a storm, a hurricane or even a tornado. Encapsulated in this metaphor is the daunting realisation that even the smallest actions may lead to huge reactions in the future. This is the butterfly effect.Encapsulated in this metaphor is the daunting realisation that even the smallest action may lead to huge reactions in the future..
culture
In the short story A Sound of Thunder (1952), Ray Bradbury delves into a future where time travelling is like going on holiday. In the year 2055, the company “Time Safari Inc.” arranges time safaris into the past. Whilst on one of these trips, the time traveller Eckels accidentally steps outside the designated path, following a close encounter with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. In the layer of mud caked underneath his shoes, Eckels brings some-
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“Bradbury said that people asked him to predict the future, but he replied that he’d rather prevent it.” Bradbury famously said that people asked him to predict the future, but he replied that he’d rather prevent it. Indeed, the fictional dystopia draws attention to the real present, in order to enable a better future. H.G. Wells’ novella The Time Machine is an example of this. The time traveller journeys from the late Victorian present into the distant future of 802701 and Wells shows how the political tendencies of past days might be intensified to extremes. The class system of Victorian times has affected evolution to divide humans into two different species. Actions in the past have therefore set off a tornado of socio-political change in the evolution of mankind.
The time traveller does not seem to believe that he can alter the future from the present, a notion that challenges the extent of the butterfly effect.
butterfly effect is present or not in the construction of the lives of the characters in this miscellaneous collection of stories presented as a novel.
“The fictional dystopia draws attention to the real present, in order to enable a better future.”
You might think that these examples are merely made-up stories and that the literary metaphor carries no significance in real life. However, the possibility remains: we all have the potential to be the butterfly that affects the future tornado of another person’s life.
Exploring the huge consequences of seemingly insignificant actions does not require time travelling. In Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad (2011), interconnection between people is explored through a bouquet of interlacing stories. A character might be peripheral in one sequence, but essential in the next. In a complex web of relationships and stories, the smallest event may turn out to have an effect on a character’s life or to connect them to the life of someone else. The story stretches over 40 years, in disparate places such as San Francisco, New York and Kenya. Time is not linear and often the reader is introduced with prolepses (flash forwards) to see what happens in a character’s future. Egan presents her vision of future New York City, where technology takes up more of our lives. The traditional literary narrative is challenged by the integration of technological advances, such as a whole section presented in PowerPoint slides. In the end, Egan leaves it up to the reader to decide whether the
“Encapsulated in this metaphor is the daunting realisation that even the smallest action may lead to huge reactions in the future.”
culture
Originally the metaphor was used to describe weather prediction within chaos theory, in Edward Lorenz’s talk Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas? (1972). This idea has been challenged and explored through literature, and shows us that one way of looking into the future could be by considering its relationship to the past.
thing with him back to 2055. A tiny dead butterfly. It follows that anything that dies while it could have lived has an enormous effect on the future. Killing a mouse that would have lived might have drastic consequences, since it could have been the parent of many families of mice, possibly food for many families of foxes. On and on it goes. The effect expands, it grows, it spreads. On return to 2055, Eckels finds some staggering changes in the world around him, like the language and the outcome of a recent presidential election.
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instagram is changing the world of art Laura Castro
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ith more than 300 million users worldwide and about 70 million shares every day, there is no doubt that Instagram is influencing the future of the arts through a visual and close-to-the-public marketing strategy. This social network is a boiling pot of creativity and continuous discovery, where not only professional artists, but anyone can develop their creativity and build their future career.
Through social media, artists and art galleries improve their reputation and their sales increase. The social network allows them to share that which cannot be shown in exhibitions, such as behind the scenes content, museum shows, art fair coverage or sneak peeks of exhibitions. According to a survey conducted by Artsy, a majority of collectors believe that Instagram makes the art market more open. As one collector expressed:
The simplicity and highly visual structure is what makes the app addictive and, therefore, perfect for up-and-coming artists to share their work. Scrolling down the feed, tapping to “like” and sharing on different social media, delivers art to a huge audience. The use of hashtags helps every artist to share their projects globally. Instagram also provides access to an artist’s work without having to visit their website.
“Instagram has added a crucial element of transparency that was lacking in the art market. In the past, dealers and galleries were the only ones familiar with an artist’s entire body of work. A collector could only rely on the few images that a gallery posted on their website. Collectors are now exposed to a large body of works by contemporary artists and thus this knowledge gap has diminished.”
It is true that before Instagram, the Internet - and therefore digital content - already existed. But years ago you usually had to know the artist to find their work. Now you see the images first and then discover the artist. As such, Instagram is not simply about the artwork, but also about the artist’s brand, their sources of inspiration and their daily life. By showing bits and pieces of their artistic progress, artists can provoke anticipation with their followers. It is like a portfolio-punch, like an “Today the artist doesn’t need appetiser of what’s to come. This entices to wait for galleries to promote followers to keep up their interest.
Sophie Rowan
culture
Nevertheless, Instagram can be considered a double-edged sword, since the large amount of content available might lower the value of the art. Art is at risk of becoming commercialised on Instagram, and exhibit their work. They are as the branding of the product is more important than creative skill. The logic Another reason why Instagram is revolutheir own promoters.” of social media requires a rapid output tionising the art market is because of the of content, which might lower the qualinteraction between artists. The best way ity of art. Lastly, in the marketization of to achieve success is to make contact and collaborate with other artistic ideas on Instagram, some kinds of art might be favoured creative professionals. Instagram’s easy user-follower interaction over others. The only thing we can be sure about right now is that – active post, answers to comments and engagement with other Instagram is turning the tables of arts promotion and that it will artists – provides the basis for good communication with social play an important role in the appreciation of the arts. Time will tell media followers. Today the artist doesn’t need to wait for galleries if it will become an open door for new generations to explore their to promote and exhibit their work. They are their own promoters. potential, develop their creativity and build their own future. They produce their own publicity, make their own contacts and lead their own business.
Crop. Rotate. Brightness up. Contrast down. #Hashtag. Post. Share. That is how everything begins.
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can the film industry change its ways?
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philantrobeats: uncertain futures
Murdo Douglas
“Hollywood is open to the oppressed only if we adopt the token role, becoming objects of fascination or ridicule, our lives played out for shock value and the entertainment of the masses”
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t this point, it’s difficult to say. A look at the statistics on big screen diversity doesn’t fill me with hope. For several years now the LGBT organisation GLAAD has compiled an annual Studio Responsibility Index, which keeps track of the number of LGBT characters in Hollywood films. The figures aren’t good. In 2014, only 17.5% of films featured a single character who wasn’t straight or wasn’t cis, and they were counted with very generous guidelines. A study conducted last year by the University of Southern California gave the damning report that LGBT characters are “virtually non-existent” in mainstream cinema. A glance at the latest cinema listings does not paint the most promising picture either. I won’t waste too many words spelling out all that is wrong with The Danish Girl, Tom Hooper’s supposedly well-meaning effort to tell the story of pioneering trans woman Lili Elba. The issues of casting Eddie Redmayne have already been much talked about, and warrant their own essay. I will say, however, that it seems much more like an Oscar grab than anything else, using Elba’s life as an Unconventional Subject designed to turn heads. This is the problem with the majority of mainstream films featuring LGBT characters, as well as women, people of colour, and other marginalised groups in significant roles.
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For the most part, Hollywood is open to the oppressed only if we adopt the token role, becoming objects of fascination or ridicule, our lives played out for shock value and the entertainment of the masses. There is a difference between telling stories and stealing them. Time and time again, we see male cishet directors spewing out slatternly and downright dangerous stereotypes. Abdellatif Kechiche’s adaptation of Blue is the Warmest Colour won praise despite the leery, voyeuristic slant of lesbophobia present throughout the film. Jared Leto’s Oscar-winning insult in Dallas Buyer’s Club was lauded as a revelation, with all outrage falling on deaf ears. Similar anger surrounded Benedict Cumberbatch’s Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, which chose to pursue a spy subplot with little historical merit while almost entirely failing to mention Tur-
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ing’s homosexuality and the persecution because of it that led to his suicide in 1954. These are some of the most critically acclaimed films of the last few years, and none of them have done the people they are supposed to be representing any good. There is however hope. Concurrently as The Danish Girl was showing in cinemas, so was Carol, a rare example of a good mainstream representation of two women in love. We need not just the representation of a face on a screen, but of our lives, in our words, if cinema is ever to truly reflect diversity. In recent years we have been blessed with some gifts. Carol is one of them, so is Pride, and Ben Wishaw’s beautiful Lilting, as well as a number of independent films. For the present, films about and created by women, LGBT people and so on, remain almost entirely indie. The notion that our stories are for general consumption is a rare one. I wonder how many women had to drag male friends kicking and screaming to see Suffragette, while being expected to sit through yet another carbon copy straight male power fantasy without complaint. (Spectre, ahem.) As long as we are kept out of sight, people will continue to believe that our lives and voices aren’t worth listening to. We need to start recognising the talents of people who have historically been ignored. Only by giving actors and filmmakers spaces in which to create, and the support to allow them to do so, will we stand a chance of building a film industry of the future – one that is as diverse and innovative as the world it tries to capture on screen.
Artist: Sophia Platts Palmer Title: A Goiter Named Sue
Philantrobeats’ in-house artist Sophia Platts Palmer is inspired equally by Dali, Orwell and arduous taxi rides. This illustration entitled ‘A Goiter Named Sue’ looks to uncertain futures – environmental, scientific and political.
Philanthrobeats are a Glasgow-based arts and music charity that uses creativity to ensure a better future for all. Drop us an email to get involved volunteer@philanthrobeats.com
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A PLATFORM FOR Jeanne Marie Hamilton
Diversity
Photographed by Maddie Chalmers l Silvia Sani Modelled by Miranda Langley l Pedro Bitto l Elspeth Lamb l Nancy Hervey-bathurst. Styled by Jeanne Marie Hamilton l Niamh Carey Jewellery provided by Adrienne Pesti l Vilune Skabickaite l Hannah Dunigan l Iona Hall
“It’s not what you wear, it’s how you wear it”
This is a phrase that has been flung left, right and centre in the world of fashion, by designers, models and photographers. And I agree that they have a point. Society continues to be falsely conditioned by big fashion brands to believe that in order to obtain ‘style’ you need a different outfit a day and that if you are not committed to your appearance financially then you, my friend, are not trés chic. We wanted to challenge such ideals in our fashion editorial by employing a minimalism that enhances the individuality of the models and of the jewellery designed by students at the Glasgow School of Art. Our desire was to reinforce the idea of fashion as an artistic mode through which we express ourselves.
fashion editorial
The process of the photo-shoot was collaborative. By having two student photographers capture normal people in an informal and relaxed environment, we were able to produce images of the jewellery as both wearable designer items and as works of visual art. In the images, Adrienne Pesti’s jewellery radiates etherial charm and is complimented by Vilune Skabickaite’s delicately constructed approach to the modern accessory. Hannah Dunigan and Iona Hall’s rings are delightfully versatile whilst maintaining the beautiful aesthetics of an artist. All in all, the creative professionals involved in this project intertwined their visions to make something beautiful that, not only challenges fashion norms, but mirrors a change in the future of fashion towards a platform for diversity.
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A quick look at Heather O’ Donnell
ECO-FRIENDLY FASHION
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ecent debates on climate change and anxieties around its ensuing natural disasters seem to have caused a shift in popular attitude towards environmental responsibility. An increasing number of people recycle their waste and attempt to shop for ethically sourced groceries. The vegan and vegetarian health food trend have raised awareness of how unsustainable meat and dairy consumption is. Alternative modes of transportation, such as buses, trains and bikes, have also reached a new popularity. The question remains if the fashion industry can keep up with this positive change. The excessive consumption of low-quality apparel and cheap clothing has an immense effect on the environment, due to the production of its materials. For instance, huge amounts of natural resources and large quantities of water are required to produce cotton. Wasteful chemicals in fertilisers damage the current environment and threaten the future of our celestial home. Non-profit organisation Earth Pledge highlight that cotton places second for most pesticide use of all crops and uses 25% of all petrochemical based pesticides, fungicides and herbicides globally. People might not be aware of how evasive the processes are in order to turn a raw fibre into a textile or of the working conditions of the people who produce the material.
“Cotton uses 25% of all petrochemical based pesticides, fungicides and herbicides globally.”
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Cotton can now also be recycled, with scientists at Sweden’s Institute of Technology developing the first recycled cotton dress in 2014. Other, more advanced projects include the search for alternatives materials, such as: bamboo, linen, hemp and flax. This shift in material production is a process of long-term growth with great promise, but has not yet reached the mass-market.
“It seems to have gone out of fashion to mindlessly consume” Eco-friendly fashion is more important now than ever. Luckily, it seems to have gone out of fashion to mindlessly consume. A widespread change in environmental ethics has taken place, but the clothing industry and its shopaholics have yet to follow. People might not change their shopping habits the moment we begin to discuss environmental responsibility. Still, it is important to consider what you are purchasing and how. A wardrobe full of unethically-made clothes that have given the environment another undeserved burst of chemicals does not fit into an environmental-friendly lifestyle. Carrie Bradshaw’s big wardrobe in Sex And The City should not be an ideal to aspire to. No one needs that many outfits (not even a fictional fashion writer) and it is thoughtless to buy clothes that you will tire of in less than a year.
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Still, all hope is not yet lost. More sustainable methods of production of clothes and their materials are underway. Though all cotton has a large carbon footprint and requires vast water resources, companies can work to source cotton organically, ensuring it is completely free of toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Brands, such as H&M, now promote more sustainable practises with a green tag ‘conscious’ collection and a pledge for all their cotton to be sustainably sourced by 2020.
Other brands that are currently producing 100% fair-trade certified cotton are a bit pricier, but equally worthwhile when browsing for one-off pieces, such as: Kowtow and Rêve en Vert, a platform website for fashion brands promoting green business practises. Olive Clothing is another company in the process of sourcing all material organically that pledge ethical responsibility and full transparency of material sourcing.
On that note, when you next shop for a new clothing item, consider how it was made, if it is organic, if the workers were paid fairly and if you see yourself still loving it next year. Hopefully, that will lead to a more eco-friendly attitude to clothing consumption and a change in the production of its materials in the future.
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Glasgow University Magazine
Issue 2
GUM
OPINION COLUMN:
the future legitimacy of the BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT Lucy Chislett
Of late, one cannot help but stop to ogle the tarnish on those iron railings, you know, the ones that separate us from them. The corroding notion of deference to an elite, defamed by scandal, who, quite frankly, don’t deserve it. For in 2015, two of its most distinguished members, Prince Charles and David Cameron, were subject to a rare bout of press hostility over the ‘black spider memos’ and ‘piggate’ respectively. There was hilarity; there was outrage. The establishment had taken a kicking, and was behaving with red-faced petulance. Could the hegemony of the establishment be so fragile as to fall down due to such scandals? Of course not. After all, the underlying power of the establishment derives from the anonymity of most its members and Orwell could have told us that you can’t fight what you can’t see. In this sense, to expose the prominent members of that elusive organisation only resulted in a shift of attention from the hidden influential power of that organisation to sensationalist personal scandals.
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“If this is a revolution, it is a distinctly British one: the type where one might have a cup of tea to calm the nerves first.” Perhaps I am too much a sceptic, but I question how ‘anti-establishment’ UKIP voters are, when the UKIP mantras are directed against those on the bottom rungs of the ladder: immigrants, the unemployed, benefit claimants. If this is a revolution, it is a distinctly British one: the type where one might have a cup of tea to calm the nerves first. Even Karl Marx shied away from Britain, when looking for the next potential convert to Communism. He noted that his movement would be “crushed in this little corner of the earth”. In the time that has elapsed since, not much seems to have changed. As far as this government is concerned, the establishment has been granted official democratic legitimacy – and is here to stay.
politics
Look at the uncorroborated allegation that the Prime Minister put his genitals into the mouth of a dead pig during his time at the University of Oxford, which resulted in a Twitter storm aptly named #piggate. Claims in the Mail that Lord Ashcroft was looking to avenge his lack of high office – after supposedly donating sums to the tune of eight million pounds to the party – were quickly quashed. The majority of the public regarded #piggate as a funny story about bizarre posh hijinks at bizarre posh universities. If we assume Ashcroft’s motivation to be true, few people questioned that Cameron had disregarded the tacit agreement that donors must be given prominent positions in government.
Kristyna Steflova
Ah – the establishment – incorruptible, apparently. At least, that’s what I think they’d have us believe. This great paradox: the upper echelons that demean democracy remain seemingly untouchable. Perhaps this has not gone unnoticed by the great British public, but it has certainly become old news in the media. Still, this development may have a crucial effect on the future of British democracy.
Regardless of whether there was any substance to these accusations, #piggate resulted in a public rejoicing of the view that we are run by ridiculous people who privately believe they are better than other people by right of birth and custom. The press, seeing this disaffection on Twitter, suggest we are the counterculture generation, poised to storm Westminster. Their evidence for this is that nearly 13% of voters turned out for UKIP. I do not profess to know whether there is any truth in this apocalyptic rhetoric. What I do know is that the establishment is composed of influential groups that desire to preserve their own interests within the setting of this so-called democracy.
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March 2016
Glasgow University Magazine
GUM
Issue 2
OPINION COLUMN:
Tuition fees or foes
W
ith careless abandon, the word “progressive” has been chucked around in many a Scottish political speech of late. But does this mean that the future holds a more progressed and equal society or is it merely rhetoric? In Scotland, children from deprived backgrounds are now half as likely to go on to university as their equally poor counterparts down south, which in my opinion is a consequence of Scottish Government policy. Scotland homes four ancient universities within a one hundred and fifty mile radius, yet since 2011 the proportion of state school leavers moving on to study at one of these elite institutions has fallen. Entry to any university from low-skilled household backgrounds has climbed by 0.2% in Scotland compared with almost 3% in England. If this is the First Minister’s idea of progressiveness, we can only assume that her ultimate utopia is one in which the privately educated kids stroll down University Avenue in even greater numbers than now. Holyrood have wreaked havoc on further education (or FE) colleges – disproportionately frequented by the less financially privileged – and are swiping funds from the state schooling budget with mechanical cruelty. The refusal of the Scottish Government to commit to a serious, social-mobility-focused funding strategy for higher education demonstrates the ersatz core of their “social justice” lip service. I would argue that free tuition is little more than a middle class subsidy to win votes in Aberdeen and Kilmacolm. Next time Nicola Sturgeon visits this university, someone ought to introduce her to one of the many Public Policy professors, who may then attempt to translate the simple concept of early years intervention into the language of faux-passion she speaks so fluently.
“Genuine commitment to social mobility takes more than bumper stickers and slogans – it requires expert-led reform.”
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are an attack on the poor, when in fact the reverse is true. Genuine commitment to social mobility takes more than bumper stickers and slogans – it requires expert-led reform. There is admittedly a reasonable case to be made against tuition fees being loaned by the state instead of given for free. When the coalition government raised the tuition cap to £9k per year, this was partially argued for on the basis of marketisation. They thought competition would see price differentiation, that universities would be undercutting each other’s fees. This has evidently not transpired. The attempted marketisation of higher education has failed and now the price tag for a degree at Cambridge is the same as at Glasgow, and both cost the same as a degree from Caley.
“Expansive childcare, new schools, more teachers, targeted school breakfast clubs in deprived areas, should take priority in the quest for social mobility” Option B in the progress towards social mobility is a route less trodden by parties that wish to appeal to the broadest number of voters (i.e. win elections): tax hikes. An inflexible truth of state finance is that higher spending requires higher taxes. Owing to the masturbatory smug “Scotland is more progressive than the rest of the UK” hyperbole, you’d be forgiven for buying into this baseless guff and visualising swarms of protestors picketing Holyrood with “RAISE OUR TAXES” placards. This has not occurred. I think Scottish voters are as self-serving as voters in any other western liberal democracy. Even if, by some miracle, a political party managed to convince a majority about tax rises, free tuition ought not be a top priority. Instead, expansive childcare, new schools, more teachers and targeted school breakfast clubs in deprived areas should take priority in the quest for social mobility. Perhaps the romanticisation of universities, particularly the Instagram-ready scenic ancients such as Glasgow, as hotspots of creative, cultural and scientific improvement has insulated us from the fact that our degrees will benefit the economy, yes, but ourselves most of all. A house is an asset, but we don’t expect mortgages to be paid for us. If our idea of progressive involves being given free things at the expense of people born in to disadvantage, what exactly are we progressing towards in the future?
politics
Sweeping aside all the disproven nonsense perpetuated by the NUS, the political wing of Waitrose, on tuition fees, the tuition-as-loans system recoups costs where governments like the one in Edinburgh squander them. Governments with the will to aid poorer students are able to offer higher bursaries and loans, safe in the knowledge that graduates will be making regular repayments. Despite its diluted influence in recent years, it remains undeniable that a degree is indeed an unrivalled asset in the job market. I believe that support for free tuition lazily rotates upon the assumption that tuition fees
Rhys Harper
Silvia Sani
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March 2016
Glasgow University Magazine
Megalia: The Unsung Feminist Warriors Youngwon Do
of South Korea
GUM
Issue 2
OPINION COLUMN Joel Leslie Joel Leslie responds to ‘Orange (Bang Out Of) Order) in GUM #1 December 2015.
D
iscussions of gender equality unfortunately tend to revolve around European and North American catalysts of thought. Could it be that Glasgow students do not normally expect women from traditional Asian cultures to be feminist warriors? Common – but not always accurate – perceptions of young Asian women would have them perpetually shy and conflict evading. Even informed students of social and cultural studies are prone to fail to see beyond this orientalist viewpoint and also fail to see the radical changes Asian women are making to strive towards a better future. Last year, a strand of camel flu known as MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) broke out in South Korea. Sections of the media reported that two South Korean women, who had been in contact with MERS infected individuals, had refused to cooperate in preventive measures, actions that could indeed have led to tragedy. Later, however, it transpired that the media reports were based on inaccurate information. Until then, the two women were subjected to the harshest of criticism; their perceived behaviour slated as typical of the irresponsible attitude women supposedly possess.
“Kimchineyo refers to an imagined ‘type’ of women in South Korea, South Korean women who exhibit particularly undesirable behavioural qualities such as being financially dependent on a man yet insisting upon gender equality.”
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Megalia plays a huge role in building female solidarity and kinship. Users shared their experiences of sexual violence and discrimination, many of whom had never before had the opportunity to voice their experiences. In addition to the on-going parody of misogyny, Megalia has engaged in social movements in cooperation with women’s organisations. They carried out a fundraising campaign among their members and donated 18 million Won (approximately £10,588) to the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Centre to support child and youth rape survivors. Following this, Megalia launched various social awareness events and rallies to decry misogyny, gender-based crimes and sex tourism.
Although I am not a member of, nor have any family members in, the Orange Order, one cannot help but notice the way in which the Order has been singularly demonised in Scotland by many people who take their cue from negative media publicity and by individuals inherently antagonist to the Order’s very existence, intent on attacking an organisation mainly comprising and supported by many thousands of working class Glaswegians. Neither can the Order’s historical and cultural significance in Glasgow be ignored. The first Orange parade in Glasgow was in 1821, which makes the Order a longstanding element of Glaswegian culture, and as much part of the city’s unique heritage as the Glasgow Fair Fortnight, football on Glasgow Green or the Barras.
Naturally, Megalia’s language provoked substantial public resistance. Countless male Internet users verbally demonstrated their distress at being exposed to Megalian insults. Pot, kettle, black. However, the presence of an online feminist group has strengthened the feminist movement in South Korea as a whole and will not be deterred by online verbal abuse. Hopefully, in the future western feminists will relinquish stereotypical ideas of Asian women and see them for what they are: unsung feminist warriors.
s a young boy, I remember seeing the Orange Lodges and the accompanying bands march through Glasgow city centre during the summer holidays. It was not an event that I thought much about at the time, but I remember being impressed by the noise and the colour. In the years since, I have seen the Orange walk several times. It is an event at which I have never witnessed any trouble or commotion. What I have witnessed, however, is the disorderly conduct of some young people clearly under the influence of alcohol. In 2015, there were 20 arrests for ‘minor offences’ at the main summer Orange parade, and 18 arrests in 2014, also for ‘minor offences’. By way of comparison, in 2013, there were 91 arrests at the T in the Park music festival, 54 at last year’s event, and over 400 arrests and 21 assaults on police officers at the Notting Hill carnival just six months ago. Does the conduct of certain individuals who have attached themselves to these events impugn the integrity of the organisers in the way that it seems to do with the Orange Order? Of course not.
The influence of Orangeism internationally has seen lodges set up across the globe, in Canada, Australia, North America, among the Native American population, and even in Africa. The BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Orangemen on the Equator’, broadcast last year, highlighted the problems of Orange Lodges in Ghana, where African Orangemen and women expressed their deep concern at the prejudice and persecution they faced from wider society. Their concerns at being misrepresented and misunderstood are similar to those echoed by many of their fellow members worldwide. In a way then, it could be said that the Orange Order reflects the values that the Scottish Government itself is trying to promote: one society incorporating many cultures.
Note from the editors: We wish to apologize in case the article ‘Orange (Bang Out of) Order’ in GUM #1 December 2015 caused offense to any of our readers. The views expressed in the text are not representative of the Student Representative Council, the University of Glasgow or the GUM editorial board. The article contained the views of the writer and was intended to spark debate about a controversial issue. GUM operates as an impartial student magazine under the freedom of the press and, as such, we strive to represent the different opinions of the students on campus. However, we are also responsible that our content does not offend any religious beliefs. That is why we want to clarify that the article was an opinion piece, wherein some facts might be skewed or misleading.
The traditions of the Twelfth and the parades which take place at the beginning of July each year are only part of the Orange Order’s raison d’être. Every year its members in Scotland and Ireland, in line with the Order’s key values, raise thousands of pounds for a plethora of charities and good causes, helping people from all faiths and backgrounds. It would be difficult to find an individual who embodied these values more readily than the Irish philanthropist Dr Thomas John Barnardo, whose compassion and altruism bettered the lives of tens of thousands of children at the turn of the twentieth century. Dr Barnardo himself was a member of the Order in Dublin. And the community outreach and achievements of Orangemen are still being recognised today: Olympic rower Alan Campbell, for instance, a bronze medallist for Great Britain at London 2012 and a proud member of the Orange Lodge in Garvagh.
politics
This type of ill-intentioned generalising is in-line with the long-standing online misogyny of South Korean media. A commonly applied label for South Korean women is Kimchinyeo, a phrase coined by combining the name of Korean food Kimchi and nyeo, a suffix for women. Kimchineyo refers to an imagined ‘type’ of women in South Korea, who exhibit undesirable behavioural qualities, such as being financially dependent on a man yet insisting upon gender equality, spending wastefully and possessing irresponsible attitudes in the workplace. South Korean women continually struggle to prove that they are not this caricature. Victim blaming in sexual assault crimes is often socially accepted, if the victim can be considered to possess the qualities of Kimchinyeo.
When the MERS news reports turned out to be wrong, angry South Korean women launched a counterattack. A group of female members, from one of the largest online communities, adopted a strategy where they parodied misogynistic language into insults against men. This group of women identified themselves as feminists and referred to their community as Megalia, named after Egalia’s Daughters; a speculative fiction of a society where men are in the minority. The women moulded the term Kimchinam, a male version of Kimchinyeo, arguing that South Korean men are indifferent to gender equality while demanding women pay equally for dates, irresponsible to the obligation to nurture their children, and spending excessively on visiting sex workers. Megalia also flipped gender expectations, suggesting tongue-in-cheek, that lots of sexual experiences make a man a “whore” while they only make women cool. As fearsome, absurd standards of beauty have been foisted upon South Korean women culturally, Megalia suggested that men should satisfy specific criteria to be considered attractive.
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GUM
Issue 2
The Hashtag Has Marketing Strategists Puzzled Joanna Velikov
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t might not come as a surprise that social media has become an inseparable part of our lives. Latest research showed that four out of five smartphone owners check their social media accounts as early as five minutes after waking up. This astonishing statistic exemplifies exactly how much social media is wired with our brains, emotions and lives. We are eager to share everything, from our lunch, through our views on the Islamic State, to the very first picture of our newborn child. What not everyone understands is that this habit produces massive volumes of data that is used for many different purposes, mainly for business and marketing strategy.
“From a marketing perspective, this seems like the perfect equation.”
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business
From the onset, business and marketing professionals sensed that social media would provide a whole new area for action. They bought information about social media users and segmented them according to different variables (demographics, time of usage, time spent on the site, etcetera.). In the meantime, people who owned social media channels introduced advertising and marketing options. The advertisers produced digital banners, desktop and mobile ads to showcase their products, while social media masterminds decided to charge them per impression and per click. This deal was beneficial for both parties, because businesses needed new channels to advertise and social media needed their money. In 2014, advertising spent online surpassed that spent on newspapers and the amount spent on social media peaked at $5.1 billion. From a marketing perspective, this seems like the perfect equation – an immense pool of potential customers, a wide variety of platforms to advertise on and accurate targeting features.
Still, things didn’t go quite as planned. A look at some of the worst marketing campaigns and gaffes on social media illustrates what could be wrong with the utopic assumptions that the business world has. On Twitter, for instance, many companies adopted the hash tag as a focal point in their campaigns, opting for a catchy phrase in hopes it would become viral – but quite often it backfired. Last year, a video emerged of the NFL star Ray Rice abusing his wife and Twitter users invented the hash tag #WhyIStayed to show support to the victim. Sadly, DiGiorno Pizza inadvertently used the hash tag to promote their frozen pizza. Also, GAP made the hash tag #DressNormal, with the aim to appeal to a larger audience. However, the brand’s followers felt it was demeaning and, quite frankly, meaningless. The results from this bad marketing decision were immediate – sales were down by 4% for that month. The king of bad social media decisions might be JP Morgan Chase, whose brand manager organised a live Twitter Q&A. It was aimed at nurturing relationships with clients, but since the company’s reputation is poor, the Q&A session was far from pleasant. The company was facing criminal
“Many companies adopted the hash tag as a focal point in their campaigns – but quite often it backfired”
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Glasgow University Magazine
GUM
Issue 2
cause-related marketing
allegations at the time and came under a lot of scrutiny from Twitter users who tweeted them. These three examples show that social media mechanisms are not as straightforward as once thought and they ought to be investigated in more depth.
Nathalie Little
“Social media is about interactive communication. This communication should be wanted and not forced onto the customers.”
I
deceptive or sincere?
n recent times, there has been a surge in the number of brands piggy-backing on social and cultural movements. From feminism, to racial equality, to LGBT rights and even charity social media campaigns, it seems like brands everywhere have had a cause to promote via their marketing activity. But is this repulsive or rewarding to the brand’s customers? Is it the way of the future for marketing strategy?
As someone who works in social media marketing, I have seen how good ideas that work in theory don’t always work in practice. No amount of brainstorming or marketing research can deliver a formula for a successful social media campaign. Most marketers’ beliefs are sadly still laced with old-fashioned methods. There is no way to create a quality marketing campaign on social media if it’s based on the principles of immediate ROI (return on investment) and one-way advertising. Social media is about interactive communication. This communication should be wanted and not forced onto the customers. This is where most marketers’ fundamental mistake lies – they try to forcefully impose a certain tone, campaign or idea, without considering if the person on the receiving end wants it. The future of business lies in social media and the opportunities it has to offer, but in order to ride this wave, marketers need to adapt and innovate without losing focus of the medium they are working with.
athleticism, while Pantene produced the advert “Labels Against Women” to reject common-sense notions of masculinity and femininity. If these campaigns give women the confidence to discuss issues they didn’t feel comfortable about before, I believe they have a positive impact. In the future, we hope to see considerably more diversity in terms of representation for the transgender community and people who identify as gender fluid or non-binary. Louis Vuitton has made the first move to attempt a breakdown of gender barriers by employing Jaden Smith as the face of their womenswear collection. Their current artistic director said: ‘‘Why does Jaden Smith star in this campaign? He represents a generation that has assimilated the codes of true freedom, one that is free of manifestos and questions about gender.”
Throughout history, the same set of exaggerated gender roles and stereotypes have been recycled in adverts, wherein women, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities are under- or misrepresented. Now marketing strategies might be changing. ‘Femvertising’ (adverts playing on female empowerment) is perhaps the most prominent example of a potential change. Brands have had a bash at selling their products through #empowerment, rather than the traditional method of #insecurity. As Nosheen Iqbal commented in her “To sell one brand that recent Guardian article: “the advertising industry, once bent on selling us encourages women to care sex, is now selling us its disgust with for their skin, while selling sexism.”
another that promotes chang-
An even bigger improvement would be to see many more people with visible disabilities featured throughout advertising in general. This is something Target has recently taken on board, featuring a girl with disabilities dressed up as Elsa from Frozen in one of their Halloween ads.
Kati Brunk
business
business
Born from society’s unrealistic expecThis drive towards cause-related martations of how women should look, Dove ing it, could be construed as keting can be beneficial for both brand arguably broke the mould in 2004 with hypocritical.” and consumer, provided some key princitheir “Campaign for Real Beauty”, which ples are adhered to. The cause needs to be encouraged women of all shapes, sizes aligned with the brand’s core values and and ethnicities to love the skin they’re in. While some marketing material has faced backlash, the cam- evidence of this needs to be visible. It is not enough to launch a paign on the whole, has been fairly successful. However, Dove campaign or hashtag promoting a specific cause, the same princiis part of Unilever, and as such the conglomerate’s other prod- ples need to be adhered to in the confines of the private workplace. ucts also need to be addressed, such as the Fair & Lovely skin To merely pay lip service to a cause, will trigger a backlash of dislightening cream. To sell one brand that encourages women to gruntled consumers. Therefore, it’s important to show depth and care for their skin, while selling another that promotes chang- commitment through quality cause-related content and key strategic partnerships with important organisations. Brands must recoging it, could be construed as hypocritical. nise that cause-related marketing is a huge responsibility and they Years 2014 and 2015 saw key brands, such as Sport England, Al- should take onboard feedback from consumers. They must be preways and Pantene implement this trend in their marketing cam- pared to address any problematic material and let consumers guide paigns. With cleverly curated online video content, these brands them in bettering their campaign and their brand, if cause-related facilitated conversations about issues that had been excluded marketing is to work in the future. from mainstream media before. Sport England tried to get girls and women into sports with their #ThisGirlCan campaign and Always launched the video #RunLikeAGirl to encourage female
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Issue 2
GUM
Robots will annihilate humanity if they are anything like us Tortajada Querol
T
he future of artificial intelligence (AI) has some very smart people feeling very, very worried. Stephen Hawking told the BBC that AI ‘could spell the end of the human race’. Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors, has called intelligent robots ‘our biggest existential threat’. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, believes the machines of the future will be more akin to the murderous HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey than the amiable C3PO from Star Wars, and said that advances in machine learning mean that ‘the future is scary, and very bad for people’. But just how and why exactly could AI lead to human extinction?
“The staggering lack of common sense is exactly what makes robots a danger to humans. All it would take is one ambiguous line of code, misinterpreted in the robot brain, to spell disaster.”
The philosophy Professor Nick Bostrom asks us to imagine a robot - call him Robert - that is programmed to produce paper-clips (as many paper-clips, as efficiently as possible). Without constraints on his behaviour, Robert will quickly turn everything in his surroundings into paper-clips, or build more robots that can turn more things into paper-clips more efficiently. Following that scenario through to its logical conclusion, leads to a worldwide apocalypse where all the matter in the observable universe consists of a giant, floating mass of paper-clips (Planet Paper-Clip). The absurd consequences of this (intentionally flippant) thought experiment are perhaps not what the word ‘apocalypse’ brings to mind. However, in his book Superintelligence, Bostrom argues that something like the paper-clip scenario is at least plausible in a future where ‘intelligent’ machines exist. Not now, probably not ten years from now, but perhaps one day.
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The aim of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in California is to make sure that once the singularity occurs, the resulting machines remain human-friendly. But why would they? What reason do we have for thinking that a race of AIs exponentially more intelligent than we are should have any reason to care for us, their lowly human creators? We would be unable to communicate with them in any meaningful way. The goals we had originally designed them to accomplish would seem laughably trivial. We would be competing species for a finite set of resources.
Kati Brunk
science
You might think Robert, our paper-clip friend, is a bit stupid. While possessing the unlimited intelligence of a future machine, he has a staggering lack of common sense. He simply follows the rules of his computer program. This is exactly what makes him a danger to humans. All it would take is one ambiguous line of code, misinterpreted in Robert’s robot brain, to spell disaster. Specifying the correct goals for the AI to follow is therefore extremely important. Banking on the machine’s common sense won’t save us.
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r will it? In The Technological Singularity, Professor Murray Shanahan argues that the capacity for common sense is possible in a future robot that possesses ‘general intelligence’. Perhaps we’ll be saved from our paper-clip doomsday if we can create ‘generally intelligent’ AIs, as depicted in the science fiction of I, Robot and Ex Machina. These machines are a far cry from human creation, given our current progress. But we might not need to create them after all: the robots could do it for us. The ‘singularity’ is a term used to refer to the moment that artificial intelligence develops a capacity for recursive self-improvement (robots that can build better robots that can build better robots). If or when this occurs, the ‘general intelligence’ that fills the pages of our fiction would be obsolete. Machines would soon become many billions of times more intelligent than us. At this point, even more troubling scenarios might arise.
Consider our standing towards other, non-human animals. We are infinitely more powerful than they are. They are mostly unable to communicate with us in any meaningful way. They are competing species for a finite set of resources. We eat them, we experiment on them, we make coats, scarves and wallets out of them and, occasionally, we allow a couple of species to keep us company. Why should we think a future race of artificially intelligent beings will be any more sympathetic to us than we are to the rest of the animal kingdom? Robots will annihilate humanity. When that day comes, I’m hoping they keep me as a pet.
“What reason do we have for thinking that a race of AIs exponentially more intelligent than we are should have any reason to care for us, their lowly human creators?”
Glasgow University Magazine
March 2016
should i stay or should i swerve?-
GUM
Issue 2
the ethical dilemma of self-driving cars Daniel Kelsey
T
o swerve, or not to swerve? That is the question for engineers working in the development of self-driving technology. They have found themselves turning to philosophy for the answers to a delightfully macabre ethical dilemma.
What’s more, the clearly defined terms of the thought-experiment are complicated by all the possible real-world variations. Imagine that the car can either swerve to the left, potentially killing a motorcyclist wearing a helmet, or swerve right, potentially killing a motorcyclist without a helmet. Swerving to the left, on the grounds that the cyclist with the helmet is more likely to survive, amounts to penalising the victim for being responsible. Swerving to the right, on the grounds that the cyclist without the helmet is being irresponsible, amounts to punishing carelessness with a death sentence. And perhaps the car should also take into account the status of its passengers. Does having a child in the backseat change the moral terrain?
“Does having a child in the backseat change the moral terrain?”
Imagine that your automated car drives you down the motorway and someone runs out onto the road. It’s too late to emergency break and a casualty is unavoidable. Should your car a) stay its course, killing the pedestrian, or b) swerve into a wall, killing you, the owner of the vehicle? Does your answer change if, instead of one person on the road, there are ten people? What if the person in question is a child?
A further complication is that the way in which companies decide to tackle these problems will likely influence how readily self-driving cars are accepted into society. A research team at the Toulouse School of Economics set out to measure the public opinion on how the car should behave by giving several hundred people a questionnaire featuring scenarios like those above. Most participants in the survey took the utilitarian route, advocating a car that always minimised loss of life. However, that decision came at an interesting cost: “[Participants] wished others to cruise in utilitarian autonomous vehicles, more than they wanted to buy utilitarian autonomous vehicles themselves.” And there’s the Catch-22: if we all bought self-driving cars, there would be far fewer accidents on the road. But who wants to buy a car that’s designed to sacrifice its owner?
“Perhaps the car should be duty-bound to protect its owner at all costs, no matter how many casualties occur outside of the vehicle.” Welcome to the murky moral universe that the engineers of the self-driving car industry have been attempting to navigate for the last two years. The dilemma is a variant on the ‘trolley problem’, a classic thought-experiment in applied ethics and a staple of the first-year philosophy classroom. If you’re a utilitarian, you might argue that the maximum number of lives should always be saved, even if your own life (or the life of the car’s owner) is not among them. On the other hand, perhaps the car should be duty-bound to protect its owner at all costs, no matter how many casualties occur outside of the vehicle.
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There are no correct answers to these ethical questions: no easy way out of the moral maze. They are as intractable as they are inevitable; self-driving technology will unquestionably come of age in the near future, and the world will be all the better for it. But placed in situations like those described, your car will be programmed to kill someone, and that someone might be you. That this is the case goes to show that, as technology advances, philosophy is as relevant as ever before.
science
If you or I were placed in a driving situation where we had to choose, we wouldn’t have time to reflect on our options. We could only ever react to the events unfolding in front of us. The designers of the self-driving car, however, carry the burden of forethought. The car’s movements are the result of a conscious decision taken by a programmer, or an engineer, or a policy-maker. There is a morally significant difference between the two scenarios. The first involves a reaction and the other involves a decision. If these accidents occur with self-driving cars, they are no longer really accidents. Moral and legal responsibility lies, albeit indirectly, with the designers of the car.
“Who wants to buy a car that’s designed to sacrifice its owner?”
Ryan Rivers
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Glasgow University Magazine
GUM
Issue 2
future cities Daniel Kelsey
W
hen searching for an example of human ingenuity at its most breath-taking, you needn’t look further than the modern city. Cities provide more than just a place to live and work; they are the centres of modern culture and the powerhouses that drive the world economy. The United Nations announced last year that over half of the world’s population now live in cities – a statistic that is only set to rise as increasing numbers of people move from rural to urban areas on the promise of a better quality of life. How do we ensure that the city of the future follows through on that promise? I spoke with Richard Bellingham, the director of the Institute for Future Cities at the University of Strathclyde, to find out.
“Cities provide more than just a place to live and work; they are the centres of modern culture and the powerhouses that drive the world economy.”
science
The future city will be faced with the challenge of sustainability: how do we construct an urban environment that allows its inhabitants to live full and creative lives, while also reducing carbon emissions? The STEP UP project partners Glasgow and the Institute with three other European cities – Gent, Gothenburg and Riga – with the aim of implementing strategies that are tailor-made to each city’s needs. In Glasgow this can be seen in the Commonwealth Games Athlete’s Village, a carbon-neutral regeneration project in the East End comprising 700 new homes. Originally housing the contestants of the 2014 Games, the Village is now an eco-friendly community that has provided improved social housing, affordable heating and private investment.
The factors that influence the frequency of crime are diverse. Some seem fairly intuitive; others are surprising. ‘If it’s raining, and there’s a popular show on TV, there are far fewer people on the street, so there are far fewer opportunities for crime.’ Another research project in Strathclyde revealed higher rates of domestic violence around the time of Rangers-Celtic football matches. Once this was discovered, the police were able to approach individual men in the week before a match, and threaten them with a lifetime ban from the football if another instance of domestic violence occurred, resulting in reduced crime rates. ‘That’s only a small minority of people, but it has a very significant effect’, said Richard.
“We want to work out why crime is occurring, and then make it less likely that the crime occurs in the first place.” Seeing the large-scale application of innovative techniques such as these may take some time. But it is unquestionable that, as the world’s population continues to grow in numbers and the size of the city follows suit, we will develop ever more sophisticated methods of understanding and predicting the nature of life in the urban setting. The Institute for Future Cities offers an exciting glimpse into what that world might look like.
Another example of the Institute’s pioneering work is their predictive crime project. Crime, and the fear of crime, significantly affects individual lives, the ability of an area to attract investment, the success of local business and the price of property. Reacting to crime after the fact can only do so much; it can’t reverse time. ‘Our approach is different’, said Richard. ‘We want to work out why crime is occurring, and then make it less likely that the crime occurs in the first place. Our objective is to reduce the frequency of crime, not to arrest more people.’
science
The Institute is an inter-disciplinary organisation that seeks to understand current and future cities in new ways, and to use that understanding to improve the quality of urban life. Key to that goal, said Richard, is thinking about cities as whole systems. ‘What struck me very clearly about working in sustainability is that the people working on transport only looked at transport, the people working on energy only looked at energy, the people working on water only looked at water, et cetera. It meant a whole set of opportunities were lost, because actually all these systems interact. If you start looking at the system in a more holistic way, opportunities start leaping off the page.’ Backed by a £24 million grant from Innovate UK, the Institute set up the City Observatory, an information system that collects and analyses diverse data sets related to the urban environment.
“How do we construct an urban environment that allows its inhabitants to live full and creative lives, while also reducing carbon emissions?”
Kamilla Hu-Yang
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March 2016
Glasgow University Magazine
creative competition: stories about the future The winners of this issue’s creative competition are Bethany Hutton and Thomas McDonald. Bethany Hutton is a member of the GU Photo Society and her photo reflects the increasingly dramatic problem of environmental damage – climate change, habitat destruction/pollution and animal extinction. She sees these problems as the main issues to face our generation, and successive generations, in the future. Thomas McDonald is a first year undergraduate of English Literature and German. His poem ‘A Memorable Diversion’ concerns the certainty of death in an uncertain future. He juxtaposes morbid subject matter with a light tone and comic absurdity, in order to reflect the anxiety this generation feels regarding the future.
A Memorable Diversion Right, how long you got left, in years? 60? Maybe 70 with future medicine? 50 with future healthcare? In any case, you don’t wanna cut it too fine, so what to do is: Give yourself three pages a year and read a novel until your death. 3 x 60 = 180, so you’ve got enough time for a short novel(la). The story will follow you throughout your life. Pick a good one. If you die before you finish it, I’ll read out the rest as they put you to rest. Although that might confuse the mourners a shade, and it may take a while if you smoke, sorry, smoked, and drink, sorry, drank. You might feel a compulsion to kill yourself the day you finish it. Suicidal epistemophilia.
By Tom McDonald ‘16
Bethany Hutton
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