Culture

I wanted to define culture from the perspective of a communicator and an information scientist.

Culture is the sum of all physical and intellectual elements produced and accumulated by humanity throughout history. This encompasses material cultural items (technology, architecture, works of art, communication tools, etc.) and non-material cultural items (language, beliefs, values, norms, knowledge systems, etc.).

In this context, culture is the sum of all material and non-material assets produced by humanity in the process of creating knowledge and meaning, and the evolution of communication and informatics plays a central role in the shaping of culture.

We are not fully aware of it, but 2020 was not just the year of COVID-19. More importantly, a very significant threshold was crossed. The total weight of artificial materials produced by humanity surpassed the total mass produced by nature. Now, “physical culture > nature”.

In 2020, the amount of human-made (in other words, anthropogenic) mass exceeded the weight of all life on Earth, including humans, animals, and plants. Anthropogenic mass, or human-made mass, is a concept that refers to materials embedded within inanimate solid objects made by humans.

Global biomass is approximately 1120 Gt (1 Gt = 1 billion metric tons). This definition refers to the dry weight of all life on Earth and includes plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, single-celled organisms, and primitive microorganisms. While all of humanity accounts for only 0.01% of global living biomass, the anthropogenic mass produced by the human population between 1900 and 2020 reached 1154 Gt, meaning the amount of “artificial” mass produced by humanity surpassed the amount of “natural” mass produced by life for the first time in history.

About 549 Gt of this amount is concrete. Concrete is the most frequently used building material and is the second most used substance in the world after water. About 92 Gt is brick. Approximately 1.5 trillion bricks are produced each year, and more than 85% of this annual production comes from Asia. About 386 Gt is aggregates. These are granular materials such as sand, gravel, crushed stone, and slag used in construction. Aggregates are the most extracted materials in the world. About 39 Gt is metals. Since the Bronze Age, metal materials have become increasingly prominent in human culture. For example, iron is the most widely used metal in alloys such as steel. About 65 Gt is asphalt. This material is a semi-solid form of petroleum and is generally used by mixing it with aggregates for roads. The final 23 Gt of anthropogenic mass consists of glass, plastic, and wood materials, which we also know from what is written on recycling bins. Moreover, the weight of all existing plastics (approximately 8 Gt) is more than twice the total weight of the entire animal kingdom.

As humans continue to dominate the world, questions surrounding our material output are also increasing. The annual increase in human-made mass is approximately 30 Gt per year. This means that every person on Earth contributes their own weight to human-made mass every week. As accumulation rates increase, it is projected that the amount of human-made mass will triple the global living biomass by 2040. This trend shows that the speed and magnitude of human contributions affecting the world are becoming alarming.

From a communication perspective, culture is a continuous process of meaning production and transmission. Societies shape, share, and transform knowledge through language, media, and technology. Especially in the digital age, social media, artificial intelligence, and information technologies have accelerated cultural production and globalized interaction. In terms of informatics, culture has become not only a product of human thought but also a structure shaped by data, algorithms, and digital networks. Cultural heritage is no longer just physical objects or written texts; it is also carried by content on digital platforms, software, and virtual communities.

The implication of this is that while we are filling the world with anthropogenic mass on one hand, we are also bombarding human minds with messages and filling them with disinformation on the other. As I mentioned in my article last week, the amount of communication we are exposed to on a typical social media platform has far exceeded the amount we can meaningfully evaluate. This is not seen as a good trend at all.