Event date/time: 6-7pm, 2nd November 2021
Event location: The White Bear
Reading: “Typing is Dead” by Thomas Mullaney, a chapter from the book “Your Computer Is On Fire”
This reading explores how QWERTY became such a popular keyboard layout, despite being incompatible with writing systems used by most of the world, and what this says about global inequalities in technology.
We’ll be discussing the whole chapter, but if you’re running short on time, make sure to read pages 1-6 and 20-21 of the PDF.
Questions we’ll be asking at the discussion include:
- What assumptions are baked into the QWERTY (and similar) keyboard layouts? How do these assumptions show up in other technologies?
- Is there a trade-off between ease of development and inclusivity when building technologies? Or is this a false dichotomy - should we be looking at tech development in other ways?
- What are the consequences of one culture’s technologies becoming the standard across the world?
- What does the story of typing in the world tell us about global technological inequalities?