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The Coming Cyberclysm - Part One
There are hordes of serious-minded people who insist that computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm, when humanity becomes overwhelmed as it tries and fails to cope with the number, complexity, speed and nature of the things we make.
Even now, nobody can really keep up, and only a few can even fake it. Everyone is frantic, stressed, tethered, broke or worn out trying to manage. We are bombarded by inventions and advances we might not need or understand, that move more quickly and do more things than we want, that we can barely grasp, let alone service or repair.
The complaints and alarms are piling up.
Author James Gleick in "Faster" complains that technology is forcing everything to move too quickly. In his new collection of essays, Arthur C. Clarke writes "I have seen the future and it doesn't work."
The typical twenty-first-century person's day, he predicts, will include: "Skimming five hundred channel program listings, two hours; viewing television programs selected, four hours; catching up on recorded programs, six hours; exploring the hyperweb, six hours; and adventuring in artificial reality, four hours." He didn't even mention checking e-mail, answering fax-spewing and stock-listing cellphones, or responding to pagers and beepers.
Neo-Luddite Kirkpatrick Sale goes further, warning in his books that technology is destroying the world. He wants us to smash our computers to save the planet.
In his apocalyptic new dirge "Staring Into Chaos," author Bruce Brander proclaims that western civilization itself is coming to an end.
The term Ubiquitous Computing is technological historian Langdon Winner's, who in Netfuture Issue No. 94 [http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/1999/Sep1499_94.html#33], warns that society is drowning in a wave of absurd and unnecessary appliances and electronics, continuously and wastefully cranked out by some of the best minds alive.
Winner, a critic of the Wired-era hype about the Internet and networked computing, exults in what he perceives as a growing realization that Ubiquitous Computing isn't making life simpler or better, but harder, more expensive and chaotic:
"Simplify. Save time. Reduce effort. Liberate yourself from toil. This has been the continuing siren song of consumer technology through the twentieth century. Unfortunately, in its own terms, the dream is always self-defeating. As people add more and more time-saving, labor-saving equipment to their homes, their lives do not become simpler and easier. Instead their days become even more complicated, demanding and rushed."
A disclaimer here : I don't share Winner's summary view of computing. For me, appliances, hardware and software are the least interesting aspects of technology. For me, the siren song would be: Speak and Think Freely. Connect. Learn, and Share What You Learn. Then learn and share more. Grow. For me, this promise has been fulfilled, a thousand times over.
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need. We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful. TV's and sound systems, watches that monitor global time zones, multi-function phones - keep adding features daily, many of them of doubtful necessity to most of the people who buy them. One ad blanketing commercial TV touts new wireless phone technology that will allow people to get their e-mail, weather and sports scores instantly from anywhere. Does anybody really need to be that wired?
Even the most ardent geeks complain that they can never be out of touch, never have time to think, never completely catch up. As the world is able to reach us more easily, it expects us to be always available and more or less instantly responsive. This rushes us and our responses. It makes us edgy, grumpy, impulsive. Technology becomes a means of harassing and pressuring us instead of improving our lives. The genuine blessings of technology - information, opportunity, community, the portability of work - get overlooked in all the gadgetry.
All labor-saving devices don't necessarily improve the quality of life. Autonomous human beings can - and maybe should - take responsibility for the smaller details of life. After all, these labor saving devices require considerable labor: they need installation, adjustment, repairs and replacement - often at considerable time, cost and annoyance. There are enormous ecological consequences as well, to making so much plastic and metal, so many wires and chips.
Newsweek enthused last week, in a gee-whiz cover story about how the Internet is changing our lives, that tomorrow's automatic coffee maker will have access to our online schedule so it can automatically withhold the brew if we're out of town. This is by -now - instantly-recognizable media language of Technohype, computing and technology wrongly presented as a barrage of gizmos with chips that do things we can just as (or more) easily do for ourselves.
But if the laws governing technology are unpredictable, those governing capitalism are unwavering: What is made must be sold and, therefore, hyped.
Such overheated predictions don't evoke the future so much as the past. Remember Walt Disney's Tomorrowland with its notions of intergalactic travel, hover cars, people movers and other things that still don't exist? We may be closer to genetically engineering perfect humans, or even curing cancer, but we still can't cure the cold or come up with a practical battery-powered car, or make computers that don't drive the people using them nuts.
Alas -- according to almost every business or marketing projection, R&D labs will usher in the Millenium by making the creation and sales of info-gadgets and appliances an even greater preoccupation of the next century.
On the East Coast (where I live), in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, one little-noticed consequence of the storm was that power interruption rendered cordless telephones useless even if the phone lines were functioning. Moreover, the flooding of an AT&T installation in New Jersey knocked out hundreds of thousands of cellphones. For a few days, the only phones that worked were the Lo-tech sort, the non-electronic, non-digital kind that plugged into the wall jack, receivers attached to the base with curly cords. That's as apt a metaphor for the coming Cyberclysm as any. Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
Whose responsibility is all this? Nobody's, of course. Technology has a mind, life and direction all of its own. It's inherently uncontrollable, even if anybody was up to trying.
But some of the fault lies in the way our institutions - education, politics, media - deal with technology. We're trapped between two useless states - alarm and euphoria. Either we are railing about pornography, disconnection, and addiction or we are banging the drums for Gee-Whiz Computing that exists much more for its own sake than for our benefit. Like cell phones that receive faxes in taxicabs or 21st century toilets that will monitor the family's health through chemical sampling of fecal matter, or mirrors over bathroom sinks that flash the day's headlines, so nobody in the family has to wait until they get downstairs to get the news, if their wireless phone hasn't already alerted them.
Perhaps the idea that there are people who keep up with all this stuff is in itself a technological myth.
Clarke warns that we're headed for a Cyberclysm (he and others have used the word), a catastrophic collision between computers, technology and humanity. We won't be consumed by evil aliens or runaway AI machines, as sci-fi futurists have long predicted. Instead, we'll conquer ourselves with too much information about too many things and too many appliances performing too many services.
Clarke has written often of the pitfalls of the Dream Machine, the seductive idea that gadgets will run the world and monitor the most intimate details of our lives while we are free to enjoy ourselves.
"There have been many science fiction stories," writes Clarke, "about frantic human attempts to unplug disobedient computers. The real future might involve exactly the opposite scenario. The computers may unplug us." And, he adds: "it would serve us right."
That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices: to fall back with the hare-brained Luddites who want to return to the sylvan forests, or to follow the Techno-Utopians on their runaway CyberBinge.
End Part One.
Tomorrow: Turning to AI computing and the Gods for salvation and survival - Clotho.org.
Really Katz, people will learn to cope. Thats what they've always done.
Like the subject says. I cant help but think that this is just the latest sensationalism Katz is using his soapbox for. Ofcourse, once it's all said and done, I cant help but feel the author gets more satisfaction from the reaction he gets than any perceived benefit the articles induce..
Yes, there is an increasing amount of useless crap out there designed to make our lives "easier". Most of it doesn't. So what, if you don't think it does, don't use it! I think that the bigger problem is that so many people cannot resist marketing and just buy things because they are cool, not because they need them. As long as this mentality exists, companies will find ways to make and sell more crap. As for being busier, sure we are, but we can deal with it. It's your own fault if you tell your boss or whomever that you can be reached at home or on your cell 24/7. Set limits at work and don't give in. You have to have time for your life too.
When records came about, people said there would be no more live music. With the advent of the phone people said no one would talk face-to-face anymore. With TV, who would go to the movies? If anything technology may make our lives easier. Clarke mentions spending hours spent searching program listings. Its not that hard to write some sort of filter, and the media-entertainment devices of the future will probably have some sort of spiffy neural-net patern recognition shit going on to find shows we didnt even know we liked.
... and I don't have that kind of problem. The net makes my life simpler in some areas and more complex in others. Complex in only ways I like such as site development though :)
Zen is good, but sometimes beer is better. Take a weekend to chill out, relax, and have some fun out in nature. The best way to "unplug" is to walk away from the machine once in a while. I'm one who plans on having a career in networking systems, but I know when to stop, get up, and head for the beach. Ignorance may be bliss, but I'll take knowing something over ignorance any day.
'nuff said.
-- An Ayn-onymous Coward
Unfortunatly I didn't notice this was Katz until I had a good laugh over how much effort is put into making a story out of something that isn't. Had I know it was a Katz peice I wouldn't have wasted any time reading it.
"Skimming five hundred channel program listings, two hours". Um, this has got to be among the stupidest things I've ever heard. Assuming anyone is even wasting their time with TVs, and program listings aren't in electronic form for instant searching and sorting, could anyone honestly think someone would sit for two hours a day to skim program listings?!?!?! Hello????
All of which relies on the ignorance of the common man so as to foster a fear where none should be. Damn I thought I filtered this idiot out of my Slashdot updates. Hell I am surprised he did not look at every 7 word in the source to Linux to make have a revelation, perhaps he will just do like the rest of the fear mongering anti-techs do... play with the Bible till it says what they want. Sure we will have 400 to 500 choices for Television and other forms of entertainment, the madness won't be for us to experience, but for the content providers trying to figure out how to pry us out of our preferred viewing habits. Go away Katz, your beginning to rave again. . PS: Forgot my password - sorry for the anon - Chris
The above is the title. I have the original serial in Analog; I think it was published in 1986. Great story.
But it's only a story, I think; exponential growth is possible, maybe even factorial, but asymtotic???
-- An Ayn-onymous Coward
Actually, you have it backwards: the very rich will have NOTHING to do with tech. Neal Stephenson presaged this in Diamond Age: the REAL heavy hitters will be totally unconnected; their underlings will have all the wiring. The compulsion for cell phones, etc. should be resisted: it's really a plot to control you and yours, to keep you tethered to the world Where They Watch.
Great article Katz.
I find it surprising that Gleick, the populist of chaos theory, would so easily fall into the trap of looking at the state of technology and computers in everyday life and linearly extrapolating an impending cataclysm.
Clarke, on the other hand, has always been a sort of neo-ludite. His well-known science fiction has principally been about the struggle between man and technology. Living in a self-imposed technological and semi-personal exile, I would expect his cries of impending armageddon.
Today we engage in computing for computing's sake. Smaller, faster, more is the rallying cry and the immediate goal is to show how much we can do and not how well we can do it.
Personal computers and the technologies enabled by the collateral breakthroughs are so new that we have not had the time to allow these items to settle into their place as tools. Within the next decade we will slowly ease into that phase and within three the computer will be the tool that helps us do: the personal assistant and portal to the worlds information.
The most fitting analogy would be the automobile. A simple goal of personal transportation evolved into a fin-bearing monsters that could travel at 200mph. Finally we settled into experiential automotive technologies. It is accepted that any car will get you from point A to point B. The point now is the driving experience: comfort and controlled power.
Back in the computing world, traditional AI will not get us there, but I'll wait to post on that topic until tomorrow.
i count 3 cybers in the article.
as per SOP this will result in [n/2] lashes
from my dialectical tongue..
-= cyb3rd00d joun@lism
-= too bad w. gibson didn't understand computers
Saw this on TV once. They had the story featured on the "Ray Bradbury" Theature. I remember watching it. After the segment, I just sat there dazed. His point echoed quite strongly. I TOO strongly urge seeing it/reading it. Changed my perspective somewhat. And as I read this, and see people with cell phones, and even carry my horrid pager (as pushed on my by the company) I think of Mr. Bradburys warnings. Technology should free us. Allow us to get what we need, WHEN we NEED it, and no other time should it do so. Unplug yourself, and enjoy reality. The outdoors. Freedom. Peace. Relax.
I'm just wondering what kinda of crack this guy is smoking....oh no..email on a cell phone...thats gonna destroy society....some dork doesn't like technology and so he's preachin that its gonna kill us all....this fag has watched the matrix one to many times...... The fact that we are able to create such unnessecary things proves that our society is at the point that it can handle it. Do you really think that we should be out growning food instead of increasing technology...no we have ppl doing that and we are obvoiusly still eating....
But does that mean you should close yourself off to different ideas? The fact that Katz isn't a soldering-iron, binary code guy gives him a different perspective from most of the people here. His topics are usually interesting and I enjoy reading his perspective.
If you came here everyday and only found stories that said Linux is great, Linux will rule the world, you might feel more comfortable, but you wouldn't learn anything and you wouldn't need to think.
I think you mean Channel 4..?
We only have 4 1/2 channels and still they're easy to confuse. Wall to wall crap.
Oh no! With 70 radio stations to choose from, do we waste time checking each one? With millions of web sites, do we surf to each one? Humans adapt to technology the same way we adapt to everything else. We filter out the noise. Any geek who claims he can be disconnected for more than 30 minutes is an idiot. What we have here is simply another way for Darwin to prove himself right. There will be those that can adapt and those that cant (and go on murderous destructive rampages.) Rich
Now hear this, Katz: One good definition of the term "geek" is: People who don't mind all that stuff you just described. Information overload? Hell, there isn't nearly enough good content on the Web! I keep up with everything I care about in an hour a day, and I wish I could spend more time at it, because it's fun. How is this possible in a cyberclasmic, information saturated world? Because I'm a geek, you idiot! Non-geeks have insufficiently developed information skills; they have to read everything Jesse Berst, John Dvorak, Jon Katz and their ilk write, and even then, they still aren't quite convinced that all are blowhard fools. Geeks are people who can figure this shit out.
Katz: If you've already reached information overload and can't process what's going on in the world today, you might as well bow out now. It's only going to get more so, and that's a good thing because it increases the competitive lead that we geeks have over the rest of humanity. And if you ever think about writing another article on "the nature of the geek tribe," pay careful attention to the fact that you aren't one!
Similarly, now we have unlimited access to some kinds of information, and a predictable percentage of the population is OD'ing on the newly available resource.
Eventually people will get over the binge phase, and adopt a healthy information diet, just like they learned to do with twinkies and hamburgers.
Seen how much nutritious, good food is in the stores now relative to ten years ago?
I predict we'll see quality TV return within a decade
FAITH!
It's true that a lot of technology is dependent on AC power; it's also true that someone who is prepared will be able to survive without it. I have 4 phones in my house, all of which are feature-rich and plugged into the electric company; of those, 3 will run for months on the back-up 9-volt batteries. Of course, you have to put the batteries in; so many people don't. I haven't yet bought a 2nd battery for my cordless phone, though I should; not merely because I'd be able to swap it when the handset battery dies, but also because the 2nd battery in the charging bay will keep the phone base alive if the power goes. Not all phones have this feature, but I made sure mine does. If the power goes out, my stereo receiver won't work at all. Lucky thing I have a boombox, great for parties on the patio, and stocked with batteries. My computer's cable modem won't run with the power off; it's plugged into the same UPS as the CPU and monitor. Did I mention how cheap uninterruptible power supplies have been getting? Pick one up now. Also, while you're at it, get a 300 watt power inverter to plug into your car's cigarette lighter. That way, if worse comes to worst, so long as you have fuel for your car, you have power. A generator may be more versatile, but it's also more expensive and more difficult to keep in working order. Now, as you can see, I haven't been spending a huge amount of money bunkering down for Y2K; I also haven't been neglecting what I'd miss most if services went out on me. Don't snub high-tech just because it needs power.
See, the trick is to do everything all at once.
Surf, watch TV and eat at the same time.
It easily clears up the neccessary 4 hours a day sleep I need.
"Look at the mess we made of the early industrial age, with heavily polluted cities and children working in factories and mines. We figured out what was wrong and fixed it, and we'll do it again." I wasn't aware that these problems had actually been conclusively fixed...
Think about this for a second. You spend at least 6 hours on the internet, you spend some of that working on a computer at work or school, you watch tv and talk on the phone. Technology rules your life; the key word here being "YOUR". If you want it you will get it. If you don't want it, go work as a pimp in New York. Now shut up and quit whining about it
...like people have been doing for centuries.
Um no, we haven't fixed them. We still have awesome amounts of pollution and child labour. I would say it would be best to fix our mistakes before repeating them.
I think it's cool, what he mentiones in the article, about the new phones not working. I come at the issue like a neo-Luddite to be certain. All my phones have "Bell System Property- Not For Sale" stamped onto the bottom of them, and I refuse to install any of the new crap that's come onto the scene since deregulation. Ma Bell built telephone equipment to last a century with little if any maintanence. The crap phones people get stuck using today are designed to be cheap. That's the primary design criterion for any of the new stuff. My phones are all touch-tone, but none are cordless.
And I take pride in being able to say that generally I am hard to get ahold of. When I am away from home or away from the office, I don't have a cellular telephone or beeper tethering me to a number. I consider that liberating. I feel sorry for people who've been tagged and wired (or is it wirelessed?)
I used to actually read Katz's articles..now i think they should be moderated -5:Flamebait. Really, now...do you -try- to sound that clueless? Are you Rob's retarded cousin? Why are you here??
The fact the we have access to hundreds of TV channels, VCRs, DVDs, Internet, virtual reality and whatnot doesn't mean that we have to do all those things. Or is it the case that we have to buy a cell phone just because they exist? Frankly, I find this kind of articles and forecasts puerile at best, downright stupid at most. Fine, if you are one of those guys who has to be on the bleeding edge all the time, you won't be able to cope. I am very happy myself forgetting about TV, Internet and whatever hi-tech crap on a regular basis, relying on the simple pleasures of reading a book, listening to music or sharing a beer with friends. If you become a slave of technology then you are a moron, and whatever happens to you will be well deserved.
I admit it sometimes gets difficult to cope with the information flow. As a Network Admin. you find yourself unable to focus on learing any one thing and instead try to learn much about everything. Eventually a MIS department will be beyond having a single person that is a Jack-of-all-trades (master of none) and instead be forced to dip into the budget a bit more to have a few specialized people. (i.e. I am a Novell guy and we need to now hire a NT guy or a Unix guy...etc) Even more difficult: Actually maintaining the network is only one part of administration. The other part is guidence of the company IT. (The managers clue me in on where they are taking the company and I have the IT foundation already there by the time the department is created or whatever)You cannot guide a company without being in touch with the industry (what direction is the breeze blowing now?) lest you build something that is unsupportable. Slashdot is an example of what we need. Not a portal but a NEWS PORTAL. Where I as an IT guy can go to get info filtered very much for me by other people that have a clue. CFO's need the same. So does every field...however the finance people have no idea how to maintain a good web-site...oh well (business opportunity for those double majors out there :) . Otherwise we will drown in a sea of information...I think we are making ourselves autistic (is this the right condition?) in that we cannot cope with the information unless we are fed it by people trained (or who have learned - Slashdot) to filter it properly. - lazy and not logging in Darkion - Tobin Melton tobin_mNOSPAM@yahoo.com
If you're going to work down at the bottom of the dummy chute wiping the floor, you'd better get used to dealing with the stupidest 5% of the computer-using public.
Seriously, I think a lot of the most cynical anti-Microsoft people are those who sit at help desks. If they got out and saw how most people effectively use computers, they might change their tune.
Needless to say the real shocker would be trying to visualize a Linux help-desk pandering to the same clueless users ("I turned off the machine by mistake. How come it's taken four hours now and still is in that DOS screen? Where is my GNOME desktop?"). Let's not go there.
We have that Novell ZEN thing installed here at my work. Sometimes the bootup of this machine (Windows 95) never gets throught the ZEN sequence. Sometimes the manure-spreader icon starts spinning (when it starts spewing out new updates, what I call the Manure spreader icon comes out to play) and then I know I'm in deep deep trouble.
If there's some other meaning to the term zen it eludes most of us. Must be some obsolete usage of the word.
I seriously doubt it's the "smart" who are prospering from any information revolution. If, out of 6 billion people in the world, it just so happens the smart ones are the ones with PC's, stock-options, and a working knowlege of perl. Participating in the new techno-utopia has very little to do with "taking the time to think," but more with "having the lesiure time and disposible income."
The point here is that technology is continually raising the bar for competance in the world. Sure, it can be mastered -- but only by that infamous 3% of the world that controls 95% of the wealth. They have the lesiure to master new technology, but the rest of the world (the VAST rest of the world) only becomes more alienated, confused, and hopeless in the face of the digital explosion.
A quick example: New York has changed the welfare system to use debit cards instead of checks. Great idea, eh? Wrong. Not only are many confused and confounded by the abstract concept of electronic-transfers, but many of the poorest ares of NYC have no ATM machines period. Plus, a $1.50 surcharge means a lot more when you're getting welfare.
A top heavy society cannot survive forever, and if you think that the "Cyberclism" will be caused by perl geeks being unable to cope with ethernet jacks in their bathrooms, think again. The other 5.9 billion people in the world being humiliated and confused by modern "useless fancy gadgets" are the REAL problem here.
How much would it cost to see the theatre version of that? (not on film, on the stage, with a real glass jar and pretty-boy's head really in the jar). Maybe we could go to a private performance of that somewhere in the world. What a tasty event it would be.
People have a lot of difficulty dealing with the scope of the world beyond their own lifetime. There are always people saying that now is the best or worst time in history, that the world will end, that we cannot continue going on like this for more than ten years or so. There are those that say everything is coming to a head. The end is near. Doomsayers have been talking about the mark of the beast and associating it with things for eighty years. Conspiracy theorists are saying Martial Law will be declared and the UN will police the US. At no other time in history...etc. But the truth is, it will continue. We are always in a state of transition and progression. Technology will always improve, inventions will always be invented, population will continue to balloon unless catastrophe sets us back. In truth, nothing now is better or worse than it ever has been. There are pros and cons too numerous to mention between now and ten thousand years ago, now and two hundred years ago. We continue to change, but it doesn't end. If you can't deal with technology, don't deal with it. It's a choice. The Amish called it quits on technology a hundred and fifty years ago. They've had their difficulties, but they pulled it off. Buy a corded phone, and throw out the computer and live in 1980 for the rest of your life. I guarantee you will have your own things to complain about. Your life will not be any better than if you stay on the bleeding edge. Do the Amish live a better life? A worse life? Or are they just different? Technology isn't the culprit. It is human nature to need things to complain about. All the cell phones with web access and handheld PC's and technotoilets aren't going to improve or ruin your life. They just make it different. Personally, I like technology. I am willing to spend the money and time it takes to be familiar with it. But I can go camping and not miss it for a moment. Pick the technology you want to make your life what you want. Just don't expect it to make it significantly better by nature.
"More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." (1980) Side Effects `My Speech to the Graduates' "Sleeper" is in my opinion the best sf comedy.
Why do you persist in viewing the pre-Industrial view in the way that Thomas Edison's PR machine tried to present it?
Needless to say, in 'olden times' there were limits and downsides to the lack of technology. There were tremendous upsides, too.
And there was definitely leisure time in many cultures. Probably not in the 'go west young man' wilderness survival thing you describe, though.
> The term Ubiquitous Computing is technological
> historian Langdon Winner's,
Nope. The term was coined by the late Mark Weiser of Xerox PARC, who meant it in a positive way.
That's exactly the point -- you either pay for the technology or pay not to have it. And I'm not talking about trade-offs, here, I'm talking about MONEY. Why can't people think outside their own economic status?
Who cares whether _you_ can pay your bills, and what fabulous choices _you_ have with regards to technology? You're an early adopter, you've got money. What the people who are being completely alienated from society because they can't keep up? Those who can't pay their bills electronically will just have to pay a surcharge for "paper" transactions -- and hence will be financially subjugated by a technology they not only don't understand, but one that they can't even afford to buy.
And who in the technoplutocracy will teach them? Who will have the time, what with the cell-phones and the internet trading and the stock options?
I see we've been reading our Neal Stephenson. ;-)
Next.
"When records came about, people said there would be no more live music." I remember seeing an R.Crumb cartoon about the death of folk music. Basically blamed records for it. To an extent, I think it's true. Live music lives on..folk lives on, but the whole landscape shifts with new technologies..and certain things suffer. I'm thinking of all this in an evolution context. Some critters die off. Some get stronger. Do we miss the old critter or pass it off as a weakling? Do we embrace the new stronger critters (i guess so) or do we pass 'em off as cockroaches (i guess so too)? I think movies have suffered a bit, trying to compete with TV (Ernest loses a Kidney..etc) Totally agree with you on the old filter idea. THIS is what computers are for, definitely! However, some stuff might fall through the cracks...but you'll never know! ;-) buzz
Working in the bowels of a large corporation, I see the problem all the time. If they can't reach me at home on the weekend, they get me a cell phone. No one ever considered that there are times when I don't want to be found (hiking in mountains is great for "I must have been out of range!") I'm sure many /.ers must feel the same way: Hurried, Harried, and busy.
I think it's worth noting that the events and results of the Singularity are very shrouded even in "Marooned..." Most of the characters, and notably the viewpoint character, are all pre-Singularity and were "bobbled" (== in stasis) during the Singularity. There are only a few characters who actually were awake near the time of the Singularity and they all were not completely part of it for various reasons (e.g. Della Lu was outside the solar system, IIRC).
Vinge paints the Singularity as being so unknowable that pre-Singularity humans can't even make sense of what happened to the people who lived through it, what they've become or where they are. (The post-Singularity Earth is completely depopulated except for those who were in bobbles.)
I think you are misrepresenting Arthur C Clarks's new essays. "I've seen the future, and it doesnt work" does not mean what you make it sound like.
:)
I am afraid this entire article was nothing more then a crafty spun web
lthough its true, 99% of the population doesnt understand 90% of the tools they rely on, those of us who do understand those tools are the ones with the money, and the power.
The world will not end, but its population will shrink drastically, and selectively.
Your thoughts are dead on. Jon Katz is a putz.
Your spelling needs work though. Use a SC before posting your otherwise good posts.
I would mod you up, but I am an AC
Reading this I couldn't but take a pencil (do you know what it is?) and sketch my own version of of doomsday prophecy. Maybe because I feel so awkward in this brave new world that has suddenly arrived here to Eastern Europe. In this B. N. W. I am like a dinosaur with my Oxford English, learnt from the BBC, somebody come from the USSR, a big contry ruled by half-fossilized Jurassic bureaucrats (nasty creatures, but probably a little more humane than the modernizing Indonesian technocrats). Recently converted to Linux by my son who discovered it already four years ago. Instead of old bureaucrats, we now have young cybercrats. Yes, they have no time, they exchange it all into money. To think, one needs time, money isn't enough. Once I discovered there are four types of societies. People can have: a. plenty of time, little money. b. plenty of money, little time. c. plenty of time, plenty of money. d. little time, little money. Now the ex-Jurassic, ex-Communist world is moving from a. to b., at least it hopes it is doing just that. But in any case the way to b. goes through d., it's our present state of affairs. As to c., it is probably what they have in Saudi Arabia ... In a book I read in my childhood there was a description of a marketplace attraction, a carousel that is simply a big polished horizontal wheel. People climb on it, then it is put to turn faster and faster, until the last brave person is thrown from it. I think our Brave New World is like that. It is throwing us away. Sooner or later we will be out of the game, all of us. What they call capitalism is becoming a totalitarian system like the one they called socialism. It will be a global system with a cyborg face. What should and could those of us who don't like it, do? Revolution, terrorism, appeals to reason, poetry and philosophy seem to offer little help, maybe some consolation. Maybe the only thing to do is simply to look and wait until the carousel, the merry-go-round destroys itself, unfortunately with a big part of our beautiful world. Let's hope somebody will survive and find a more easy-going and less time-consuming way of life. I feel more and more sympathy for traditional religions (that are also ways of life) like some forms of judaism or some tribal religions. Probably what we humans need is a system of taboos or mitzvoth. Most simple taboos/rules seem irrational or just funny, but as a system they are rational. They don't let us loose, don't let us to run amok. There is a fairy tale about a man who was able to run as fast as wind. He had to chain an iron ball to his feet not to run away. From himself, from other people ... Jaan Kaplinski, jaan.kaplinski@mail.ee; http://www.jpostmail.com/jpost/users/jaan
Exactly.
My computer does not control me or my time.
No more than my microwave (another computer) controls me or what I eat.
My microwave allows me more freedom by quickly heating my food.
But that doesn't mean I can't cook an elegant dinner on the stove.
Or that I cannot sear fish on a campfire in the woods.
But I appreciate the waterproof fabrics that comprise my tent.
And the cell phone in case of an emergecy.
But I don't bring my computer. Any email can wait until I get home. If it's important, they can call my cell phone. And I don't feel compelled to scan the radio channels.
What is this stuff?
People will alawys need a scapegoat. Jon Katz is filling that role nicely here. No matter what is good he will foul it and the masses will want to read about it.
Case in point, the doom and gloom message that is usualy found in the Star. Katz fills the great pulp needs of our reading habits
I'd just been introduced to the net through a friend at the U of NE, and he was showing me USENET. And he opened my .newsrc file and told me to delete all the groups that I didn't want (there were only around 6000 at that time IIRC). I ended up with around 60 or so that I thought sounded interesting. But I soon discovered that it took most of my time to keep up with even this small percentage of groups. So I unsubscribed to all but the ones I really cared about and could deal with.
Fast forward to 1998, I'd had my account with a commercial ISP for a while, and I thought maybe I'd get back into USENET. I was about to repeat the task of deleting what I didn't want from my .newsrc. After 45 minutes and I'm still in Alt.* I start to catch on. At this point in history there are more like 60,000 groups, compared to the 6000 I'd delt with before. So I opened my newsreader and unsubscribed from everything, and added back just the groups I wanted.
That's the day I learned a valuable lesson about media. Never look at the whole infinite variety of possibilities, you'll just get a headache. Instead, know what you want before you go look for it. I've learned not to try to sift good bits from an ocean of crap. Instead I'll let someone else do that for me, like Slashdot, or Y-Life daily or (shockingly!) people I actually know.
The point I'm making is, unless you have a specific problem, why are you looking for solutions?
Did you know that GM makes _all_ of its profits, not on building and selling cars, but financing them -- to blue collar and lower income consumers? By creating cities that demanded car ownership, consumer culture has made a large number of people indentured servants to their car loans -- at extrememly high interest rates. The point is that people can "have" technology -- and by assuming everybody "has" a certain technology, people _do_ get left behind. Not dumb people, not "un-evolved people". Just poor people.
If their skills are no longer needed and they cannot learn new skills, tough luck
I can hardly believe that you believe that most poor people are poor simply because they can't learn how to program in perl. Being poor means not having resources, not being lazy or stupid. Without resources, how do you expect to fairly apply your "tough luck" plan.
Give me an example where the poor people have to pay a significant surcharge for not doing things electronically.
Three banks in my town charge for teller access. Still. Monthly payments are lower for those who use direct deposit. If you have a credit card, video rental account charges are waived. Do you need more simple examples?
And here's a more important one -- look up about Chase-Manhattan's implementation of welfare using debit cards. Imagine only being able to access your welfare check via ATM, and having no ATMs in your neighborhood. Imagine _having_ to live in that neighborhood because you don't have a car. Imagine having to take a bus accross town just to get your welfare money and being charged a $1.50 surchage on an ATM transaction.
These things _do_ happen, here and now. And unless people take one step back from the warm and cuddly world of controlling their mindstorms with their palm pilots and look at _real_ social issues, there's going to be some trouble.
You can argue that it's unfair for people who don't own computers (although now with 3-year net access committments you can get a computer very very cheap), but if they have a computer, they can fucking well learn how to pay bills electronically themselves
Getting angry doesn't mean you answered my question. Are you going to teach them? Sure paying bills is easy -- to you. You opted in to this technology; it's "your" technology. The message touted across magazines, newspapers, and television is -- buy a computer or YOU WILL BE LEFT BEHIND. Maybe they can pay bills electronically, but they no longer have a _choice_. Having information and making choices is _supposedly_ the ideology behind this movement.
I'm starting to believe it's just another way for the rich to get richer.
Here we see it, in the stark black and white of truth...Jon Katz is no friend to slash dot, he is no seer of the way or a guide of the day. He is a sniveling scared child who sees the potential of all this around him and is afraid, mortally afraid, of the power he can never control. Katz, and those of his mindset, are not into advocating the possibilities of tech or the geek mindset of exploration, they seeking to slow it down, chain it up, and hobble its progress so that the mediocre will not feel threatened by it. The potential of the tech today is scary, it has a potential for great things, both evil and good. Does this mean we cower back from it, lay ourselves has helpless on its altar screaming "Do not crush us oh great cuthulian godhead"? NO We take the example of folks like TimBL, of Wozniak, of PARC, or MIT labs, of the hundreds of developers and creators of Linux and countless other programs and systems. In short we grasp firm the controls and navigate or ships across this vast ocean of discovery. Yes the waves will roll high and the weather may turn foul, but with a clear mind and a firm understanding we will make our way forward and NOT fall off the edge of the world. Jon Katz and the Flat Web Society need to go cower in a nice cave and leave the exploration and discovery to those that can handle it. They will come crawling out of their caves when the hard work is done and the way has been paved. Look at Jon Katz's writings of the last few years. It is all there to see. He waits for the way to be paved and the safe houses made.. THEN he struts in and proclaims himself a seer of the future. He leads the tourists buses through the creations and nods at each site as if to say "My hands did hew these once rough rocks that tower so high" . In this age of exploration there is no doubt we will have detractors and soldiers of mediocrity to hold back the progress. Once we had the Inquisition, burning and torturing all that was unknown to them. We have had the Dark ages and its supporters. We have had Churches and Religious Institutions hampering anything that would detract from its glory. We have had Political Correct Fascists and Concerned Parents seeking to control that which did not conform to their Barneyeqsue view of the world. Now we have the updated version, The Lucid Ludite, the Concerned Powerless, the Savior of the Mediocre. Yes Jon Katz is no Cyber Spokesperson; he is the Salieri to the genius of the Net's Mozarts. The best and only way to counter his brand of retarded development is to SHINE SHINE SHINE on , to blot out his limp mediocrity with brilliant progression. The war of ignorance is never over, the soldiers of stupidity never truly vanquished. So long as there is a force that counters its dark regression we are and shall ever more be victories. Once more into the breech!! ============================================= Error Corrected by the Save The World From Tomwhore's Spelling Society =============================================
Here we see it, in the stark black and white of truth...Jon Katz is no friend to slash dot, he is no seer of the way or a guide of the day. He is a sniveling scared child who sees the potential of all this around him and is afraid, mortally afraid, of the power he can never control.
Katz, and those of his mindset, are not into advocating the possibilities of tech or the geek mindset of exploration, they seeking to slow it down, chain it up, and hobble its progress so that the mediocre will not feel threatened by it.
The potential of the tech today is scary, it has a potential for great things, both evil and good. Does this mean we cower back from it, lay ourselves has helpless on its altar screaming "Do not crush us oh great cuthulian godhead"?
NO
We take the example of folks like TimBL, of Wozniak, of PARC, or MIT labs, of the hundreds of developers and creators of Linux and countless other programs and systems.
In short we grasp firm the controls and navigate or ships across this vast ocean of discovery. Yes the waves will roll high and the weather may turn foul, but with a clear mind and a firm understanding we will make our way forward and NOT fall off the edge of the world.
Jon Katz and the Flat Web Society need to go cower in a nice cave and leave the exploration and discovery to those that can handle it. They will come crawling out of their caves when the hard work is done and the way has been paved.
Look at Jon Katz's writings of the last few years. It is all there to see. He waits for the way to be paved and the safe houses made.. THEN he struts in and proclaims himself a seer of the future. He leads the tourists buses through the creations and nods at each site as if to say "My hands did hew these once rough rocks that tower so high" .
In this age of exploration there is no doubt we will have detractors and soldiers of mediocrity to hold back the progress.
Once we had the Inquisition, burning and torturing all that was unknown to them. We have had the Dark ages and its supporters. We have had Churches and Religious Institutions hampering anything that would detract from its glory. We have had Political Correct Fascists and Concerned Parents seeking to control that which did not conform to their Barneyeqsue view of the world.
Now we have the updated version, The Lucid Ludite, the Concerned Powerless, the Savior of the Mediocre. Yes Jon Katz is no Cyber Spokesperson; he is the Salieri to the genius of the Net's Mozarts.
The best and only way to counter his brand of retarded development is to SHINE SHINE SHINE on , to blot out his limp mediocrity with brilliant progression.
The war of ignorance is never over, the soldiers of stupidity never truly vanquished. So long as there is a force that counters its dark regression we are and shall ever more be victories.
Once more into the breech!!
=============================================
Error Corrected by the Save The World From
Tomwhore's Spelling Society
=============================================
Sounds like a farmer to me. Or a logger. Maybe not "everyone" has had to produce for a living? How many of these things can be disposed of? How many will be sitting in a closet soon? Victims of of our own uncontrolled lust.
Desk/wall phones with no batteries in them: that's just bad design. Why did we buy? (My digital phone has batteries in the base unit as well). We forgot (or never knew) that part of the corded phone advantage was the the telco supplied the power!
It's just wham bam bang out new gizmos with little thought to the concerns Katz raises. This is immature technology banged out by immature designers. If my TV is going to offer 500 channels, then it ought to remember what kinds of content I want to watch and select from what's available and give me a menu... looking through a little book is obscene. Mature designers would have realized that.
I have to agree with Effugas. While there are a huge number of technologies around many will disappear because they are clumsy, ackward and do not fill any real need. The technologise that survive, survive by one thing elegance (Most of the time. There are a few exceptions to the rule).
The next question becomes is there a technology now or on the horizon that will clear up the morass of inelegant solutions that we have and are getting? Yes, there is. There are in fact two. The first is the eInk. This will, for the first time, provide media that is easy to read and use as paper. I predict that is will replace the current crop of e-books (but that is another story). Will we forever give up books? I don't think so. We will still buy books but they will be books that we really love or just need for some reason. eInk books will find their dominance in the fiction and magazine market. How quickly does your bookshelves fill with paper backs of the latest fiction?
The second and more important technology will be network access. At the moment, mobile phone companies are pushing for their products to become the network access technology of the next century. I personally don't see this as a elegant solution. It is creeping featurism that does not simplify life. Consider the Nokia Communicator. Nice but no cigar. There is talk about everyone getting their own phone number for life. Yet this ignores the fact that the biggest fastest growing information distribution network is the Internet. People aren't going to get phone numbers for life, they're more likely to IP addresses fro life.
So what technology will reach and wipe away the confusing web of network access technologies? A simple elegant combination of a PDA and Star Trek PADD. I tip that it will be more like a PADD with a few of the more improtant PDA features. It will , obviously, use TCP/IP for data transmission.
Simon.
I don't think it's an issue of what system is being used to compose the messages, but to interpret them. Perhaps it is an Explorer problem. Using MacOS and Navigator 4.6 and no problem.
No, technology has not killed us yet. And I'll just keep driving drunk - that hasn't killed me yet, so why should it now?
Our technology doesn't have to strike us down in one stroke to be a danger; a slow, inevitable death is still a death.
Arthur C. Clarke was wrong when he said that we should worry about machines unpluggin us for they will never be able to do that if we choose not to let them.
Let them? We don't have that much knowledge or control over our creations; it's all too complex.
Case in point - nobody knows how the British telephone system works on a large scale. The individual bits and pieces are quite predictable, but the large scale behaviour is not. Anyway, people are lazy, and don't think through what they're doing.
I have to say I can relate to this article, but not its conclusions. Ultimately, this is about fear of change. There's no real rational reason for this fear, it's just human nature.
Hell, I'm afraid of what new technology will bring, and I grew up with computers, have two degrees in IT, and work as an IT consultant...
In practice, people will realise that they are being swamped with all this data. Their natural reaction will be to turn something else off.
In this manner, the flood of information will level out. When Cinema got big, people watched less live theatre. When Radio got big, people read less books and newspapers. When TV got big, people listened to less radio. There are definite signs that people who surf the web frequently also watch less TV.
People may well burden themselves with smart Internet coffee pots for a while - but just like all the fancy timer features on all those VCR's, they will be left flashing 00:00's for the 99% of people who just don't need or comprehend that feature. There was a time when the ability to program 23 shows for three months in advance on seven different channels was considered a selling point for a VCR. Not any more.
Sooner or later, some manufacturer of smart coffee pots will add a "Brew Now!" button right there on the front panel - and that machine will sell like hotcakes.
What the people who are being completely alienated from society because they can't keep up?
Fuck 'Em!
And who in the technoplutocracy will teach them?
Not Me!
Who will have the time, what with the cell-phones and the internet trading and the stock options?
That's right, we'll all be a little too stinking rich and busy to teach morons how to use the Internet. And tiny violins will play a sad song.
I can hardly believe that you believe that most poor people are poor simply because they can't learn how to program in perl.
I know quite a few poor people and quite a few perl hackers and nobody who's both. Mind you some of those poor people probably could learn to program in perl, and maybe if they would, they wouldn't be quite so freakin' poor.
And I'll just keep driving drunk - that hasn't killed me yet, so why should it now?
I hear ya, buddy. One for the road! Good to know the whole world hasn't gone crazy.
In the USA, more Americans are killed by cars every year than died in the Vietnam War.
Why don't you use a real war for your stupid apples and oranges comparison? Hey, hot flash, more Americans are killed in wiffle ball accidents every year than died in the air war on Serbia.
To all those who espouse the glory days of the caves and forests, life so simple and free, no taxation, no governments, just a quest for survival, I have to remind you of a few things. Back in those days, the average life expectancy was around 24 years. If you made it to 30, you were a genius or incredible lucky. The common cold was fatal. There was no running water. In most places, the caves and water are seperated by a distance more than a few miles. Thus the primitive man had a choice, use the caves or live in the open near the water. Should they use the caves, they had a long trek to get water. Also, no sanitation devices. How about a quick steak, oops, no meat market so it's a few hours of hunting, then skinning, cleaning (oh, they didn't know about cleaning), cooking then finally eating. Of course, hunting is so much harder unless using spears or clubs but then those are technologies. So is fire. Hmm. Since we hate technology, lets get rid of those and do everything by hand. Yummy. Don't forget the headaches without aspirin, tylenol whatever. Hypothetically, lets presume the entire population decides to junk technology now. Of course, the population of the United States and all western countries is so numerous that the land's available resources would be used up almost immediately and thus the vast majority of the population will succumb to starvation and die. While this is happening, the wars will break out and otherwise viable and healthy individuals (read physically strong and fit) will die in the glory of battle. That is the future that the "Luddites" pine after. This is reality people. Our wonderfully pleasant, secure, comfortable and abundant lives have allowed us to forget that "forest" life sucks and it will continue to suck forever and the only possible way we can enjoy the current level of stability and assurance is through the use of technology. The issue is not about technology so much as it is about resource management. The resources being time and effort. There is technology required for survival, there is technology required for success and there is technology for pleasure. You have to decide how, when and why you use the technology. Resource management has always been the key to a good life, with or without technology. There are those who do it well and enjoy life, and then there are those who scorn the practice and end up in the sewers. Choice. Choice. Choice. It's your life, it's your choice. I hope what I have said sparks some debate and thus exposes the illogical conclusions of the Luddites, otherwise, kay sera sera (the spelling of the phrase may be completely incorrect but I choose not to utilise my resources to check on this ;))
The author writes: "Unfortunately, in its own terms, the dream is always self-defeating. As people add more and more time-saving, labor-saving equipment to their homes, their lives do not become simpler and easier. Instead their days become even more complicated, demanding and rushed." But it has always been thus. Each new machine from the industrial revolution, from the loom to the automobile, had a learning curve, plus a host of new people required to maintain and upgrade it. Even though your car needs to have its oil changed, tires replaced, inspection sticker added etc., the car is still a (sometimes) time saving invention. Computers, while they nickle and dime you to death with all of their little time demands, will still save us time by allowing us to do things that were impossible before.
Isn't ASCII a known standard? Is it ASCII's shortcoming, or is it M$'s embrace and extend policy applied to ASCII? If HTML is not ASCII compliant, we should complain to the its authors. If M$'s software is NON_COMPLIANT it should be noted as such. This seems at first glance to be another head on the same monster (a mini-head if you will). We all pay when standards are corrupted by ANYONE! The trick is to distinguish between innovation and obscene behaviour. JDW
Look at the mess we made of the early industrial age, with heavily polluted cities and children working in factories and mines. We figured out what was wrong and fixed it, and we'll do it again.
Sure, we'll make some mistakes, including some really big, nasty ones, and a lot of little silly ones. But we'll learn and we'll adjust.
This sounds more alarmist than anything else, in my opinion. There are people that do this kind of thing today -- browse the web for hours on end, watch way too much television, IRC and MU* all damn day. These kind of people generally don't amount to much, though. They certainly aren't -- and, I think, won't become -- "typical". I don't envision a world filled with unwashed, television-and-computer-addicted losers, at least not any more so than it's been for the past forty years.
Heck, the typical people of the 21st century would be the ones working 8 hours a day, just as they do now, so the addicts they come home to can sit in front of their TVs and computers. Addicts generally don't have jobs (how could they, if they spend, apparently, 22 hours watching TV and browsing "the hyperweb"?). Typical people of the 21st century will be the same as they are now, only older.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
My Freakin Blog
Granted there is too much hype about the latest PDA's, cell phones etc., but there is a far more insidious danger implied by what the people quoted on John's article wrote...
People settings themselves up to decide what is good for the rest of us.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I get VERY concerned when a do-gooder / neo-luddite / congress-critter wants to decide what technology is "good" - what I can use (or even invent).
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
This is exactly my philosophy about technology. I am undoubtedly one of the most "wired" people out of all the people I know but I do not feel half as hurried as most of my friends. I have a cell phone, a pager, a fax machine, a Palm, three computers in my house, cable, and am constantly on the lookout for new "cool" tech to add to my life but I use the tech, I do not let it use me. I take advantage of voice mail to allow to have conversations with people without being interrupted by the phone ringing. My phone is also my pager so I don't have 2 stupid devices on my belt. The Palm and the cell phone allow me to do things while out and about so I'm not tied to always being at home.
I can go out and do more things in life because I only let the technology do for me what I want it to do. As long as people feel this need to always be connected to the phone, the web, or email they will be tied to the phone, the web and email. If you realize that just because you have a cell phone that does not mean that everybody and their monkey should be able to get a hold of you at any time of the day or night, you will be much better off. Having technology should not mean that you must use it, it should mean that you have the choice whether to use it or not.
Alvin Toffler comprehensively covered this in _1970_ in 'Future Shock'. That is almost _thirty_ years ago.
It might be too much to ask but could you at least _credit_ your recycled ideas properly? Toffler is not a guru and does not have a claim to ultimate truth, but he put a lot of work into his concept. Right or wrong it deserves better than to be pre-schoolised and stripped of its context by you.
Uh, no. If the cell site loses land power (and their backup fails), the cell site is off the air. And, cellphones are more subject to congestion issues than landline phones are.
Cellphones are no magic bullet.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
>>>
On a separate note I do belive that we need the current break neck speed of technology just to keep feeding everyone, with the advance of medcine the population is growing larger and larger but the planet isn't getting any bigger.
>>>
We need to have people running around with pagers/celphones on call 24/7 to keep people from starving? It seems to me that whatever (doubtful) social benefits are afforded by middle-class business and leisure-oriented high technology, virtually none of it goes to the poor underclass.
As for the general problems of overpopulation and resource scarcity, I think we've rightfully stopped looking for a technological solution long ago. Technology alone isn't going to solve them.
I found Lizard's rant page well worth my time. It raised some interesting points, and made me think. (Among other thoughts, that the author is a grade-A whiner...)
As to the conclusion that voluntary simplicity is parasitic, my response is "Great!" I prefer to think of it as low-level economic/social guerilla warfare. It's the poor (or wannabe-poor) are exploiting the (relatively) rich.
As a mild VS'er (no car, no credit card, mostly vegetarian), I pride myself on the belief that if half the people in the U.S. lived the way I do, the entire economy would collapse.
"Of course, there's the possibility of an underworld developing starting in the cities that jacks into the nets illicitly, but I've been watching too much anime lately."
:-)
:-), nobody will be getting the latest advancements for the sake of technology; only to make their lives easier, and NOBODY but the techno-elite buys all the gadgets in one fell swoop; one at a time, and at long enough intervals to provide some practice in the use of each, is the common practice.
Let me know if you find one... I think I'll join them.
In any case, the question here is whether or not people will go to extremes to get wired up. Aside from the rich or the sick (spending $500 on that palmpilot when there's a huge hole in the roof... sounds sick in the head to me.
In this man's case, All I have is a old desktop computer (P166), your normal wall-jack telephones, cable TV, A watch (w/a phonebook) and a scitentific calculator (so, I'm not extremely proficient in normal math... I still get by... with a little help)
Each thing (except the computer) is a tool used only when necessary. This is probably the same for a large number of people in general.
--
The Penguin Producer
While I consider myself to be not the stupidest of all persons, I still know many people who I consider vastly better than me in terms of performance and efficiency. Most of these people have one trait in common and that is the ability to focus, and to cut through hype. That is, they are not distracted by suportflous communication. Usually, they are able to grasp the essence of what they need to know to perform from the information tidal wave that drowns all others.
So the secret seems to be NOT to communicate and to participiate in the global chatter, unless you are forced to.
Katz forgot to use the Demoroniser, the premier tool for correcting moronic Micros~1 HTML.
It's our old pal, the noble savage rearing his head again. Oh how better things were back in the good old days. Right?
Well I was there and the good old days sucked. This is all academic; there's no going back anyway.
There are indeed lots of people who never knew how everyday stuff got done before computers. You can tell them from their parents by looking at who is still able to function when the network is hosed.
If anything, we've become overly dependent on poorly designed systems. If there's to be a "cyberclism", that will be the cause. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
The novel that introduced "bobbles" is "The Peace War"; the setting is pre-Singularity (the Singularity being Vinge's point in time when Everything Changes). "Marooned in Real Time" is a sequal, set after the Singularity (involving those people who were "bobbled" at the time of the Singularity). Both novels (originally serialized in Analog) were later published in a single book, along with a related story, but I don't recall that title; surely an Amazon search can find it.
Mashed potatoes can be your friends!
The answer is simple, don't buy stuff you don't need, don't use things you don't need to use, however, thats not the main problem.
The problem is getting the solution to work in the minds of most people. Unfortunately in most companies, hospitals, governments, and the like, common sense and logical thought is more than often defeated by policy and everything a person ever needs to do in any given situation on a card.
So what better solution than to have computers carry out the policy for us? When a terminal in a hospital gives the nurse instructions from a database to pull the plug on a patient, without input from the family, the patient, or the _human_ doctors, based simply on a form of questions with yes or no answers, that is the day that we must go to war.
A war against those who consider their policies better than any one mans logic or experience, or the end all solution to any and all situation.
A war against apathy and complacency, and the lack of the will to fight against the AI's that already control our schools, governments, courtrooms, and companies.
The AI's that sacrifice our employees to 'downsize' and increase profits by not having to pay as many people.
The AI's that control the schools and have pre-set policies and actions for any given situation to prevent violence and destroy individuality and defeat the logic of individual situations.
The AI's that run the government that we call corruption yet do nothing about; a testament to the fact that the AI's are winning.
AI is here, and it's not in a computer like the literary prophecies we all know, it's a policy made by people that doom themselves to carry out the policy as agents of it, told by their minds that their logic is irrelevant, and that they can only do what the AI, the laws or policies, let them.
We are doomed.
Doomed to a war with these AI's, or Doomed to complacency and apaty for our pitiful situation.
Perhaps we are doomed to a legislature that programs in the endless complexity of the programming language of law, never escaping our own trap.
Of course, these AI's can also defend us, depending on their internal logic.
This friend I speak of, to you americans, is the first amendment, and the second we give this up is the day we lose the war.
How ironic that the very AI's that we must fight against also help us, at times.
-[ World domination - rains.net ]-
This has been pondered for over a hundred years now. At one point, society wondered why anyone would want to drive around in an iron horse. Or fly through the air like a bird. Or heck, goto the moon for that matter.
No one knows where we're going, and those afraid of change tend to embrace the past. This is the way of our species. There will always be the naysays who think we're moving to fast.
They may be right, but we should all hold on for the ride, becouse that's not going to stop what we call progress..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
And people post crap on Slashdot! Yes, I see the connection now!
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I wonder if we are not actually seeing some sort of evolutionary transition in progress?
Imagine when opposable thumbs first started to exist. There were probably individuals who complained about all those thumb motions and this new-fangled grabbing idea as being far too complicated (after all, hadn't they gotten along fine for millions of years without opposable thumbs?).
There were also probably those who insisted that the opposable thumb would revolutionize the EUI (Environment User-Interface) and eventually lead to such almost unimaginable things as the wheel and controllable fire.
The debate solved itself as those who insisted on remaining with the old-style thumb became extinct. I extrapolate that something similar will happen to the neo-Luddites.
And consider the law. In the U.S., it is common to hear that "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse!" Despite the fact that our legislators really have nothing better to do with their time and have passed so many laws that no one fully understands or can even recite them all. I just found out that I have to pay $10 for a permit to install a garbage disposal in my house, for criminy's sake!
People seem to have a need to complexify everything they do. In the search for knowledge, this is sort of a natural state of affairs -- there's alot out there to know. But something interesting has happened over the years. Know-it-alls be damned, there has been an emergence of specialists who don't know everything about everything, but who rather have chosen to focus their attention on one particular subject, relying on others to handle the details of things they don't understand. Thus, the town surgeon no longer is any good at giving shaves and haircuts, he goes to a hairstylist for that!
Sure things keep getting more complex. But inevitably, there's some settling that occurs that makes things easier to handle as soon as that complexity starts to exceed human grasp. So much of the hype about the future of computing is vacuous and inane, but in it are ideas that will mature and genuinely help sort out the complexities. And where they can't, some other change will make things easier -- implants or gene therapy might make us smarter, for example. Life will go on -- pseudo-malthusian alarmism aside.
Oh, and will someone please fix Jon's apostropy catastrophies?
A couple of people have asked that I expand on how the Amish incorporate new technology. Basically (although this doesn't hold true in all cases) some enterprising young Amish-man decides that he is going to use X piece of technology. At this point, one of two things happen. Either the Elders (or rather bishops) let it slide and it becomes (implicitly) allowed, or they forbid it. In some cases that aren't clearly defined the matter will come to a vote among the membership. In some cases pieces of technology are forbidden before they are even tried -- but typically not.
Someone made the point that he thought the decision should be made by the individuals. I personally tend to agree. But Amish have made a commitment to a lifestyle lived deliberately -- they have agreed as adults to be held to the standards of their community, as defined by the elders of the church. I can't find fault with that -- people have the right to choose freely, and they have the right to forego that right. The only compulsion facing an Amish is that, if once they have joined the church, they defy it or refuse to live by its rules they will be shunned by church members. But they are in no way coerced to join the church. The have the opportunity to make an informed decision: most
Amish children spend a period of years (starting at 16) exploring the larger culture. They own cars, go to the movies, listen to rock and roll, smoke dope, and everything else. Something like 80%, having experienced everything the larger culture has to offer (and everything Amish culture has) join the church in the end.
By the way, something like 10% of all Amish are millionaires.
Most of this information is based on the Lancaster PA Amish. Other groups may differ.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Just say no.
:)) They can have a phone, but only in the barn. All these apparent contradictions are to keep technology at a distance.
:)
Take an axe to the TV. Turn off the radio. Read a book. No, not a book on computers. A nice, eighteenth century book. Look up the big words if you have to. Stop driving anywhere that you can avoid -- you'd be amazed where you actually DON'T need to go. Walk everywhere you can. Use the computer at work and, at home, TURN THE DAMNED THING OFF!
I recently had the pleasure of studying the Amish (for an article in my church's in-house newspaper). I finished my study convinced that they had the right idea.
You see, the Amish don't think that technology is evil. They think that it has potential to corrupt their society. That technology, run wild, can reduce Amish society to rubble. So, they only allow technologies in on a case-by-case basis. Even when they allow a technology, they try to keep it as far away as possible.
So, they can have calculators, but not computers. They can have tractors, but no in the field or on the road. The can have generators, but not light bulbs or most appliances. (Ever lived a farm-sleep cycle? 12 hours of sleep in the winter! It's incredible. Now you know why most amish have 10 kids
That's not to say that they're right about everything. But I think that they do have a point about technology -- it's not necessarily harmless, not necessarily necessary, and should be used only after careful consideration.
Of course, that doesn't mean I practice what I preach. After all, palm-pilots are too nifty to pass up
-- Slashdot sucks.
Mr. Katz:
While I respect your postings greatly, it is plainly clear that you have neglected to observe some of the great technological failures of the past few years.
Who can forget the siren call of Push, which would flood us with more graphics and data than we could possibly handle? Oh, right. Everybody. Once the novelty of Internet Animation wore off, the concept of computers dialing away in the middle of the night, retrieving late data that merely looked pretty looked about as lame as it really was.
Look back a little farther, why not, to the misshappen history of Netscape Plug-Ins. I remember browsing through an index of dozens--soon to become hundreds--of plugins, all sorts of new features(and complexities--uh oh!) that people would have to install to get The Latest Web.
In fact, if you look at the last few years, an entire calvacade of fads have been propped up by VC-desperate firms who, no doubt, all either hire the same PR firm or read the same trade rags. Portals! Plumbing! MULTIMEDIA! It's the next big thing!
For things that are truly useful, success awaits. Everything else gets washed away in the toilet that is Internet Time.
New technologies and infrastructures barely get their name embedded into people's minds before they're revealed as either truly useful(Slashdot, eBay, Linux, Google) or utter garbage(take your pick). It's this massive environment of collaborative filtering that the non-technical sociologists utterly fail to comprehend.
I dunno. Maybe it's a bit of Patent Office grade It's-Net-So-It's-New syndrome, but the concept that people are going to spend hours upon hours searching through their five hundred channel guide is patently ridiculous. Scaling the willingness to poke through a TV Guide for few minutes up to poking through an online channel guide for a few hours is the height of illogic. It reminds me of an old joke--in 1976, there were a few hundred Elvis Impersonators, but by the late 80's, there were tens of thousands of 'em. At that rate, by the year 2030, one out of every three humans will be an Elvis Impersonator.
People who channel surf already will continue to do so, but the real advantage will come to those who will finally be able to watch those shows they want to see--and not just whatever random BS is on. As the channel model is debunked by the sheer quantity of stations advertising content viewers might wish to see, the power moves from the network program directors to the writers, the actors, and the producers of the shows the customers actually want to watch.
If, by some cruel trick of nature, people only watching the shows they want to see is a harbringer of inefficiency and "cyberclysm", then NBC, CBS, and ABC have been poisoning the water supply for quite some time now.
I have a good deal of trouble accepting some of the presumptions I see made. The Sharper Image has existed for most of my life--I recently found a catalog of theirs, and revelled in the memories of drooling over their inventive products--yet, strangely, I don't see most people walking around with GPS capable cufflinks yet. Apocolyptic ravings about featuritis don't take away from the fact that while Geeks Like Me will always be interested in the abilities granted by high degrees of technification, most of the population will have better things to do.
And yet, it's only when something comes from the geek realm into modern, everyday life that the bells start ringing.
Much like the Pokemon Lawyers suing themselves, suddenly a major Geek Champion has been caught in fear of encroaching geekdom?
Please. Using a search engine instead of a card catalog does not a disaster of epic proportions create. There are those who have not yet learned the basics of computer usage, but User Interface developments will continue as they have been since the web finally exposed networked connectivity to a world not raised on control characters and LaTeX markup. Overall, those who want to connect will be able to, unless a hurricane hits. That much technology isn't designed as disaster-proof as Ma Bell's network could be construed as a bad thing, I suppose. I'll have to look into that.
In the meantime, those portending a disastrous future of chemically aware porcelain should do well to know--nobody wants a damn camera in their crapper, except the prisons the things were invented for.
Overall, I think you hit on the strongest point of them all in your column: Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
It is not an accident that the most successful concepts in all of technology are those that remain both the simplest and the most sophisticated. Grace and form, it seems, are as critical in high technology as they are in most human work, be it architecture, sculpture, or even perhaps law.
If any of the futurists quoted can convince me that all of the world will forever embrace that which completely flaunts all tenets of grace and form; if they can prove the mass population will ignore the precedent of their flashing 12:00's and throw themselves at that which is almost designed to thwart the desires of its users, you'd have a case for a Cyberclysm. However, the continual successes of those technologies that Do It Right(and the continual cycle of destruction that everything else is wrung through) tell me That's Just Not Going To Happen.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
Well, I've heard this view from a few Luddites. What I don't understand is why are the Luddites railing against the technology but not doing a damn thing about the manufactering of the technology? Which is more harmful to the enviroment than a computer.
I don't think we have too much information to use nor the time to utilize it. A problem does stem from the fact that more than half the information that is pushed out is media hype and has nothing to do with world around us. If you have to continually filter out the hype that is what becomes too time consuming. I often feel that I don't have enough information because I have to go thru a ton of hype! Most news reports on TV that I see aren't even what I consider news because the reporter didn't answer a question but created more with his/her opinion of the matter.
I also can't take this apolyptic view of the world - which man has plauged himself with because something new was in the wind. If all the machines went out I necessarily wouldn't cry because I think the outage would be short lived. We have an uncanny ability to survive and re-create. Usually, when man has to build something again he has the knowledge of his mistakes to correct them and does. Look at how safe vehicles on the road have become - unfortunately what makes them unsafe now is the driver no paying attention. Because there is too much information or because they couldn't be bothered with who else is on the road. I take the latter.
Will we fall in cyberclysm? Has amaggedon already started? or will it begin in the 21st century - which is still two years away.
I think the reality is that we won't know anything until it's already past. We will have power outages from time to time - which has always occured and everyone in the modern age has just dealt with it. We have had hurricanes that have knocked are technology to the ground and we have dealt with it. We have had too much information and we have dealt with it.
And these pointless predictions have been around for centuries and we have dealt with it because the majority couldn't be bothered and dealt with what the future truly has become - even though are ancestors have never seen it I'm sure they would say we live in a Utopia or a Hell?
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
I don't feel weighed down by technology, nor do I feel that I can't "catch up" with the e-mail, pages, phone calls, faxes etc. I also don't have any friends (at least in the tech. industry) who feel that way either. We love out PalmPilots, our cell phones and all our gadgets, and unlike all these technophobic nay-sayers, I think that they save me lots of time. Maybe a PalmPilot complicates the life of a person whose understanding stops at pen & paper, but for someone who truly groks technology, it's a huge asset.
I think it would be an interesting poll to see who thinks technology is taking over our lives, and what the age breakdown of those responses would be. (Feel like doing it Rob?) I have a feeling that all the griping is coming from the 25+ camp.
It's quite simple, actually. Either we control the technolgy or it controls us. One does not have to sacrifice quiet or personal time to control the technology, either. So what if a person isn't on the bleeding edge? What's the rush? Use technology as your situation and life demands it. Just be sure you're educated in the fundamentals so you can quickly and easily bend it to your will.
As Benjamin Franklin said, "All things in moderation".
humans are absolutely brilliant creatures
:)
You've never worked in tech support, have you...
Heh. Okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. However, coming from western Montana, the computer illiterates tend to quite outnumber the literates.
>>So, they can have calculators, but not computers.
Actually, my parents just bought a beautiful new oak table from some Amish furniture makers, who use CAD/CAM systems in their workshops.
If it takes you "a plastic bowl, a larger plastic bowl, a wooden spoon, a measuring cup, and an old milk jug -- and about 15 minutes of time from start to final attempt at cleanup" to make orange juice from frozen concentrate, god, you're an incompetent boob!
:-)
:-)
Turn on water to let it get a little cold, open the can using the easy-open ripcord, plop it into a pitcher, fill the pitcher with cold water using the now-empty can and, if you don't have a pitcher you can close and shake to mix, give it a few swirls with a spoon. Two minutes, tops. Good god, man...
I might spend two hours making dinner by hand, but that's because it will often taste better/fresher than microwaved stuff (ever try to microwave cuts of meat? Bleh.) and I enjoy the activity. It's often almost meditative and gives me something to occupy my hands while I think over things. Of course, with your apparent dismal lack of basic cooking survival skills, I can see how it would just be torture!
I also think microwaves are the best thing since sliced bread. I'm all for nuking a quick dinner so I can waste more time in front of the computer.
The point is that it's our choice to work for technology or make technology work for us. I get so tired of hearing people whine about pagers and cell phones digging into their precious free time. Well, you know what? Try not answering them for a change! If you're out having a drink after work and work pages you, IGNORE IT. Turn the cell phone off! Let the answering machine get it, let the paging system catch up with you when you've got the time, don't answer email until you have time to address it. Stop trying to read 500 web sites each morning and keep up with 43 different mailing lists if you are drowning in information overload. Pare it down to essentials, and you'll probably find you aren't really missing anything much.
If you let technology dictate how you spend your day, instead of vice versa, you deserve everything you get. My PalmPilot and PageWriter and TalkAbouts and computer all serve *my* needs, and I have no problem leaving them all behind when I need to. Just like the microwave and the kitchen knives.
-- Raven
Sometimes my cynical side wants to come out and smack people around, the doomsayers, for coming up with things just sound like they're destined to become the next buzzword - "Cyberclysm". Furthermore, my cynical side wants to say that the alarmists who are constantly talking about what's going to happen...what's going to happen? are doing the same as any other american - trying to make a buck.
But the real truth is that people sometimes are at odds with the technology that runs things, but that's not because people are stupid or because there's too much technology. Quite the contrary - humans are absolutely brilliant creatures, and we can (most likely) saddle anything we build as long as we keep our wits about us.
Where I think the problem lies is when the advance of technology outstrips education among the general population. Technology is taking off like a rocket, but the base levels of education aren't really improving all that much in America, or as far as I know, elsewhere either. I don't like hearing people tell me that the U.S. has a great literacy rate and that we shouldn't complain because other people have it worse - that may be true but that's no reason to just think of everything as adequate and not work on anything anymore. Once the education improves both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, the technology that seems to be driving us to this new buzzword that's a mix of Cyber(insert-your-favorite-noun-here) and Cataclysm won't seem nearly as threatening or offensive to anybody. Understand it, and it's a tool. But like racism, or any other product of ignorance (ignorance NOT stupidity) if you don't understand it, it will cause fear and problems.
MDA
http://opop.nols.com/
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Companies make crap because they can con people into giving them money for it.
People buy crap because they are stupid sheep and have been conned by adverts.
Politicians love this because people are employed making crap, feeding in the raw materials, and cleaning up the mess afterwards. And they love the donations from the crap-industry lobbyists.
Meanwhile all the world's resources are funneled into making crap.
"One add blanketing commercial TV touts new wireless phone technology that will allow people to get their e-mail, weather and sports scores instantly from anywhere. Does anybody really need to be that wired?"
Sometimes I truly think some things are created solely for the reason to be created, and the consumers purchase them merely for the reason to have them.
Funny, considering I just bought a new watch after my old faithful analog was annihilated by a racquetball. World time, countdown timer, stopwatch, calculator (with constants and memory), 150 telephone numbers/schedules with indexing and search, 3-way alarm, touch screen interface.
I bought it mostly for the telememo and calculator feature. Sure, I could've went all out and gotten a Palm V, or heck, carry a mini rolodex, calculator, and pen in my pocket like I once used to.
So, why did I get the watch? I guess I can sit down easier without a pen jabbing me in the side, but aside from that, I really don't know. Maybe it's human nature, or just some morals and ideology that I've picked up over the years.
Scary thing, is I know I'm not the only geek that goes out and occasionally purchases one of these gadgets. Sometimes it just plain worries me . . .
A good style rule, for everybody but *especially* journalists, is:
Never, EVER, use the prefix 'cyber' for ANYTHING.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The problem is, choices tend to disappear. A couple of years ago, it was strictly your choice if you wanted to do your banking via the net instead of trudging down to the local branch in person. Today (at least here in sweden) it is gettaing clear that soon you will need to do it via a computer; paying bills over the counter is already more expensive than doing it over the net, and banks are closing their offices as fast as they are able to. In five to ten years time, there won't be a choice anymore; do banking over the net or don't do it at all.
:).
The same thing is happening with email; today you have a choice whether to use it or not; soon you need it the same way you need a postal address today.
If we don't want to be tethered to our cellphones, pagers et.al., this is the time to make it clear, as when they are ubiqutous, it's too late.
I'm not personally against all this stuff, I have the whole kit - even though I tend to ignore it most of the time
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Actually, I *think* he meant that he thought the question marks were some Windows created thing, so that if viewing on a Windows platform it would look correct. I think we all realize that NT is Windows :-)
It's not really a Windows problem, it's a problem with whatever Katz uses to write these things (probably Word). I've written plenty of things using Windows applications (though not Word) and have not had this ? problem.
There are a number of problems with this argument, many of which we've seen before and we'll see again.
One of the first things to notice is that this article isn't thinking, it's emoting. It presents the vague, forboding thoughts of a number of people who, we are assured, know about such things (not to criticize a genius like Arthur C. Clarke, but a great sci-fi writer and an innovative thinker is not necessarily an accurate judge of the future of humanity). Moreover, no concrete ideas or predictions are presented. It's a perfect example of one of the most common errors of bad scientific thinking, the theory cannot be disproved. We are presented with vague references to the end of western civilization and the fall of the information age, all encapsulated into a nicely marketable buzzword- "cyberclysm."
But what, exactly, is this 'cyberclysm'? Will all our hard-drives overflow with information, causing the world to grind to a halt? Will 6 billion people suddenly get sick of it all and simultaneously burn their computers and become primitive herdsmen? Will everyone stop reading magazines and newspapers and books, forcing Katz and the Luddites et al. to get a real job? Nobody seems to know what this cyberclysm will be, they just have a really bad feeling. In fact, there is a reason for this. They make no concrete predictions because they cannot. Any prediction of doom that they could make would expose how utterly ludicrous this concept is. I challenge anyone to come up with a plausible scenario for this cyberclypse which will pass the laugh test when presented to a group of level-headed, intelligent people. I doubt such a scenario exists. Since they can't present rational predictions and ideas, they present us with emotions and feelings and we swallow it whole. It's easier to emote than to think, and there's no easier way to get someone on your side than to appeal to their fear. All of us have second thoughts about our technological lives, and the neo-luddites give us an excuse. "It's not my fault I'm unhappy, it's the societal information glut that's taking away my life."
And, lest we become too convinceed that we are the center of the universe, let us remember that a good 5.5 billion people on this planet, at least, would love to have the luxury of worrying about information overload. "Cyberclysm" seems a pretty strong word for an event that will affect, generously, 10% of the planet's population. Compared to the real problems that most of the people on this planet have to deal with, like whether they can make it through tomorrow without getting shot or bombed or fired or starved to death, this seems rather like whining about the stress brought on by not knowing how to spend all your money.
ANY trend predicts an apocalypse if you extrapolate far enough on a small enough set of data. It's hotter this decade than last decade. If this trend continues, in a thousand years we'll be able to melt lead in our refrigerators. People eat more than they did 30 years ago. In a hundred years, everyone will weigh half a ton and will have to be moved by crane. The number of cars on the street has gone up several million percent since the beginning of the century. By my calculations, the earth's entire mass will be converted to Toyotas in 10 years. As Dilbert says (and as I paraphrase), "I predict huge profitability by assuming that all positive trends will continue indefinitely, and all negative trends are temporary and will reverse themselves within 6 months." Or, to take an example from the late-19th-century version of environmentalism, horses are taking over the world. People were living farther and farther in the suburbs as urban sprawl kicked in, and driving farther and farther to work. As a result, horses were proliferating. Horse dung was inches deep on all the major roads, and grave space for dead horses was running out. The methae-pollution issue alone was extremely serious. Everyone was sure that industrial society would be brought to a halt by the horse crisis. Guess what? It wasn't. Instead someone named Henry Ford came along and made the whole issue moot.
The point is, forces balance. Situations change. Nothing keeps going forever. In this particular case, the cyberclysm prediction comes quite naturally, as long as one ignores any possible balancing forces. But, there are balancing forces here. Human beings are a species of moderation. We don't like extremes, and we tend to seek the middle ground. Any time a major force of change comes into human history, a balancing force immediately arises. The bigger the change, the stronger people's opposition to change.
This argument, in fact, bears a striking resemblance to the ideas of Karl Marx. He saw, in his own time, the power of capitalists seemingly rising out of control, until the inevitable result was a revolution, a capitalclysm if you will, when the system finally collapsed under its own weight. Marx, like the cyberclysm prophets, saw only one trend, one force, acting over a very short time period. He extrapolated this to infinity, predicting that unchecked capitalism would eventually grow so out of control that it would destroy itself. In making this prediction, he ignored that fact that capitalism was never 'unchecked.' He ignored the balancing effects of forces like democracy and the labor movement, which have so far prevented capitalism from achieving this exponential explosion. As a result, we have not had a single Marxist revolution anywhere in the world (and if you think otherwise, why is it that the most ostensibly Communist countries are those which had the least capitalist infrastructure before their revolutions? Shouldn't the revolution against capitalism have happened someplace where they actually had capitalism?).
The same applies here. As technology's role in our lives increases, opposition to it also increases, and people start seeking out more human interaction, and place more importance on getting things done themselves. The information glut begins to be balanced, steadily and smoothly, rather than in an apocalyptic revolution. This is why any specific cyberclysm prediction would sound so ridiculous. We all know how conservative humans are, and we all know that we only allow social trends to go so far before we get uncomfortable. That, in a nutshell, is why there will be no cyberclysm.
We all are used to thinking this way. When we are in a bad mood, the world is headed to hell in a handbasket. When we are in a good mood, things are doing all right, and the world is in its proper order. Our moods, and our own very local perceptions, are blown up into planetary trends. We love to take short term changes and extrapolate them to the end of the world. Katz and the people he's listening to have given in to this temptation.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" -Salvor Hardin
Has not!
Computers help us do our work better. They do not promise to let us work less, or to simplify our lives, or to liberate us from [insert horror here].
What computers do do is magnify our productivity. As the anvil let us bend iron, the microchip offloads menial tasks, freeing the mind to think.
Architects, just as one example, no longer need to spend days painstakingly drawing perfect lines on blueprint; instead, they can sit at a CAD program and use their brains - arguably far more taxing! But the line-drawing is best left to a laser printer. Said architect might work twice as hard, now, with his computer; but he'll make five times as much money with the added clients he can accomodate.
That's what it all boils down to. The creation of wealth, the betterment of life. Computers are very good at helping us accomplish the above.
Drowning in what?
1999 has thus far been one of the top five most economically successful years of the twentieth century. This entire decade qualifies as the most prosperous, or is at least second to the Twenties. Our economy's engine is the microchip, say people with more education & experience in economics than the author of the above quote.
Yes, Tamagotchi is absurd. But it sells well, and kids all over the nation open their wallets for a Tam of their own - and that money helps move the economy forward.
In this world, profitless enterprises go to hell quickly. Nothing really useless lasts for long. Even psychics are going out of style.
If this constitutes drowning, then I'd like to see what this quote's author considers swimming.
We only have two choices? Abandon all technology and flee to the woods or embrace the 'consuming technological chaos and be subsumed'? (Okay, that's my phrase, but I think I get Jon's point.)
How about treating technology as tools? I don't use a computer because I'm afraid that I can't keep up with the world unless I do -- I use it because it helps me do work. I don't write Perl code because of a deep-seated artistic desire for expression (that's what Perl poetry is for), I write it because it helps me get things done.
That's the same reason my father uses a welding torch or an air compressor or a socket wrench. Not because he wants to have the latest and greatest gadgets, but because he can use them.
Yes, I like to keep up with my e-mail, and I like to check a few web sites and newsgroups regularly, but I can take a week at the beach without any of those things and survive just fine.
I think most people can do the same. Thus, it's a false dilemma.
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
He used it to poke fun at people worried about The Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse (usually, drug dealers, pedophiles, terrorists, and spies).
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
I have come to loathe some of Katz's long diatribes. I consider this one particularly obnoxious because it repeats some time-honored (if I can use that word) charges that technology is ruining our lives and making us all more confused and insecure.
My response is two-fold. First, why is it that those who refuse to make the effort to organize themselves using the new technology are allowed to drown the rest of us in their shameless meanderings. Get a life! Organizers and information flow can be managed *USING* the new technology.
It is possible to disconnect oneself from this technology with an off switch, or with the skillful use of the tools that technology has given us. The dumbing down of society that is gathering momentum -- especially in this country -- argues that anything that takes a little initial effort is bad. Instead everything has to be easy -- removing any challenging decisions from the individual other than those of exterior colors of appliances and type face size for the "dummies" books used to inform the masses.
I would say secondly that technology is viewed by those who take the time to think and use it as a radically liberating force able to transform economies (see the current economic boom in the U.S and elsewhere) and increase the opportunities available to the smart.
As a result this revolution has done more to empower the meritocratic parts of modern society than any number of decades worth of blather about the "confusion" of the terminally confused (or the intellectually bankrupt).
I am on the verge of filtering out any more of Katz's uninformed mental meanderings. Please Rob, or anyone else who controls the idea base from which he grazes -- insist that his contributions add rigor and creativity to the debates on slashdot.
ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
Jon,
I have news for you--this is NOT the first time in human history where technological change turned the world upside down and caused all kinds of headaches.
Ever heard of the Rennaissance? The development during that period of the metal movable-type printing press by one Johannes Gutenberg circa 1453 caused in the 30 years afterward a knowledge revolution that turned Europe upside down, because it drastically reduced the cost of the transmission of information, namely that you could print thousands of copies of the same book.
The result was quite obvious--now that people could read the writings of the Church, they discovered that many Church writings often contradicted each other. One person, Martin Luther, printed his famous "Ninety-Five Theses" and had it posted in several places in Europe. The rest, they say, is history.
I find the view of the Luddites to in the end just be a bunch of sour grapes. They don't understand how horrible human existance was before this century, before modern medicine allows human lifespan to reach over 73 years on average. You were lucky if you could live till 50 even as recently as 1900.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Nolo Contendere
Latz's "No one is to blame" attitude seems to fall well in the camp of the latter day saints of Pomo Shmos who see all the wrongs and rights as a matter of little concern.
Blame is for those who have differing opinions , those who dont hold to the central dogma. thus Blame is a weapon that cant backfire, since it has no value in the system other than to cast outwards.
If nothing is to blame, and no one who follows the dogma is ever held accountable, thenit must be the OTHERS, ThEM, who are at fault.
Simply put its a 4 year old's mental state thats been used for over 20 years and now has a PhD's stamp of approval.
Im rubber and your glue
what ever you say bounces off me
and sticks to you
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Which equtes JK with being a newibe amature himself. Given the last dozen or so posst from him, can this be said to be proven false?
Rather it would seem his posting and sources point out some of the very core problems with his thinking.
If you remeber back to his Blair Witch Project article he lays on heavy about Indi Cinema while short changing some of the greatest works done in the last 5 years out of, what seems at best to be, ignorance.
Looking for JK to use relevant sources is like looking for lemonade drikinge non smokers at teh Space Room.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices: to fall back with the hare-brained Luddites who want to return to the sylvan forests, or to follow the Techno-Utopians on their runaway CyberBinge
And here we see it, in the stark black and white of truth...Jon Katz is no freind to slash dot, hes no seer of the way or a guide of the day. Hes a snivling scared child who sees the potetnial of all this around him and is afraid, mortaly afraid, of the power he can never control.
Katz, and those of his mindset, are not into advocating the possibilites of tech or the geek mindset of exploration, they seeking to slow it down, chain it up, and hobble its progress so that the mediocre will not feel threatened by it.
The potential of the tech today is scary, it has a potential for great things, both evil and good. Does this mean we cower back from it, lay ourselves has helpless on its altar screaming "Do not crush us oh great cuthulian godhead"?
NO
We take the example of folks like TimBL, of Wozniak, of PARC, or MIT labs, of the hundereds of developers and creatotrs of Linux and countless other programs and systems.
In short we grasp firmt he contols and navigate or ships across this vast ocean of discovery. Yes the waves will roll high and the weather may turn foul, but with a clear mind and a firm understanding we will make our way forward and NOT fall off the edge of the world.
Jon Katz and the FLat Web Society need to go cower in a nice cave and leave the exploration and discovery to those that can handel it. They will come crawling out of thier caves when the hard work is done and the way has been paved.
Look at Jon Katz's writtings of the last few years. It is all there to see. he waits for the way to be paved and the safe houses made..THEN he struts in and proclaims himself a seer of the future. He leads the tourists buses thru the creations and nods at each site as if to say "my hands did hew these once rough rocks to tower so high"
In this age of exploration there is no doubt we will have detractors and soldiers of mediocracy to hold back the progress.
Once we had the Inquistion, burning and torturing all that was unkown to them. We have had the Dark ages and its supporters. We have had Churches and Religious Instituions hampering anything that would detract from its glory. We have had Political Correct Facists and Concerned Parents seeking to control that which did not conform to thier Barneyeqsue view of the world.
Now we have the updated version, The Lucid Ludite, the Concerened Powerless, the Saviour of the Mediocre..Yes Jon Katz is no Cyber Spokesperson..he is the Salieri to the genius of the Net's Mozarts.
The best and only way to counter his brand of retarded developement is to SHINE SHINE SHINE on , to blot out his limp mediocracy with brillant progression.
The war of ignorance is never over, the soldiers of stupiity never truly vanquished. So long as there is a force that counters its dark regression we are and shall ever more be victrious.
Once more into the breech!!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
If some of the banks in your area charge for teller access, and others don't, well, use the competing banks.
/do/ pay more for almost every conceivable service. Grocery markets aimed at the poor are more expensive than even the elite markets aimed at wealthy gourmets. Poor people without bank accounts cash checks at overpriced check cashing services, even though they could often cash them at the issuing bank for free.
In the hyper-competitive Los Angeles market, I don't think there's a single bank that charges for teller access.
Incidentally, the poor
Unfortunately, there are very good reasons for these things; the 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed virtually every store in poor areas of the city. Owning a store in a poor area is a gigantic risk, so naturally everything costs more. Due to these cold economic facts, I think the poor always will wind up getting the short end of the stick when they visit the bank or market.
D
----
But not really a new concept, by any means. The cordless phone example is a pretty good one, though. There are tons of things we depend on every day that suddenly become useless if we lose power
Then your silly to buy a critical things that don't also have battry backup.
Your average buggy driver a centry ago could not repaire - let alone make - a buggy. If it broke he/she was just as screwed stuck out in the country as one of us would be with any modern car that broke down.
Technology will always fill the holes. Power's out and we can't use radios? Well that's what Baygen's are for
Once fuel cell tech gets a little better we can just stick our cell phones out in the rain and set it in the sun to recharge - or fill it with a little vodka and be charged up for a month.
--
James Michael Keller
"Linux is not our destination, it is simply the open road to tommorow"
I'm truly tired of this cycle every 10 years or so where people get into a round of "gloom-n-doom"(tm) books predicting the end of "something" "Anything!"
First it was the death of the printed book, book sales are higher per capita then ever. Perioticals are down yes - but when the point is to have information to the masses faster a daily rag will loose to the net. That's only logical, movible type beat out hand copied text, now something better has come around.
The notion that we are all going to a hell in a gateway cow computer box - a land illuminated by ghoastly green light from billions of blinking "12:00" VCR displays bouncing off trillions of "Free AOL 4.xxxxxxxxx" cd's is just chicken little crying bloody murder because no one wants to by "The end is at hand - by Chicken Little, fifteenth ed" anymore
Sure some people are lost in this brave new world - screw them. They adapt or die. My grandfather made it out of the depression working his way up from a paper boy and came out a millionar running a large supermarket chain down under. Others sat around and wined about how bad things where.
"Information Overload" - bull
Do any of you remember how much a pain in the rear it was just to find one artical from a magazine on microfilm? I spend days in the basements of libraries going blind scrolling through reals of newpapers and time back issues years ago.
Now I type in a few key words in google, yahoo, altavista, etc and I spend a few moment to scan through the results sifted from the eather.
The only thing technology does is shorten our attention spans and patients. 15 years ago I could dial a phone just fine with a rotoray pulse phone. Now I'm pissed off if people give cute numonic phone numbers, 1-800-call-menow and the like, instead of the damn digits so I can finger my phone pad faster - I don't want to be bothered with remembering the cute number - I just want to make a call and get off the line
I hear people complain about the amount of work today - the average work day has been shortened drasticaly over the last 20 years. Especialy in areas heavy into information systems useage. I have people complaine at work if they have to site down and do anything for six hours out of the work day.
In general yes - the work day hasn't gotten shorter - the often hyped "technology will liberate" montra was always bunk cooked up by the likes of Disney imagineers. An individual can now get more work done in the same time. I have a dozen computers around me at the moment, I'm coding, surfing, monitoring my network, watching the firewall, taking calls, and writing this. Could I do that if all I had was a phone and a typewriter?
--
James Michael Keller
"Linux is not our destination, it is simply the open road to tommorow"
Even the most ardent geeks complain that they can never be out of touch, never have time to think, never completely catch up. As the world is able to reach us more easily, it expects us to be always available and more or less instantly responsive. This rushes us and our responses. It makes us edgy, grumpy, impulsive. Technology becomes a means of harassing and pressuring us instead of improving our lives. The genuine blessings of technology - information, opportunity, community, the portability of work - get overlooked in all the gadgetry.
This is complete hogwash. I'm an "ardent geek" and I have no troubles "keeping up." I'm still in school, so perhaps that has something to do with it, but the fact that people can communicate with me does not force me to deal with it immediately. I'm not "edgy, grumpy, and impulsive." Heck, I *like* the ability to communicate quickly, deal with problems immediately, and get answers in no time flat.
Once again, Katz comes through with nonsensical tripe. Modern technology is not a problem. Yes, it requires us to learn new skills, but that's what we as human beings do best. I think Katz would change his tune real fast if he were forced to live in ages past. echnology improves our lives immesurably in many, many ways. The good old days are now.
How ironic, then, that this article is firmly trapped in the former useless state. The tone is very alarmist, but Mr. Katz fails to elaborate on *how* this "cyberclism" will occur. Why will it cause a cyberclism instead of just causing people to jettison their high-tech-and-overwhelming gadgets? Why will it affect the majority of the people in the world who don't have all the gadgetry? And just what the heck is a cyberclism, and why will it end Western civilization? (And why will it succeed when so many other disasters and calamaties have failed?)
Katz is posting using characters that are outside the acceptable ranges for use in HTML. It just happens that the curly-quotes that Windows uses are outside these ranges. Hence, they're replaced by ?'s.
pooptruck
Thomas Jefferson's wife was considered poorly educated for her time. To look at the letters she wrote to Thomas during her courting days you could hardly believe she was not college educated and considered quite brite. The basic difference between then and now was the telephone. She was literate she communicated well by means of written correspondence. She learned to be efficient and accurate with her words because the letters she wrote had to communicate their message on one try.
With the advent of the telephone people have discovered that being less accurate is easily correctable by the nature of the telephones two-way communication. Literacy suffered!
Computer gui's use icons and other symbolic means to interface. Peoples ability to identify these things hardly confer any increased understanding of their world. The spell/grammar checking ability of programs further decreases the need for full education of an individual with respect to language skills. the cyberclysm will be a whole group of people who need these forms of communication in order to interact. Literacy will further suffer.
I used to spend hours every day reading newsgroups, reading email and checking web sites.
Then I was forced to spend two weeks without email.
And you know what? When I cam back, I caught up on the _important_ stuff in less than two hours.
If something world changing occurs, you won't miss it if you don't scan the web today - because the important stuff will still be here next week.
Every day billions of events occur - but you have to realise that you really don't care about 99.999% of them - and that you can cope without most of the rest.
My Journal
A Cyberclysm...is that anything like the Geek Apocalypse?
People, for the most part don't buy useless gadgets. People value their time and money and generally spend both on things that add value to their life.
Is Katz's somehow suggesting that in the arena of technology people are becoming blind to pragmatic concerns and using technology for technology's sake? Some perhaps, but I should think that large corporations are more guilty of this particular sin.
People for the most part only adopt things that make their life simpler and easier. Where exactly are these harried info-addicts Jon et al. keep wringing their hands about? Non of my friends are that wired. One of my friends has a cell phone, a palm pilot, and a wireless PDA all kept within close proximity, and none of them have succeeded in overwhelming him with information yet. They are simply tools that he uses to conduct his day to day business. He spends LESS time working because of his gadgets, otherwise he would not use them.
I think that this is a case of journalists and pundits getting wrapped up in gadget overload at technology expos. Most of this crap will never make it into the consumer markets, and very little of that will succeed (the TCP/IP coffee maker will never fly). Just because a few professional journalists and techno-philes can't make sense of it all, doesn't mean the market place won't eventually sort it all out.
Give us some credit Jon. You underestimate the common sense and adaptibility of your species.
-josh
I use a Mac+Netscape 4.6 and when I had "'"s in my sig they showed up to some people at "?"s
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I am reading an alien's words. An intensely paranoid being, vaguely affraid of some imaginary Luddite, which appears mysteriaously in all of the "articles" it writes. A being trapped in a cage, fooled into believing that thinking can ever be truly free.
An alien whose audience is on a different planet, which audience only reads the alien writing out of boredom.
Yes, an alien who wants, O so much, to be an earthling. An important earthling.
*sigh* I'm just glad I don't pay for Slashdot content.
Invariably, "cyber" anything is an attempt by people who don't understand a thing to describe a thing. Either it's because the person simply uninformed or, like the above becuase the idea itself has little substance.
Much like cyberspace. There is no cyberspace. There never has been a cyberspace. There is no sign that cyberspace is comming any time soon. What we have simply the Internet: a usefull tool for people and machines, both full containted in the real world, to communicate.
My advice: If the best desription you can give for something is "cyber"something, stop, and rethink the problem, you haven't got it yet and maybe "it" doesn't really exist.
The correct term, of course, is not Cyberclysm, but Infocalype (see Snow Crash)
This sort of thing really baffles me. In a day when they're building speakerphones into couches (My parents have one, it's quite nifty) do we really need the freedom cordless phones used to provide? Everyone I know who uses a cordless phone generally sits down beside it when they are talking, what's the benefit of this thing again? :-)
At least cell phones will work without land based power, and anywhere you choose to make the call.
-Rich
Vernor Vinge predicted this..O, 20-30 years ago in some science fiction called (?) "The Bobble War" (that's the wrong title, the right story though.. anyone remember?)
More specifically, in a formal scientific paper in 1993 he predicted that it would occur between 2005 and 2030. I don't know if he's done anything along this line more recently. Basically what he says is that the pace of change will increase until..> all rules break down. Perhaps that's why fantasy has become so dominant over science fiction. Or why all science fiction has turned gloomy, but fantasy hasn't. Basically, we can't predict through the singularity. Doesn't mean we can't live through it. Doesn't mean it won't be pleasant. But we can't predict it. And that's scary! (Compared to atom bombs and bacteriological warfare... Yes. People are strange. The unknown is MORE frightening.)
You can probably find his paper posted on the web, but I forget the URL. Doesn't matter, unless you need convincing. Brace yourself. Could be good. Could be bad. Will be strange!
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Why is it that ever science fiction story is considered a prediction ? Gibson didn't write about cyberspace to predict it. The Matrix didn't include a world takeover by AI to predict it. The story of being undone by one's creation is one of the oldest in the book (hello...Frankenstein...) and stories like these are just a modern variation on an old theme.
To me, it sounds more like fear of change than fear of a "Cyberclypse"(what a stupid word...must we preceed everything that has to do with technology as "cyber").
The bottom line is that people will make do with what they have. It won't be the end of civilization. At this point in time, alot of people have disposable income and an interest in electronic gadgets, so developement and sales of these items are up. It isn't due to a "need" for these items. As soon as people lose interest, you will see the decline and this "cyberclysm" will be just another of the many fears of society.
The rate of fatal accidents for automobiles is still atrocious. In the USA, more Americans are killed by cars every year than died in the Vietnam War. If an enemy did this to us, we would declare war. If relatively as many people died due to airplanes, no one would fly again. Yet somehow we accept this "collateral damage" from the automobile with little grumbling.
The fact that automobiles "play a vital role in most of our lives" simply means that we've structured our society around them, and that we don't know how to live without them anymore. But just because this is, does not mean it is good.
The automobile is the enabler of urban sprawl, the bringer of smog and greenhouse CO2, and the power base of old-time dictators like the Sultan of Kuwait and modern dictators like Saddam Hussein.
But hey, since we've forgotten how to live without them, they must be OK.
And therefore, it must not be a problem to forget how to live without computers, as well?
While Katz seems to take a break from his techno-boosterism and techno-determinism by giving some space to "neo-Luddite" writers (basically, anyone who expresses reservations about the "Limitless March of Technology" gets labeled a "neo-Luddite" these days), he lets the katz out of the bag with this statement:
With this sweeping statement, all thought of human responsibilty is banished. Forget future AIs and a-life; a-life is here today, and it's name is Technology. Forget futuristic scenarious about human freedom being supplanted by machines; the future is now, and we have lost our freedom to Just Say No. Don't bother unplugging; it's too difficult to try, and you won't make a difference anyway.
"Bah, humbug!" I say.
People are responsible for technology, it doesn't "just happen." People create it, people market it, people build infrastructure for it, and people adopt it. At each of these points, there is responsibility. And there is choice involved. Some of the choices may be difficult. Nobody ever said being a free and responsible human person was going to be easy.
If you would like examples, you need look no further than the Amish, who are the living experts of subordinating technology to a vision of what human society ought to look like.
But who wants to live like the Amish? Not many people. This, however, is a choice.
Another example, nearer and dearer to the hearts of /. readers, is Richard Stallman. Rather than submit to the "inevitable" shift in the computing world to proprietary software, he chose and chooses instead to do without proprietary software, and even to do without employment that would prevent him from creating free software.
But who wants to live like Richard Stallman? :^) Not many people, apparantly.
As a final example, consider Microsoft. They are under no illusion that technology simply happens, and expend every effort to make sure it happens in a way that favors the Reign of Bill. The slogan "Where do you want to go today?" (tm) is not a bad question, except that it's offered as a multiple-choice:
- Windows 98
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000
Notice that there is no "none of the above." Slashdot readers will be quick to recognize that such a "choice" is only "choice" in Newspeak; but are slower to recognize this when the question is larger than that of operating systems and office suites.This article seems like the kind of column i'd find in a magazine sitting in a doctor's office. Jon should try to understand that his audience on /. is primarily made of people who embrace new technoligies, and love gadgets. They don't decrease our free time, it's what we chose to do with our free time.
Most writers and speakers first try and understand their audience before writing. I could see this kind of article be interesting to people who read mainstream media magazines, but not to me/us. Write something that doesn't make me regret clicking on "Read More" for once Jon.
-Dan
I think we should have a rating system for all /. posts similar to the moderation system on comments. That way i can see today's top news first on the main page, and also see if a feature is worth clicking on the "Read More" link....
Just my 2 copper coins
Jon, I usually find your articles to be very thought-provoking, though I am usually deeply ambivalent about your positions and opionions, per se.
Not this time, however. This one missed the mark by so far that I could only see one kernel of truth:
You're dead on here. Watching the nighly news as a ping-pong game between big media alarm and marketing machine euphoria can be quite entertaining.
And in case you haven't figured it out yet, this piece is part of the problem.
Maybe next week's installment will deliver the euphoric antidote to this week's alarm. Maybe not. Who cares?
-Esme
--
Esme Cowles
http://gort.ucsd.edu/escowles/
I recommend a series of books by someone who I forget, but who is sure to be easy enough to find... called "The Cross time engineer" (that's also the title of the first book, I believe..)
It's about a guy who goes back in time to medieval poland, and basically starts the industrial revolution several hundred years early, in order to fight off a Mongolian invasion force. It's very interesting becasue he does just what you describe - starts from scratch, mining ore, setting up educational facilities, military, etc... In short, it's not just technological engineering, but sociological. The books are great fun, too! Many silly characters and episodes mixed in with the main plot. It's been years since I read them though... Hope I'm not forgetting stuff!
Exactly! My family had two cell pohones, one for each car, but we definitely needed them (though they didn't get used all that much).
We lived (I've moved out now) about a half an hour outside of town, and have always been a very busy family. So before the phones, we'd have to plan every day long in advance, to figure out how everyone would get picked up and driven to the next activity/work/home/school. With the cell phones, rather than planning everything, we could just say "I'll call you around noon when i find out where I'll be at 5:00 in order to get picked up" or something of that nature. Certainly, it wasn't about techhie goodies (though I like those too!)
You are only as tied in as you want to be. You don't HAVE to be online 10 ours a day, you don't have to be fighting your beeper all day, or your cell phone, or e-mail. If you whine and complain that you don't have enough time in the day or the pages keep coming, then you basically over-estimate your self importance. Tune out...talk a walk outside, you know that's the place that isn't INSIDE where the computer is. And I am sure that some people will say that this is rather simplistic and I would say that's the point. I am a software developer, I am surrounded by computers wherever I go. I have an etheret connection in my apartment. I have a cellphone. BUT I TURN IT OFF when I don't feel like answering it.
And I think that Katz is making another universal assumption based on the 'geeks and nerds' that he is always writing about. Exactly what percentage of the population has this problem of not being able to catch up and process all the information coming their way?
The fact of the matter is that this all depends on your point of view. A total technophobe might tell you that the end has already come in this respect, whereas a technology junkie would tell you you've been smoking some pretty powerful drugs to come up with ideas like this.
;)
It is really hard to generalize on something that everyone (or anyone) will agree on with this topic. For me it is easy to see that technology can become too much; the guy next door might think he can never get enough, and maybe he never will. We need to step back and look at the overall picture of what the technology is doing to the world as a whole; once we get there, it may be possible for those of us with differing opinions to agree.
As I see it, technology, as a (rather big) whole, has improved the way we see ourselves going through life. Whether or not it really IS easier, we still perceive it as easier. Running a dishwasher and getting it fixed every couple of years as opposed to doing lots of dishes every night seems like a pretty good trade, even if it does end up costing a couple hundred dollars each time the thing needs fixing.
It can be too much though. The point at which our productivity falls, at which point the technology HINDERS us, is where the problems begin. That point is different for every person, for every technology, for every situation. It can't be easily quantified or measured. That is another place where we, as a society, run into problems. We, by nature, want everything to be identifiable by a number, a measurement, a reading, a specification. We don't like the ambiguity of this, and so we tend to say it is all good or all bad. Either extreme will not work, and will only lead to conflict. We must find our OWN levels of tolerance for the technology, for the situations we are in.
Hmm, I think that comes out to my $0.15 or so
---
Tim Wilde
Gimme 42 daemons!
.. of the future will be time, a clear mind with which to enjoy it, and the privacy to ensure that you won't be disturbed. The measure of how influential and powerful one is will be how little one appears to be connected. Your minions, agents, bots, and whatever will take care of the filtering, controlling, searching and organizing. Frantic wrestling with "information overload" will be the mark of a loser.
Let's take the luddite viewpoint and decide to roll back technology. At what point do you stop? Do you go Amish and roll back history to 1850? Even the Amish rely on some technologies - they use modern hospitals in PA and buy their nails from modern steel mills. If we get rid of modern steel mills will we have to go back to the old coke plants?
Let's say that even the Amish using 1850 technology are much to advanced, their technology is just too corrupting. Look at all the weapons that existed in 1850: cannons with cannister rounds (think big shotgun), smoothbore muskets, sea mines. Think of the complications attributed to the use of foutain pens, advanced moveable type printing presses, and lucifers (matches).
Roll it back to 0 A.D. and the Roman Empire. A good storm could clog up your aqueduct and tens of thousands of people could be without easily accessable drinking water for days. How about all them new Iron weapons? The Gladius was used to kill a lot of people and that new Roman armor was pretty hard to defeat. Don't even get me started on their Pilum technology that renders our heavy shields useless...
OK, how about back to being cavemem where the only technology is obsidian stone and the discovery of fire? Well, we don't have agriculture so we HAVE to hunt, we have not shelter from the elements that we can count on such that when it snows instead of saying "Darn, I won't be able to go out drinking tonight" we say "Damn, hope I live through this one." Oh and when we are not being careful and cut off a thumb with the obsidian knife we can't expect a good chance of it getting reattached. We also have no law, no means of defending ourselves against predators (hey we didn't used to be at the top of the food chain, we had to earn that.)
Now take the non-luddite perspective. Sure a bunch of people lost phone service. A) they had phones with a single point of failure. B) in the end it was just an inconvinience. That alone proves we are getting serious payback on technology. If we didn't miss it we wouldn't use it.
I never "need" a cell phone. The one I have is a cheap model that I pay $11.00 a month for on the cheapest plan I could find. Phone calls on it are expensive ($0.59 per minute air time). However, when trying to meet up with people in Boston, with all the impracticalities of the Central Artery project and a busy work schedule, the cell phone has transformed my life.
Does any one need to be this connected? Yes! In fact I want to be more connected! I want my truck to have it's own web page and I want it to be the web server. I want to be able to go online and see mileage, fluid levels, service milestones, tire wear, engine performance, ownership history etc. I want my mechanic to be able to get all of this information immediately and be able to add information about quirks, repairs, warranty recalls and anything else that would make his job easier.
People make their own lives complicated. Frankly I have no sympathy for anyone who makes their life overly complex. If a technolgy has no added benefit don't use it. Be smart and responsible for yourself. And if the other guy is getting ahead of you because he is technologically superior don't begrudge him for your choice.
BTW, nice touch last nite, christening the Starship Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio's disembodied head in a jar. . .
How can anyone write such an article without citing news:comp.risks? Peter Neumann's comp.risks mailing list/news group/news letter/column has been studying this problem for TWENTY YEARS. It is the premere source of news and information about the risks involved in computer usage. All of the other sources quoted in Katz's article are newbie amateurs by comparison.
No, remember: According to Wired, in ten years we'll all be filthy rich, just like uncle Bill.
I really think that many of the people who believe humanity will destroy itself via Cyberclysm are extremists. I find myself have a hard time even imagining it. Not that I don't recognize society's dependence on technology, electricity in particular.
/. or other news sources, I can easier narrow the content to what interests me, and the news is normally much more recent (as in a can pick up a newspaper, scan the front page and check off the articles "old news, old news, old news").
I see advances in this kind of technology as tools and venues of entertainment. Technology has great potential for increasing productivity, such as the computer. The problem is when they are not properly implemented (such as bad, unreliable software *ahem*).
My computer has replaced television. I don't own a TV, I own a TV card, which I will occasionally hook up to a VCR or a pair of rabbit-ears, but I do not subscribe to cable TV, and I certainly don't watch ten hours worth of shows. I wouldn't skim five hundred channels, even if I could. That saves me twelve hours already!
Most things I can see on TV I can find on the Internet. The same goes with the newspaper, except when I read
I'm a computer engineering student. I don't own a cell phone, or a pager, and I don't need one. My personal telephone dates back to the Calgary Olympics. The _only_ thing hooked up to the Internet is my computer. I intend to buy a PDA, but only to replace my less convenient pen-and-paper agenda. I don't own a car, nor do I have regular access to one.
I will admit that there so many unnecessary gadgets out there. But they are not inherently wrong. It is only the misuse and growing dependence on these gadgets that could bring down humanity. As for me, if the Cyberclysm happens in my lifetime, I'll look forward to the Abacus World Expo (see After Y2K for details).
It's a side-effect of using microsoft software to write the text. If he used notepad or linux, they wouldn't show up. I've gotten to the point where I don't even notice ?'s any more, because so many pages have them.
Just try the 28 hour day!
Lowmag.net
The problem is, choices tend to disappear.
That's true. However I feel that they disappear very slowly and that doesn't tend to be much of a problem.
Today (at least here in sweden) it is gettaing clear that soon you will need to do it via a computer; paying bills over the counter is already more expensive than doing it over the net, and banks are closing their offices as fast as they are able to.
I don't think so. Sure, doing stuff electronically is going to be cheaper, but until every grandma is as comfortable with her PC, as she is with her phone, non-computer banking is not going to disappear. You may have to pay for it, but paying to have your idiosyncrasies catered to is not anything new. I am quite sure that in ten years I'll still be able to pay my bills and cash my checks without touching a computer.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
That's exactly the point -- you either pay for the technology or pay not to have it.
TANSTAAFL. Would you rather have us travel in horse-drawn carriages because not everyone could (and can) afford a car? Or do you want to build a horse path by every highway so that people who don't like the car technology can travel without feeling disadvantaged?
What the people who are being completely alienated from society because they can't keep up?
If their skills are no longer needed and they cannot learn new skills, tough luck. I may feel sorry for them, but I would strongly object to stucturing the society and infrastructure on the lowest common denominator principle. Other than that (inability to find a job) I don't see what you are talking about. If you don't know how to get to a chat room, are you alientated? If you don't have a computer to use email, are you alienated? Note that people like you, people to whom you presumably want to talk the most, also don't have email...
Those who can't pay their bills electronically will just have to pay a surcharge for "paper" transactions -- and hence will be financially subjugated by a technology they not only don't understand, but one that they can't even afford to buy
This is complete bullshit. Give me an example where the poor people have to pay a significant surcharge for not doing things electronically. All this is pure hysterics. What happened was that some banks had an idea to charge people who withdraw money from a teller instead of using an ATM (notice the need to buy technology anywhere here?). AFAIK, these banks were quickly buried under the deluge of negative publicity -- you know, the widows and the orphans stuff -- and dropped this charge very very quickly.
And who in the technoplutocracy will teach them?
Don't be an idiot. You can argue that it's unfair for people who don't own computers (although now with 3-year net access committments you can get a computer very very cheap), but if they have a computer, they can fucking well learn how to pay bills electronically themselves. It's not rocket sience and doesn't require writing device drivers, either.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
By creating cities that demanded car ownership, consumer culture has made a large number of people indentured servants to their car loans -- at extrememly high interest rates
First, I don't see any indentured servants around. Second, nobody forces people to buy new cars. I drove a $500 car for two years and managed quite well with it, thank you very much. If people would treat the cars as means of transportation, not as status symbols, they would not take out high-interest loans to buy shiny new toys^H^H^H^Hcars.
people _do_ get left behind
I still don't see anybody left behind with a horse-drawn carriage. Amish, maybe?
I can hardly believe that you believe that most poor people are poor simply because they can't learn how to program in perl. Being poor means not having resources, not being lazy or stupid. Without resources, how do you expect to fairly apply your "tough luck" plan
Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything about why people are poor. I said that one way you can be left behind by technology was for your job skills to become obsolete (type setters, anyone?). This is one, *not* the typical or the usual way of happening to be poor. And it has nothing to do with writing perl scripts.
And being poor does not mean being lazy or stupid, but being lazy or stupid often means being poor. The theory about the poor not having the resources to climb out of poverty has been disproved numerous times in numerous studies. Throwing money (=resources) at the problem has been tried -- it does not work.
Three banks in my town charge for teller access. Still.
So don't use them. Do you have to buy any technology in order to use an ATM?
Monthly payments are lower for those who use direct deposit.
So do it. Do you have to buy any technology in order to use direct deposit?
If you have a credit card, video rental account charges are waived
That's because you are a lower security risk. Do you have to buy any technology in order to get a credit card?
You are arguing that the poor are getting the short end of the stick. Maybe. But the original subject of the discussion was whether technology makes some people left out and alientated. Your examples have nothing to do with this.
Imagine only being able to access your welfare check via ATM, and having no ATMs in your neighborhood.
I don't need to imagine that -- for some time I lived without any welfare checks and any job, too. How did I survive? Odd jobs pay cash.
Imagine _having_ to live in that neighborhood because you don't have a car.
Been there, done that. People live in such neighborhoods not because they don't have the car, but because they cannot affort the rent anywhere else.
Imagine having to take a bus accross town just to get your welfare money and being charged a $1.50 surchage on an ATM transaction
Been there, done that (only it wasn't a welfare check, but WIC coupons).
And your point is?
Are you going to teach them?
No, they'll learn themselves. Those that are incapable of learning how to pay bills electronically have much larger problems than these.
The message touted across magazines, newspapers, and television is -- buy a computer or YOU WILL BE LEFT BEHIND. Maybe they can pay bills electronically, but they no longer have a _choice_.
Sure they have. I have a lot of friends without computers. They do perfectly fine -- they do have a choice and they made it.
I happen to think that learning to work with computers will enhance your life and your value in the jobs marketplace. Soon enough a person who cannot work with computers will be at serious disadvantage when it comes to choosing careers or looking for a job. That's perfectly fine by me. Choices have consequences. If you have the opportunity to learn computers and don't, then you've made a choice and will have to live with consequences. That's normal and that's how life works.
Several centuries ago reading was a valued and rare skill. Today (in the US) if you can't read, your life is much harder than necessary. So? Are you going to argue that people should be given a choice of not learning to read?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Katz is getting more and more into tabloid-type rants these days... But that aside, there is a key word that this, err, I don't really want to call it an essay, let's say a piece of text, ignores. That key word is 'choice'.
.sig).
One of the good things about technology is that most often it gives you more choices. Think your cordless phone is too fragile? Don't use it! Your beeper is driving you crazy? Chuck it out of the window! Overwhelmed by 500 TV channels? Don't switch the TV on!
I am not going to make wild predictions about the future, but currently people (that is, more or less affluent people in the US) can pick and choose whatever level of technology they feel most comfortable with. Nobody is forcing anybody to use the latest gizmos -- if you think so, you are watching way too much advertising.
As to being overstressed, perhaps those that are need to re-evaluate their priorities. Almost in every situation there is a trade-off of stress against money (usually) or fame (more rarely). Just because a rat-race exists, you don't have to participate in it. Besides, what Katz describes is a US phenomenon. European people take a much more relaxed view of the their workload.
And, by the way, capitalism doesn't work by selling all that is produced. Capitalism works by producting only that which has a chance of being sold (but see the
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Katz makes some valid points in this article, but really this is just a reflection of human nature. I mean look at the web... here is the largest repository of knowledge in the world available to people and what does everyone say the first time they use it? "Sure is slow..." Nobody seems to appreciate that if you want to know say, the flight speed of a coconut laden African swallow, you previously had to go to the library, find a book on the subject, and find the information in said book. The web is serveral orders of magnatude faster...
Plus, generally people just plain DO more in a day than people used to, so naturally people seem overburdened, but its not technologies fault. If anything overreliance on technology is the symptom of an underlying problem, not the problem itself.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
The idea of a Cyberclysm seems to rest on the notion that, because we have 500 channels, I must examine them. Rubbish. I watch less TV than ever before, and then mostly what my kids are watching. I just received a cell phone and I've already made an iron rule that I do *not* attend to it in the car; I'll get back to you. When people offer me machines that speak, I usually ask where to find the switch that makes them silent.
The number one survival skill of the new millennium will be selectivity. Look over the options and throw away anything you don't see an immediate use for. Just don't use it. Be the master of the technology that you allow into your presence, not its servant.
I tend to be extremely focused no matter what I am doing. Right now and for most of my life that focus has been on writing programs and using my computer. A few years ago when I started to feel burned out I decided to take a "technology break" wherein I switched off my computer for six weeks.
:)
To be honest I wasn't sure I could do it. It opened a very large gap in my day. About 10 minutes after I had switched off I picked up a book (C.G. Jungs' Answer to Job) and started reading. It only took an hour or so for my eyes to adjust to non-scrolling pages. I finished it in short order and picked up another book. I read everything I could find obsessively. So a few hundred books later I wandered back to my computer and switched on. Nothing much had changed and I slipped right back onto the 'net.
Whether it is building something with sticks or writing my next program or reading books, I approach all with the same intensity and focus.
The point is that technology is as much a part of your life as you allow it to be. Sometimes you want to embrace it and sometimes you want to push it away. You can do both and the world will go on being the world
A very interesting point from this article is the function of advertising in creating consumer demand. I've already ranted once about how advertising can be seen as non-pareto optimal, since it wastes social resources on trying to change people's preferences for things. But I never even considered what it might mean if advertising actually suceeded in such a grand scale (not that I'm claiming it has or will- this is just a "what if"). It's true that for economics, and bundle of preferences is potentially pareto-optimal, but as social policy, it looks like the end result of all of this is that consumer demand is unknowingly for things that make them more and more miserable. When a company makes useless products, and markets them so well that everyone has to have one, that's a terrible waste of economy's potential to truly improve social policy.
The End of the World is Nigh!
Jon needs to be paint this on a sandwich board, don sandals and sack cloth, print up this screed on recycled paper and head for Times Square. This is a much more appropriate and time-honored venue for his message.
"Know the facts before distorting them."
--Ernest Hemingway
The thing is, technology redefines what it is to be human. In the past, working with your hands on actual things was thought to be human, wheras being a slave to mass-production machines was thought to be dehumanizing. What has really happened is that since manufacturing has become so productive, "industrialized" nations are now moving away from "industry" to service-based economies. More and more workers are using their "minds" rather than their "hands". We actually look at cultures like the Amish and remark on how "primitive" they are, and how they are "dehuman" in the direction toward "apes".
For the past couple centuries, we've been locked into this scientific angst: we don't want to go backwards and become animals again, and we don't want to go forward and become like robots. Either direction represents a dehumanization.
Everything that Katz says is simply paraphrasing what people said 100 years ago. Its simply a measure of fear and paranoia because they don't know where the world is heading.
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need.
True, but only because there are a remarkable number of people who are constant suckers for flashy electronics (tamagotchi, anyone?) and catchphrases like "Electronic Pulses of Light" (p/k/a LCD).
We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful.
If you eat that stuff, then you're a sheep. I can't help you.
The fact that people constantly buy things that they dont need is a tragedy. But the bigger tragedy is the sheer amount of money the mainstream consumer spends on things he fails to use to its potential.
'Course, I know better, and refuse to pay more than $600 for a new computer. Some will pay $2000 or more. I refuse to buy a new computer simply because its two years behind the newest technology. But to some, obsolescence takes only a year. So compare my $600 every two or three years with the $2000 the under- or mal-informed (incl. the aforementioned sheep) spend every year.
Which means of course that people's understanding of the electronics they buy is always going to be way behind. And with lack of understanding comes fear.
You wonder why FUD exists? This is exactly why.
With all this in mind, Luddism isn't at all new, and it doesn't concern me now any more than it ever did. There's no such thing as Things Man Were Not Meant To Know.
Those who _refuse_ to know, should go along their blissful way, and should be (necessarily) ignored by those who want to know.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Even the most ardent geeks complain that they can never be out of touch, never have time to think, never completely catch up. As the world is able to reach us more easily, it expects us to be always available and more or less instantly responsive. This rushes us and our responses. It makes us edgy, grumpy, impulsive. Technology becomes a means of harassing and pressuring us instead of improving our lives.
All geeks--including Jon Katz--should take a lesson in economics: if something doesn't improve your life (i.e. you're better off without it) you have 2 choices:
1) Demand more money
2) Don't do it
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
I used to read stories like those mentioned in the article when I was younger. Most of them turned out not to be very prescient at all. The important question we need to ask ourselves is, "Why?" Why haven't we developed a society where computers and machines do everything for us? Is it cost? No, if we wanted it badly enough, cost wouldn't stand in our way. Lack of technology? God, no, we have everything we need to wire our entire lives. Why haven't we gone this route, then?
Simple. People don't want to live like that. Technology will never ever drive the life of the common person. We simply don't want it that way, and never will, despite what the doomsayers predict. We are, first and foremost, physical creatures.
So what good, then, technology? Why all the gewgaws? What can we predict about the future of technology in relation to the common person?
Simple. Technologies will be embraced by the common person only when they become simple enough to easily comprehend.
But, what about all those VCRs blinking 12:00? Well, what about them? A VCR only needs to display the correct time if it is going to be programmed, and most people don't use that function of VCRs. They just pop in a tape and hit Play or Record. Simple.
Take console games. The Sony PlayStation has sold millions of units here and in Japan. The Sega Dreamcast sold over 300,000 units the first weekend it was available. Why? Because they are no-brainers to use. Pop in a CD, turn the thing on. Simple.
Take the Pilot. A computer, yes. Infinitely programmable, but simple to use and easy to program for. Most users will get everything they want from the device out-of-the-box. If a user wants to learn how to download new apps from the web and install them, it's not difficult to do so. The Pilot's simplicity made it a success, and the designers have gone on to make the Visor, which I think is an even simpler design.
What about computers? Are they any different? Yes, because they aren't dedicated like the gadgets mentioned above. A computer can do ANYTHING at all - properly programmed. But a computer out of the box doesn't come programmed to do very much. In order for it to do what the common person wants it to do, the common person must be able to buy software for it, install that software, and learn how to use it. Bingo - orders of magnitude more complex than most other gadgets.
But a computer is worth the investment of time. And computers that are specifically designed, built and programmed to make the above procedure as simple as possible will succeed.
This is why I can't understand the Slashdotters who claim that making Linux easier would "dumb it down". "I had to spend 6 months learning how to unzip tarballs, create executables, learning to grep and awk and configure X! If I had to do it, then by God, everyone else had better, too!" They view deliberate attempts at computer simplification, like the iMac, as wimpburger computers suitable only for newbies.
And what has that attitude gotten us? I recently read a quote from someone who noted that his original 1984 Macintosh could boot up and have his email for him in seconds. That's no longer possible with todays computers, certainly not PCs. Why? Because we've piled technology after technology onto them without attempting to simplify the design in the process. The result? Computers that are difficult to use and crash often.
Computers have managed to penetrate households because they are so useful that people are willing to put up with the shortcomings. But only when these shorcomings are eliminated will computers become as ubiquitous as the TV.
For those of you who started off with the wrong impression, no this is not some off topic Robert Jordan post. However, I think that the incredibly cliche idea of the wheel of time actually applies in this case.
The twentieth century has been the century of statistics. Never before have we more classified just how much time machines save or cost us each day or record it so definitively. What we are doing is externalizing. What I mean by that is this: we are disassociating our actions with ourselves. It is not an overt phenomenon in which people claim lack of responsibility, but a much more subtle syndrome.
By cataloging what "devices" cost us or how they "hurt" us, detriment the quality of our lives, etc., what we are doing is giving those devices power over ourselves. I hate to sound overly Heiddegarian, but we may be losing our Being (I'm not even going to begin to clarify).
The key is that it is not the devices which could cause our downfall, it is ourselves. It is the power we choose to give these devices that worries us. We simply need to make a different choice. Unlike Heiddegar, I am strongly against giving up technology. I think it is very useful, however, it must be our choice when to use it. It is when we let it determine our lives instead of vice versa that the problems begin to occur.
Arthur C. Clarke was wrong when he said that we should worry about machines unpluggin us for they will never be able to do that if we choose not to let them. This is an amazing age where we are determining, perhaps more than ever, what direction the development of all this technology will take. We must simply make sure not to unplug ourselves.
14 digits of Pi are all we need.
I think that the people who use technology for information are the most likely to only use it as a tool, and so not fall into an unbalanced existence.
On the other hand, the majority of people rely on technology for their entertainment. Games sell home computers and playstations, movies sell TVs, VCRs and movie tickets, music sells CDs...
It probably won't be the people who watch CNN who drop out of life - it will be the people who watch Jerry Springer and Soap Operas who will be the first victims. Who are the victims not of information overload, but of entertainment overload.
Mark Collette
Technology doesn't reduce time it takes to do something it just redirects where you spend your time. Fixing tehcnology so you can make a spreadsheet takes just as long as it does to make a spreadsheet by hand. In the old days (we are talking way lo'tek)1700's or so you had to spend all day either farming or hunting to get your food. Now days you have to work at your job all day and then fight to drive through traffic to get to the store. The amount of time you use getting food is the same it is just redirect into other vehicles to get you to the same point.
Technology itself is inert. It has no prejeduices to be one thing or another it is all in the way you use it.
root@localbrain root>ps ax |grep thoughtd
I know this is a quibble on a minor detail, but the term 'Cyberclysm' isn't quite the right fit for what is happening here.
This is not Mr. Katz's fault here. The fault lies largely on Mr. Clarke's shoulders.
'Cyberclysm' denotes more of a split or a schism happening. This is occuring, but it exists in the world now of those who have technology, and those who do not. The Cyberclysm is not about information overload, about whether you choose to use the new technology, but about whether you even have access to the technology in the first place.
The information overload that comes about from too much stuff going on does exist. The pet term I've always used for it has been 'Infocalypse'. The overwhelming avalanche of "Too Much Stuff" that threatens to engulf all in it's path.
However, this comes as little surprise. This was one of the underlying tenets of the Cyberpunk writers. Gibson, Sterling, Cadigan, and Stephenson have covered this topic well over a decade ago. So many of the things that they gave us a glimmers at have come true. Why should this not as well?
As for solutions? I can offer only one: "Surf, baby, Surf"
--sugarman--
This is demonstrably false.
Recently a BBC TV series has been showing a family who "went back in time" 100 years, living in a house with only the facilities that would have been there 100 years ago. Gas lights instead of electricity, no washing machine, hot water only for special occasions, and so on.
They hated it. Washday was exactly that: an entire day. Cooking an evening meal for the family took most of the afternoon.
Sure, our lives seem to get more and more hectic. (Who said "Life is so complex that some parts must be imaginanary"?). But that is a matter of individual choice, not driving technology. It is very simple to opt for a less hectic job, or just not work as hard at your current one and forgo pay rises and promotions.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
My VCR has hundreds of options, but on the front of the machine, there's a big red "One Touch Recording" button that records 30 minutes for each press of the button. I think we'll start seeing this on more and more devices. Your computer-controlled washing machine might let you set the temperature of the water and the speed of rotation, but there'll be a big "Wash" button that you can press and expect reasonable results. We'll have more options, but the real challenge will be to build devices that don't force us to become experts with each device that we use.
Finally, as we live more and more online, we'll find ourselves communicating with much larger numbers of like-minded people. Rather than relying on one trusted friend for recommendations on news, books, etc., we'll go through meta-sites like slashdot and moviecritc to prune the non-interesting stuff.
The ability to selectively ignore information may become an individuals biggest asset. The guy who remembers everything he ever sees or hears will overload at an early age, while the absent-minded type who forgets the data but remembers where to find it will be better able to cope.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Alvin Toffler, and even Ted Kaczynski appear to have more insight into the effect of technological progress than Katz. Do cars break down more than horses? Perhaps so, but guess what - there are trains, buses and friends with cars too. Technology such as telephones can invade our privacy, but answering machines put us back in control. Does the Internet contain an overwhelming amount of information? Sure - but the people also use it to connect and humanize their lives.
Technology may change the way we do things, and may create new problems as well as solve others, but it is not the one-way path into a fragile complex hell that Katz envisions. We may be becoming increasingly dependent on the net, but surely this is one of the more resilient pieces of technology ever created - almost organic. The net may deliver a dizzying quantity of information that could overwhelm a cyborg trying to suck it all in, but the consumers of technology are people who use it in ways they see fit.
That makes it a Windows problem still (Microsoft Windows NT, after all)...
Or more probably, a Windows+IE problem. I'm seeing the ?'s too.
The '98 Ice Storm in NY/Quebec, Floyd in NC, Taiwan, Turkey quakes. I was in the Quebec dark zone and was cut off for about two days. But it made me realize how fscked we are without our darling technology. The other thing that happenned during that time is the enhanced sense of community -- helping out STRANGERS. Sure, some nutty survivalists will lock themselves up and shoot anything approaching, but I believe most realize that self-preservation comes thru cooperation. So after the initial shell-shock of tech withdrawal, we'll get our act together and *cooperate*. Actually, by that time, something else will come and replace the InfoAge (Like InfoAge replaces Industrial Age) and it'll all fade away quietly.
---
Naturally :)
I think, all things considered, we aren't any more likely to destroy ourselves than we were 100 years ago. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I don't quite get what JK is complaining about. Yes, it's hard to keep up with everything that's going on, but noone is forcing you to pariticipate. If you want to, you can retreat to your appartment, surround yourself with hundredts of years old books about the philisophies of life (or whatever else interests you), ignore news and TV and dedicate your life to whatever happens to interest you.
...
My parents live their lives like this and are quite happy doing it. The result is that they don't use ATM machines, ignore most the news (and thus often have no idea what's been happening around the world), are not interrupted by email, cell phones or faxes and generally lead a happy but (when seen from my perspective) slow life.
Most of the slashdot readership lives in a free country. You can choose not to participate in the rat race, but the price you'll pay may be that you don't quite understand the world around you anymore after 20 years of (technological) seclusion. But if you think that you'd be happier living in a log cabin somewhere in the mountains surrounded by a few cows, goats and maybe even like-minded people, there's nothing stopping you from doing so.
You have choices in life. If you really hate the world around you, try to build one around you that suits your needs. Yes, you will have to give up some of the daily comforts/patterns you currently enjoy, but maybe long term this may be the right choice for you.
You only have one life; choose your path wisley
> How many of us would be able to create steel from iron ore? Given a
> crisis so bad there's no electricity so you can't look it up on the Web!
Call your local chapter of the SCA. It reminds me of a Spider Robinson quote (from Telempath, where society has broken down and scattered, cities gone, technology completely unreliable: "Don't like hippies? Fine, next time you're hungry, call a cop."
> For example: I have never fully understood the "need" for a cellphone for anyone
> but a stockbroker, an elected official, and a drug dealer, but once the competition's
> got it and makes herself available 24/7, you have to too or you fall behind.
I have finally given up and decided it's time to get a cellphone, but that's because I have a very unusual talent -- I kill cars just by touching them. In the five years I've been driving, I've been stranded roadside in the middle of the night with no pay phones around no fewer than ten times, and I'm awfully sick of being scared to death but having to trudge along a deserted road anyway.
The technology itself is not to blame. It's how people use said technology. If I was purchasing a cellphone just because 'everyone else has one', then I would worry, but I think I have a valid reason to do so (the last time I got stuck it was pouring rain, and I'm still recovering from the bronchitis). So, yes, in some way I am getting a cellphone to avoid "falling behind" -- but it's falling behind the wheels of a semi, next to my broken-down vehicle, that I'm trying to avoid!
Like many other posters, I think that Mr. Katz is missing the mark here. It's all about choice. Don't keep up with the Joneses -- drag them down to your level.
Win95 and netscape: no problem here.
At one time, that is. Way back when, in the good old days there was this philosopher, who lived in France. And he was a good little philosopher who love his church, who was faithful, and who hated the infidels that the church hated. So much in fact that he was able to reason that the up and coming revolution that was geometry was cooked up by the devil to poison young minds and would be the end of civilization that we know of. And if we look father and father back in human history we can run across another philosopher who thought that the new art of writing was going to be the downfall of civilization as we know it. No more were students going to "know" a subject. They would be able to "look it up" in a book, and not have to rely upon their memories. This in turn would lead them to be corrupted, because their minds were not occupied with remembering things. And it would also lead to the student having a "softer" mind, because again, they would not be required to memorize things.
The first philosopher was our friend, St. Augustine.
The second was Socrates.
Even more recently, such and such technology was said to corrupt us. Look only to when the neo-utopian movement of the 18th and 19th centuries occured. Right along with the rise of the industrial age. We surived that. We learned to pass laws and regulations that restricted certain unethical and dangerous practices that were at one time very common. We got so good at the industrial stuff, that we advanced it, shedding great gobs of useless ideas and practices and it became ubiquitous! Otherwise you couldn't drive to work. Otherwise you couldn't build your house. Otherwise, you could not function.
We will survive this. We will make this work for us. We have before and we will do it again.
A number of people have pointed out that you have a choice: of course you don't *need* to have all the toys that modern society makes available, and this is right as far as it goes; however, it ignores two things:
The culprit, or perhaps a culprit (though the main one, IMNSHO) is the culture of consumption. The economies of most wealthier countries are based on consumption: if people don't spend enough on s**t they don't need, the economy goes to pieces. Economists apparently unaware of the second law of thermodynamics might go on about "sustainable development" or "sustainable growth", and people in the US might complain about gas prices (trust me, you have no right to), but nobody seems aware that the amount of available resources, starting with energy, are finite.
It's not as simple as turning off and dropping out ... the change has to be pretty massive. For example: I have never fully understood the "need" for a cellphone for anyone but a stockbroker, an elected official, and a drug dealer, but once the competition's got it and makes herself available 24/7, you have to too or you fall behind. And even if you decide not to play that game, most people have to stop it or the dizzying spiral upward pulls nearly everyone along with it anyway.
I'd continue rambling on, but I suppose I'll stop here.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
I highly encourage everyone to read it. The "murderer" of the story kills communication devices, and as a result has been sent to a mental institution. He has a lot of fun telling the psychiatrist that the specific flavor of ice cream he used to destroy the bus radio is probably going to experience a sales increase soon.
Back in reality, I can certainly understand the instinct. I have a SO who "worries" about me if we aren't in touch several times daily, and I end up putting so much time into my "online life" (both trying to stay "informed" and trying to stay "in contact," though information is key for me), that my work suffers at times. Like now.
And on a certain level, it is distressing when people can't manage without their gadgets. I lived in Rochester for a year without a car; at the time, I was working somewhere within easy walking distance of my house, and I also knew the public transit system quite well. And those who had a car since their 16th birthday always look askance. "You WALKED? Oh you poor thing, let me give you a ride." "How can you stand the bus system, it's horrible?" [No it's not!] And so forth. Similar incomprehension is directed at those who don't have a net-connection, a recent-model computer, a computer at all, a television, a cell phone, etc etc etc. It does get a bit silly after a while.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
We have long since passed the point where any one person could possibly read everything they can get their hands on during their lifetime. The creation of the internet has simply made it possible for the 'average' person to access this information from within their home. If we are to survive the 'Cyberclysm' all we need to is accept this fact.
I personally read Slashdot and check email and a few websites daily, but I long ago learned not to
worry over news missed or pages unread. If its really important it'll get to me eventually.
One aspect of the 'Cyberclysm' mentioned is what I'd call gadgetism - the continual procurement of the latest, most feature laden, hardware available. The PC industry has been guilty of this for at least a decade, although we've had our reasons. In my opinion this gadgetism seems to be dying down, rather than speeding up. In previous years a PC 6 months out of date was considered next to useless and PC magazines were filled with talk of 'upgradability'. Nowadays a Pentium 200 MMX runs Win98 adaquately (and of course, Linux) and I think anyone will be throwing them out to soon (or if they are, I'll gladly take them).
That said, Apple Macs have had long lifetimes almost since their inception. A PowerPC 8100 will run most applications easily (of course the new Macs just look so cool).
Caio.
Simon.
/-\-/
We should not fear the future. I reassert to the worried that everything will be ok.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
... thought I'm a a long time computer bobbyist I keep looking for simple equipement to buy. I consider that a piece of hardware (VCR, TVs, sound system, etc...) with a simple and straitghforward interface is a well designed system... nowadays, simplicity is a mark of quality. Electronic stuff with lots of buttons and functions is a sign of a company who cares more about marketing than making usefull products.
The central idea in Buddism (Zen or otherwise) is detatchment from the illusion of the world.
/.ing at -1, I let go of many messages. Some of it is mental. I skim mailing list messages quickly, weakening my connection to those communities.
Seems particularly appropriate here.
While Buddism is not for me - I like the illusion - a certain degree of detatchment is vital when faced with more of a resource than can be used.
Some of that detatchment can be technological. By not
I also detatch from technology in more drastic ways. I go camping from time to time, without bringing any communication technology more advanced than a notepad and fountain pen. And I tend not to use even that. I go outside and watch rabbits and squirrels in my yard, and I can be reached only by the most direct of methods.
And even when I am doing technological things, I use the simplest appropriate technology.
Yet I enjoy the cool stuff.
Some people write that the advanced technology is a tool to them. I approach new technology differently. It is a toy to me until I am ready to use it, and I am very particular about what I use as a tool. A tool changes the person who uses it. A boy with a hammer sees the world as a collection of nails. Without my tools, I would be much less than what I am. The phrase "just a tool" is absurd to me. So I am careful in my choice of tools. But "just a toy" makes sense to me, and I do love to play with the flashy new toys.
Detatchment, again. I can set down a toy and never look back. It does not become part of me. To set down a tool, though, is to reduce my effectiveness, and that is a serious decision.
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I think the biggest thing that stood out in that paper to me was inventing this new word of "Cyberclysm". Will this be in Slashdot's 23rd edition confusing acronym and hypeword dictionary?
This may be Off topic, but what is up with the ? where the apostrophes should be? I originally thought it was a windows thing, but I am on an NT box using IE right now.
Autonomous human beings can - and maybe should - take responsibility for the smaller details of life...
This is one of the most ridiculous statements in the whole article. So it's alright to have gadgets as long as you build robots to use them?
Yet again from Katz, it's not news and it doesn't matter
The problem is not technology, as such, but the economic/commercial system that drives it.
With all the geeks here, used to thinking about information systems, I am really disappointed at how few are making the obvious connection.
Quite simply, there is a memory leak in our information system for keeping track of who has contributed what to our common society. Don't be fooled by the big juju of the men in the dark suites. There is a reason why the charging of interest on a loan was once punished with death.
The deeper problem is that if a culture can, by means of a unbalanced exchange medium, make its little serfs work harder for its own propagation and the spreading of it's memeplexes, that culture will have an advantage in the natural selection of cultures...
As long as the ecosystem where this selection takes place can sustain the growth...
And we like to think we have a personal choice...
We all know what happens to a person or a culture that just refuse to compete. Of course you will want all those gadgets, anything to make you stay on top of the unwashed masses, and even better if it gives you a little time left over to play and learn. Only problem with that is that fear, anxiety, and panic are able to make people work a lot harder that the sheer joy of creating stuff..
-- We plunge for the slipstream the realness to find
-- We plunge for the slipstream the realness to find
The incredible String Band
Basically, things'll fork into two worlds. There'll be the infinitely connected and automated world, but that'll only be available to the very rich. On the other hand, from the average USA citizen on down economically things'll stay as they are, except with more shiny chrome and beeping. Of course, there's the possibility of an underworld developing starting in the cities that jacks into the nets illicitly, but I've been watching too much anime lately. =p
I'm sure similar complaints were made about Automobiles in their embryonic stages. The rate of fatal accidents was atrocious for years, until laws and safety features were hammered out. Now they play a vital role in most of our lives, and have for decades.
Perhaps the problems lies in a mismatch between aspects of computer technology. We don't yet know how to build devices that interface cleanly
with human sensory and motor capabilities.
We also lack the AI to build sufficient filters for the various input channels that we bombard ourselves with. Imagine a big time CEO without a secretary, all calls can go straight to his desk. That's an apt anology to most of us these days with our cell phones and email accounts. Sure there are the basics of filters, but they have a long way to go.
Give geeks a chance. We'll make the world better, probably.
-Illserve
I've experienced the opposite, at least from the people whose opinion I give a damn about ;-)
When I moved back to the rat race in January, I ended up doing the consultant thing. No more 9 to 5 for this techie. I also declined to buy a car and now use taxis, transit, bicycle or the good old train where necessary.
When on a customer project, I work at the necessary pace to get the job done, and done properly, no rush, no BS. When it's done, I'm done.
My friends, especially the ones with mortgages and car payments and hour and a half commutes to thankless DBA jobs in soulless industrial parks in the faceless suburbs, envy me. They say I'm more relaxed than ever, even look healthier.
In the meantime, I'm very connected. Internet connection, cell phone, pager, the whole works. After all, I'm a technologist. The trick is to use the technology wisely and not get overheated in some endless purposeless spiral ratrace.
I don't think it's the technology that's killing people. It's the rat race in the chase for the almighty buck that's at fault. The technology is just technology. The frantic pace at which we use it and let it control us is our own choice.
MAybe it's easier for some than others, but ultimately it all comes down to choice. If you choose to be controlled by the latest in gadgets for no better reason than "everybody else does it, so I have to as well in order to be cool" then you are a victim of corporate produced, mass enforced peer pressure, AKA fashion.
-M
And according to this article it looks strangely like communications satellites.
See you on the other side, Chicken Little.
If you look at the movie The Road to Wellville, you see a number of technological devices created as a result of mankind's ability to harness electric current. Around the time that Edison was bringing the elctric light to the world, a number of other inventors, both serious and "quacks" were creating everything from electric bathtubs to electric hairbrushes, in an attempt to garner a portion of the electricity consuming market share.
A large number of these devices didn't survive. Why? Some, because they were obvious frauds, but many didn't survive because people found that they could get along without them just as well. And I believe that a similar thinning of the technology market is coming too.
Right now, there are several ways to do anything computer-related, from keeping a calendar, to controlling your refrigerator. But simply because these things exist, does not necessarily mean that they are an immediate benifit, and should be embraced and consumed by the markets at large, or that they will be either. People will find, on their own, which methods work the best for them, and use them. If enough people center around a method (be it Java, *nix, whatever), these methods will prosper, and become defacto standards for accomplishing our goals in life, while other methods will wither and perish from lack of use.
In short, yes, we're moving very fast technologically. But we're also, like many new vairants on a species, trying to adapt to a changing enviroment through trying many mutations and variantions on the base form. Some of the variants will find usefullness in the enviroment, and flourish, while others will not, and drop by the wayside.
Just my $.02.
It is innate to man to attempt to control his environment, particularly in the West where there is deep rooted conflict between man and nature. Man always has to overcome nature, usually by dissecting and trying to make sense of it, then trying to perfect it. The fall of Newtonian physics didn't stop this and I am sure the rise of 20th century capitalism and advertising wouldn't let it go either.
An interesting parallel is from ancient China. In ancient China there was a period in which massive amounts of Buddhist texts flourished. In fact there were so many texts that no one person could possibly handle all that information. So what happened? Specialization. Monks and scholars specialized in studying the writings of a particular scholar, priest or school. One person may be very schooled in Tendai, but totally ignorant in Pure Land school thought for example. And yet, with all this knowledge the people were still not being enlightened, which was the goal. It wasn't long before a reaction among some followers occured that praised simplicity and intent, rather than the words of "experts" and others. And yet, Buddhism is not gone, did not suffer a cataclysmic loss. It continued to grow in its own way building upon its past. And this happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago!
Is society more complex now than it used to be? Absolutely. Is it organized into more specialized constructs? Possibly. What is the result of this complexity? Do people have to turn ever increasingly to experts to attempt to solve their problems? That would certainly result in a feelings of helplessness.
Perhaps if people could just turn off advertising they wouldn't believe that spending money would solve their problems. But, in Western society this is not an option and people will continue to turn to the "experts" rather than think for themselves and rationalize what is truly important or necessary. When that happens you'll be on the path to wisdom.
I come to work do my job and go home, I don't have cable or a computer at home. And frankley I find it liberating, I don't need to stare at a computer screen for more than 60hr a week. I don't carry a pager because if I am not at home I don't want my job to find me. I understand that not everyone has that luxery and some people are on call 24/7 but I think if you look hard enough you will find that there a lot of ways to reduce the amount of technology you have to deal with.
On a separate note I do belive that we need the current break neck speed of technology just to keep feeding everyone, with the advance of medcine the population is growing larger and larger but the planet isn't getting any bigger. So our only solution is to find out how we can get more out of our current land.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
I would have to agree.
When I'm on a vacation, I deliberately leave behind cell phones, pagers, or any communication devices, including radios and televisions.
My ideal is to spend a couple of weeks every year somewhere in the mountains in a little campsite where you don't know or even care if armegeddon has occured. As long as the fishing is great and you can see the stars at night, everything is OK. Doing this allows you to get a stronger perspective about what is really important in life, and try to actually live.
BTW, some of my former supervisors tended to get rather upset when something breaks and they couldn't seem to get ahold of me. The truth is if it is broke, it doesn't really matter if it gets fixed now or later, and if I get fired, so what! There are other employers as well, so just don't plan on me helping out when I'm on vacation. When I get back I'll put the effort and time in to fixing the problems. Otherwise leave me alone.
An interesting e-mail came my way I'd like to post with this is as follows. Somewhat related to this topic, and although I don't totally agree with it, it does give you something to think about. It it attributed to George Carlin but I'm really not sure who wrote it:
The Paradox of our Time
by George Carlin
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the times of world "peace" but constant conflict, more leisure but less enjoyment, more kinds of food but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom, a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.
The numbers aren't just overinflated, they miss the important point that the amount of time people spend doing things is gated by their patience and interest more often than it is by how long the task "really" takes. I'm guessing the average person will spend no more than ten minutes a day scanning TV listings, for example, if that. Our attention spans protect us. Information overload isn't a problem for the consumers of information, it's a problem for the producers, competing in increasing numbers for a finite audience.
I am a child of the digital age. I received my first computerized device around the age of 7. It
was a teaching machine of language. On standardized tests I now score in the top 1% in
language skills. Around age 11 I receive my first real computer, an Amiga. I explored the worlds
of art and music in new ways. I was on the internet when Lynx and Mosaic were the only
navigators. Infinite knowledge and ideas were at my fingertips. I met and fell in love with
someone on the global network, learning the beauty of communication and how it transcends all
boundaries. As I grew up, I knew that I wanted to be part of this communication. I became a web
developer. I developed physical reactions to stress and was burnt-out of a job at the age of 22. I
tried a slower-paced job. I paid the price- after eight months, the wheels of society eroded me
too far. I had a mental breakdown in traffic at the age of 23. I was overwhelmed by the
oppressive pattern we all live in--Traffic/work/traffic/try to escape in the continuing pattern of
consumerism. For a moment it was all a giant recursive mathematical formula.
As a child I rebelled more than usual when coerced to fall in line with the rest of the system.
Suppressing that urge, I went to work. I consider my current reactions a natural defense
mechanism against mental atrophy and loss of humanity. I remembered who I was. I am a
creature of nature with free will. Nature is a pattern as well, but it is much greater in scope and
welcomes change and mutation, unlike our man-made pattern of hierarchy and conformity. Our
tools and inventions were initially designed to work with nature but eventually worked only
against it. It doesn't have to be that way.
The point? None of us have to participate in this mindless cycle. Our technology can liberate us
rather than imprison us. Here are some ways I use technology to enhance my life and well-being:
Take the laptop outside! We have cordless phones and portable computers. Soon we'll have
cheap wireless ethernet. Why are you still in the office? I took my old 486/Linux laptop out on
especially beautiful day. It did wonders for my productivity.
I love to ride my motorcycle. Walks are nice, but the feeling of the wind around you is
liberating. A side benefit is the ultra-low fuel consumption. You have to concentrate a little
more when riding a bike. You can't use a cell phone. If more people rode, commuting my not be
quite as bad. Give it a try. The MSF course is a cheap way to
try it without buying any equipment.
I recently discovered neurotechnology, a way to use machines for enhanced meditation.
Specifically, I use a mind machine to
achieve natural mental states that can greatly reduce stress and enhance creativity. It really
works and provides some badly needed inner peace in this hectic world.
I also refuse to work uncompensated overtime (I've gone contractor) and try to limit that as
much as possible. I pursue my love of writing, art, and music. I spend time with my soon-to-be
wife. Hold each other. Have wild sex. It's much more satisfying than all those plastic gizmos.
Read a book. Write that open source app you've been thinking about. Expand your mind and
help others expand theirs. Share your knowledge and tell stories. That's how we all got to this
level. We can find the right path again.
I'm still a geek. I am not a tree-hugger, but I enjoy nature and work towards coexistence between
nature and technology-Remember, people are natural too. I was almost sucked into the abyss of
our creation but now I walk along the edge, hoping I can help save someone else. There's no
religion hidden here, just the realization that we face a new struggle for survival. Physical
struggle is not much of an issue any more (at least in the USA, Europe, etc). The new struggle is
that of our minds and ideas against those good intentions and great inventions tat have run amok
and now seek to pacify and distract us. Our minds want to grow.
I leave you with the words of the greatly misunderstood Dr. Timothy Leary:
TUNE IN (activate your neural and genetic equipment)
TURN ON (interact harmoniously with the world around you)
DROP OUT (suggesting an active, selective and graceful process of detachment from
involuntary or unconscious commitments.)
Find out what it really means. It has nothing to do with drugs and everything to do about living
life to the fullest.
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner
First, I want to say that I disargee about technology making life harder (more complicated) for us. Most of the things that go wrong are thing that we do wrong. Computers do what we tell them to do, they can't do anything alone, then can't make mistakes.
:)) just like it for it's onw sake, but, most people are in the middle.
Second, If anything, life is easier now. I can e-mail my friends without taking as much time as a phone call would. I can listen to my whole music collection on mp3 and not have to get up to change the CD all the time. I now can get a copy of books in a matter of seconds and find information on anything in no time at all.
Third, Technology will never take away the human element, it will just enhance it. Instead of having to meet with people, Alexander Grahm Bell made a phone. Instead of stopping to call them, soebody invented the radio and, the cell phone. Now, you don't even have to call them, you just send an e-mail or IM them. You still talk/communicate with the person, it's just faster, easier and better now.
Fourth, I doubt that the avreage person's day will be like that an a few months (Hmm....maybe we woln't have to worry about this in a few months (1,000,000:1 odds)).
Fifth, even if we don't _need_ this stuff, do we need a Car, no, but, hey, it makes life a lot easier, and so does technology.
Sixth, "We're trapped between two useless states - alarm and euphoria. Either we are railing about pornography, disconnection, and addiction or we are banging the drums for Gee-Whiz Computing that exists much more for its own sake than for our benefit." I know that some people (extreme protectionists (the `for the children' people)) don't like technology and I know that some people (like me
That's my 1/50 of $1.00 US
JM
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
It occurred to me as I was drinking my espresso and downing a multivitamin and considering whether I should eat one of those power bars that this technological information-oriented work culture could be killing me and I am seeking to stave off exhaustion with performance enhancers. The simple pleasure of sleep has turned into an irritaion that I have to turn off at all. I might miss something.
Of all the rants about how we will spend our time in the next century, there is very little mention of what PRODUCTIVE things we will be doing. I still have to go to work, I still have to eat, I still have to pay for a home, car, child, etc... In addition to the new choices in how I spend my leisure time, technology has also made me incalculably more productive so I *have* more leisure time to inundate myself with new information (making myself even more productive and having fun while I am at it).
The cry of the luddite never changes: "free time is the downfall of civilization! We must discard technology and return to digging in the dirt with our bare hands, watch our children die at birth or before they reach age 5, shorten our life expectencty to 35 years, and work from sun-up to sun-down!" They cry that it is humanity or ecology that we are betraying with technology, but in the end the luddite's fears equate to destruction, as only fear can do.
They are wrong, in fact, in principle and in practice.
I'm sure that when cars, planes, ships, steam powered machines, or anything else similar, someone must have said that it will destroy us somehow. Have we been destroyed yet? Tell me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the human race has ceased to exist. IMO, existing technologies, such as automobiles, are more likely to kill us. People die in car crashes. They don't in computer crashes. I think no matter how technologically advanced we get, we will still have the ability to produce food. Maybe if we were almost totally dependant on automated devices, and they all stopped working, at least some of us would survive, and rebuild the race. Maybe that would be better. Give us a chance to start over. Maybe not. But I don't think it's very likely at all that it could even happen.
After reading through as many postings as I had time to read, some common threads seemed to appear.
;) )
The first is that most people disagree with the notion of an impending cataclysm (no buzz words
The second is that if we choose to do so we can manage our time correctly.
The first implies that most of us understand the following rant. The second is an example of the solution:
Check these quotes out:
"Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same."
"Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
"Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplify, simplify. "
These three quotes came to mind immediately when I read this. The third is from Henry David Thoreau, and the point I want to make is that the 19th century was just as plagued with these notions that the world had become too fast. HDT saw the wise course then and it hasn't changed--Simplify.
Who's fault is it that all of this additional stress and demands on our time exist? Our own of course! This is the true problem. You want happiness, simplify your life. Don't blame technology, just give it its proper place. Stop looking at the Internet as a revolution, and see it for what it is--a *part* of our lives. Stop commiting all of your time to the demands of others. Turn the pager off.
(End of Rant)
Who cares if one person can't understand all of technology, one person can't understand any single area of human enquiry. Enjoy life as it comes. One post mentioned Zen, and this is probably its central message as well.
All of human history wise men have told the frantic masses that happiness is related to moderation, and it has fallen on deaf ears. Use the internet to cure those ears! Tell people to relax a little. Is it the end of the world that a deadline slips? The next time your raging at the car in front of yours in rush hour traffic, because nothing has moved for four minutes, take that opportunity to look at the sky and remember how beautiful the world *still* is.
Lots of luck,
A happy person (who also embraces technology, and writes code for a living).
We are agents of the free
Not true, I am on a Win NT machine using IE4, and I saw ? not '
We are agents of the free
Besides the ' being represented as ? all the time which got fairly annoying, Katz, I think you're extremely guilty of over-simplifying reality to prove a point. Yes, you're correct in that the further technology takes us, the longer and more hectic our work week becomes. Yes, traditional hunters and gatherers spent around 4 to 5 hours a day to survive in relative complacency which didn't involve little gadgets flushing toilets for them and reading them the funnies while they did their business. And yes, we're mapping the human genone without even curing the common cold. But you know what? You don't have to live the 24 hour workday and you can committ youself to daily down time where you're not connected to the internet (or hypernet as you called it). There are books and studies on how to keep yourself sane in this fast and ever faster paced society that we're creating for ourselves. Read the latest copy of Fast Company. There are about 40 pgs of stories, resources, and discussions on this phenomena of the 24/7 cyber community.
We used to live exclusively in our own time zones, working from 9 to 5, but all of the sudden it seems like we realized that the rest of the world is away and working while we're sleeping in relative bliss. let it be that way I say. Technology isn't doing this to us, we're doing it to ourselves. All of the sudden we're seeing how much is going on out of our site and how much information we can see and we're becoming addicted and greedy and it's going to ruin us through sleep deprivation.
Don't blame technology, blame the ones that use it and how they use it.
This is something that nobody should be afraid of. If we're too busy to watch TV, we miss our shows. I could be recording today at noon, Dragonball Z at 4:00, and wrap it up with the Frasier rerun at 6:30, but I don't (well, I do record Dragonball.) Why? Because the shows just aren't that good that I'm going to waste my day sitting in front of the TV and doing nothing (except for my Dragonball Z half hour). I'd rather spend my free time interacting with my family and having fun! This resembles the Gernsbackian future a little too much for me. Next thing you know, Katz will be railing about how food pills won't taste as good as normal food. Duh! That's why we're not heading in that direction. Another newsflash, Katz, we're not going to be disembodied heads floating around in flying saucers either. Get a grip, man, and take your Palm Pilot out for a drive. You need to take in a little countryside.
Mankind's environment has depended upon it's technology since we invented agriculture. The logical conclusion of this is when our environment consists entirely of our technology - a time that is approaching rapidly.
We will cope with this the same way we (and all other life) always has - by adapting. Being tool users, we will probably do this using our tools, be they genetic modification or whatever.
Those that embrace this will survive, and those that do not won't (in a cultural rather than individual sense). I don't see a possibility for limiting our technology without a command economy, and this isn't possible without using the very technology you would wish to repress. Catch 22.
Trying to make a moral case for whether tech is good or bad misses the point - ethics are by their nature subjective, and it isn't our ethics that matter - it will be the ethics of our genetically modified descendants that ultimately decides whether the furrow we plough is good or not.
And beer, of course, only takes 18 years (in the UK) before you can legally "study" it! :)
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
The typical twenty-first-century person?s day, he predicts, will include: "Skimming five hundred channel program listings, two hours; viewing television programs selected, four hours; catching up on recorded programs, six hours; exploring the hyperweb, six hours; and adventuring in artificial reality, four hours." He didn?t even mention checking e-mail, answering fax-spewing and stock-listing cellphones, or responding to pagers and beepers.
2+4+6+6+4 = 22 which unless these hours are in Internet time leaves just 2 hours for sleeping / eating etc.
New media eat into the timeshare enjoyed by older ones - my TV viewing time has fallen dramatically since I got net access. And i'm pretty sure this applies across the majority of people who use the net.
Sorry, but to use a cliche: There just isn't enough hours in the day.
stty erase ^H
People have been predicting that technology has gotten out of hand since, well, renaissance times... Sure things are being invented, built and marketed faster than ever before, but that's been true since the industrial revolution started. My Grandmother relies on a fancy electronic device to monitor her blood-sugar levels (she's diabetic) and losing that capability would, at best, complicate her life. But how many people really *need* to be talking on that cell phone, or plugging that new DVD into their home theater system, or spend an hour editing and re-editing their response to a response to a Jon Katz article?
Personally, I've already taken steps to simplify my life and I've found that, while I enjoy playing stupid games on the computer, or watching TV (down to 3 hours or less a week now), or cranking up Course of Empire past 11, I can also do without.
Henry David Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify." Of course, he took his own advice and had his laundry done and ate out a lot while staying at Walden...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
"Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."
--Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is complete flamebait when posted to a geek forum. It's preposterous. The concept that geeks are "bombarded" by too much data is a bit, well, like saying that when the ice caps melt, the fish will have a little too much water. Sure, there's a problem here, but you're talking to the wrong segment of society.
Katz appears to be talking about a human difficulty that has existed since the industrial evolution. We're too busy. Every month someone suddenly looks around, pisses on the previous speaker, and says, "now we're really too busy." Well, yes. We were too busy last week too. Yes, we keep getting busier. Sure, technology helps (or was that hinders?). So does the sub-urbanization, the increasingly entertainment-based nature of society, and so on.
What Katz, along with most other negative-futures announcers, is missing here is a growing movement of simplification. Is this neo-ludditism? Not at all. Just doing less. It would appear that all you have to do to stay out of this insane media fray is take a walk. With your feet. Crazy, eh? You can even use your computer when you get back home.
And, get this, people are actually doing it. Those folks on the west coast have probably encountered this (I wouldn't know, I don't live there). I keeping seeing this made reference to more and more...
For my part, yes, I'm a programmer. I rarely use my computer at home for more than 3 hours a week. In fact, for about five months, I didn't have a home PC. I have other hobbies, like hiking. It's really pretty easy to avoid being consumed by this rabid, demonic media deluge.
Of course, for those who enjoy the rat's cage, you can keep pushing the e-pedal and the e-soma will just keep on coming...
The web page referred to is so totally ridiculous I don't feel it is worth the time for anyone to read. I'll let you know several things about the voluntary simplicity movement:
1:) It has its fanatics like anything else (Amiga computers, Linux, Macs, etc, etc, etc).
2:) The gems you find in the voluntary simplicity movement never suggest giving up all technology or anything else so ludicrous. Voluntary simplicity is simply about making sure you have plenty of time to live and do it well whatever that might be. Freeing up time to do things you enjoy, freeing up money to do be able to do those same things (if money is necessary), etc, etc. Its about *choice* (like lots of others have been posting about).
3:) Most of the well-known voluntary simplicity writers simply provide a means to help you attain your goal. Dont like certain suggestions that Elaine St. James comes up with? Then ignore them. She won't care. Nobody is by any means suggesting give up everything and move to the woods and live in solitude (Thoreau didn't even do that. Even when he was living in the small cabin at Walden he returned to town when the fancy struck him. He wasn't stupid).
If you read the well-known and respected authors of voluntary simplicity works you will see that it is the best way for everyone to live because it means that everyone will be living the life they *choose* to live and simply aren't catering to the media...or for that matter trying to keep up with the Joneses.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
Technology is a lot like code. You start out with a simple idea and build upon it. In the process you find more and more you want to add untill it becomes somewhat cluttered. You then refine it down to a point where it is most usefull(Something MicroSoft hasn't seemed to grasp yet). Yes there will always be new unrefined technology. But just like good code in the longrun it gets refined to a point where it becomes more useful than the original.
The problem is that it takes us a while to figure exactly what we want to refine. We want it all, but we want to be able to use it easily too. Some times we figure this out the hard way by wasteing time untill we get fed up with it. Some times we develop new technology that does the job instead.
It is an endless circle, but in the long run it isn't all that bad.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
It's not just the cranks and the Luddites sounding the alarm any more. There are hordes or serious-minded people insisting that runaway computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm Umm..... is it just me or is this totally backwards? It seems that there are just more people becoming Luddites... who were once serious-minded people. People whine and complain about technology, being permanantly connected, etc. But what they don't realize is that IT HAS AN OFF SWICH SO USE IT! You can't do that with non-technological things. --- "Progress is the God of the Machine"
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
Some others have pointed out that you don't have to use technology just because it's there. That's very true. Just because the library has thousands of books, doesn't mean you need to read them all. Libraries didn't bring about the fall of civilization, technology won't either. I believe what we are seeing now with technology and modern gadgets is an experimental "dating" stage. People are interested in all the new gadgets because they are new and exciting, like a first date. Once you get familiar with the technology (or the person you are dating) you begin to realize you don't have to be with them every second of every day. You later realize you don't WANT to be with them every second of every day. That doesn't mean you throw it all away. It just means you learn to live, and settle down. I personally believe people and technology are heading for a long and happy "marriage".
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
Geez, two hours to scan 500 channels? That's, like, 15 seconds per channel... you've seriously got to learn how to surf, buddy. Why, back in my day, I could surf 100 channels per minute! With my eyes closed! While I was on fire! With no remote! Uphill in the snow both ways!
--- I'm goin' Dirtside, Ma!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
People have been complaining for ages that society is getting to hectic and that the rate of new inovations are too rapid. It's nothing new. And you know what? So far we've managed to keep our society working.
Those that cannot keep up with the pace are not the ones that are interesting. They are about to retire anyway. The younger generation are used to the fast paced lifestyle that is needed. Guess what? This is a good thing - out with the old and in with the new!
>Arthur C. Clarke writes "I have seen the future>and it doesn't work."
He has also written; I've seen lots of naked preteen boys, and it makes me feel hot all over.
W S B
WSB
I personally find that with an increase in information and 'stuff to do' also comes with an increase in the ability to pare down what you want. thake slashdot for example. after work I come and bring up the site, puruse the headlines and blurbs. if something midly strikes my intrest I bring up the comments, if more so, I actually look at the article. this to me is highly individualistic. or take mp3's for example. I can copy exact songs from my cd's into different playlists, (no more switching cd's every 5 minutes.) before mp3's we had blank tapes. I like the look of a pda, and I'd lvoe to own a palm pilot, but I don't. why? because I don't need one because it is not suited to me and what I need. technology will run rampant on you if you don't take control of it. knowledge equals power, and knowledge feeds off of itself.
metalgeek
metalgeek
windows, just another pane in the glass
It's because of Microsoft's scheme to take over the world. They only recently introduced this in their new Office software, because the other scheme, the Y2K bug, will probably fail...
/.)
Seriously, the M$ programs used in making the text don't use ASCII or Unicode, but a proprietary (don't you all hate that word) character set, which has the apostrophes at other values. Only people using M$ OSes (and browsers?) will see the text correctly.
See also: Demoronizer (search on
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
So you looked anyway? Well, the ?'s (or should that be ??s) are there on purpose.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Maybe you aren't using the latest bugs...?
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Try Zen.
Gleick's book looks like a book on the Internet and computing for people who do not understand it, as his first book was for dynamical systems and chaos. That's fine, but limited, as we all know. Also, there is a strong undercurrent of Luddite FUD that is troubling./ o/qid=938447321/sr=8-1/002-9140550-28280 60
I found the reviews on the Amazon site to be pretty amusing
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679408371
The post by Katz is an interesting mix of good and bad ideas. There are valid points (mostly stuff you could glean from The Design of Everyday Things). There is a bunch of Luddite hyperbole (the 22 hour info-glutton's day).
There is also a huge mismatch between the bogus catchword 'Cyberclysm' with what these folks are describing. A Cyberclysm is when the computers start opening a can of whoop-ass on us. This is more like 'Cybernausea' or 'Cyberschmertz' (although 'Cyber'-anything is firmly on the 'avoid' list by now).
Personally, I find people's ridiculous ideas for gadgets to be a great source of amusement (that sampling toilet - Ewwwww). I keep thinking these guys at Sun are not too far from Project Grizzly when they talk about putting Java in my toaster...
Firstly: "There are hordes of serious-minded people who insist that computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm, when humanity becomes overwhelmed as it tries and fails to cope with the number, complexity, speed and nature of the things we make."
Humanity? How are we defining that here? I'd like to bring up the point that there are countries who don't have Y2K problems because they don't even have computer chips in use anywhere. Maybe I'm more aware of this than others because I live in a fairly rural area, but technology hasn't infiltrated the entire sum of human experience on the planet (yet).
Secondly: "Technology has a mind, life and direction all of its own. It's inherently uncontrollable, even if anybody was up to trying."
Perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding what this is trying to say, but it strikes me as ridiculous! "Inherently uncontrollable"? I have to disagree! While the products of technology can be unreliable (as can everything else in the physical world), technology itself isn't some weird anthropomorphic force with a will and mind of its own. I think an attitude like that contributes simply reduces trust in technological developments. Technology is simply a tool of human kind; it is only as good, bad, or unpredictable as we make it. What? We didn't realize that the atom bomb could cause such massive and unsuspected destruction when we first developed them? Oops-- chalk that up to a failure by human beings to fully study the repercussions of such technology. Let's not project human traits onto things that don't deserve it.
Thirdly: "Perhaps the idea that there are people who keep up with all this stuff is in itself a technological myth."
Of course it is! Who COULD? A human being can't even visit all of the exhibits in the Smithsonian Museum, much less absorb even just the useful information available through the Net. This is a notion I've never bought into anyway.
Finally: However, this article also doesn't allow for something humans are extremely adept at: adaptation! We've created a new environment for ourselves with technology; so what? We are an intelligent, changeable species. We have the ability to survive in changing conditions. The technology we are creating is part of our evolution. Yes, there are forces we've unleashed that are beyond our immediate control. But there are better solutions than running around in circles waving arms over our heads and screaming. The people who will out-survive their own technology will be the ones who face it calmly, rationally, and using those big lumps of grey matter nature gave us. "That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices"; yes, we have those two choices, but we also have OTHERS in ADDITION to that!!
-ARJ
"Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product."
-Ferenc Mantfeld
> necessarily harmless, not necessarily necessary, and should be used only
> after careful consideration.
Consideration by whom, is the question in this case. I don't know how the Amish do it, I expect they have a counsel of elders or so (someone have more information on this?)
I prefer that the individual makes a choice. Only in severe cases should society make a choice. That's what laws are about. I think most people manage quite well on their own.
What I myself would connect to "cyberclysm" is the fragility of the technology we apply. Consider the Y2K drama during these days. I don't think there will be much happening, however it points out that society - worldwide - is getting more vulnerable.
Computers are supergood at processing knowledge, but they are pretty bad when it comes to storing it. Do you expect your backup tapes to be readable 20 years from now? Yes? Will you still have a tape drive supporting that format? Maybe not.
The big library of Alexandria was burnt down 400 A.D. and, everything being on paper, went with it. What followed was 1000 years of medieval darkness until mankind rediscorvered what was lost.
The Greek knew 500 B.C. that the world was heliocentric (so much to Galileo).
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This article assumes that we have not freedom of choice...whether we choose to use it or not, there is the question. When we learn to question a particular technology and assess whether it is right for us, then we have whipped the CyberBeasty. Does the average person NEED a home computer? Probably not. Does the average person NEED a cell phone? A pager? A PDA? etc. etc. I just got a cell phone because it made communications with my wife much easier, we both work and are busy with extra-curricular activities, and in June & July, I lost count of how many times it would have made life easier to have a cell phone to call her and other people. So I broke down and got a free phone one with a reasonable minutes package. I use it more than I expected and certainly for things I don't really need to. But upon evaluation, it has been a worth while addition to my techno-clutter. The cyberclysm will not occur if we remember what it is that the device is supposed to help with and if we actually need help with that task. That and if we can keep from trying to "keep up with the Joneses." Shaken
Actually, there's a valuable lesson to be gleaned from this:Use the right tools. If I had a basic 1-gallon pitcher, the entire process would have been grossly simplified. I wonder who many of the 'problems' with technology are due to people using screwdrivers as hammers, metaphorically speaking?
By the way, when I am in the mood to cook, I make a pretty good General Tso's Chicken. Nyeah. But the point is, I don't have to. Technology gives us choices...cook a meal, nuke a meal, order a pizza. If some people can't handle those choices...nuts to them.
Luddites are, basically, parasites, and ought to be denied such things as vaccinations, glasses, sterile medical instruments, and other'complex' things. (Sale, quoted in Katz' article, whines about computers and loves his old manual tyepwriter. Apparently he believes a machine with thousands of precision-engineered moving parts grew on the typewriter tree. Let's see him write his rants with a quill pen.)
Technology is neutral - it's how it's used that makes the difference. Sure, some people will spend 14 hours surfing the web aimlessly - and others won't. They'll go out and smell the roses, go hiking, stare out into the wild reaches of space every night, watching the thousands of satellites speed by.
:-)
Tell me, why, if tv and the web and email are going to overwhelm us, why hasn't it happened? Why do seemingly normal people otherwise ride bicycles to work when cars are so handy, climb mountains when there's nothing else to see except the wild blue yonder? Why have a garden, or pot plants, when they do nothing but create muddy rings on the linoleum?
It's because while there are those that are stuck to their computer screens 31,536,000 seconds a year, there are those that ignore who Sarah Michelle Geller is sleeping with at the moment, those who ignore the fact that Nokia has come out with a mobile phone that you can use underwater and feed your pets at the same time, those who ignore what Bill Clinton is pontificating about at one of his numerous speeches.
Those who ignore the information, who control it, will come to have power over those that don't. Think of it as evolution in action.
Chief Prosecutor
Advocacy Department
The infocalypse is a bit like Brazil. (paraphrased quote: "Brazil is and always will be the country of the future.") It's the underachiever of the doomsday prophesies.
The nature of the exponential growth of tech is that tech begets tech. Similarly, tech helps us to deal with tech. People had a hard time dealing with the industrial revolution, which had a much slower pace. How can it be that we are managing to keep up with the extraordinarily fast paced information revolution? I believe that socialization has changed to better equip us to deal with change, and in addition that much of the tech we have been creating helps us to filter information. Information technologies may in fact be a tremendous boon to us as we face later revolutions. We will have the tools to deal with an ever increasing amount of information.
Last time we had a really big depression back in the twenties, industry and agriculture wasn't nearly as interdependent as it is now. Is it possible to have a depression so bad that we fall _through_ the floor and just keep falling? Because you can't plough the fields because the plough making factory can't operate because it can't get the parts for its robots and the robot manafacturer's workers are on strike because there's no food in the shops because... and so on. One hundred years ago it may still have been possible to do things from scratch, but now we've lost that kind of basic knowledge. How many of us would be able to create steel from iron ore? Given a crisis so bad there's no electricity so you can't look it up on the Web!
JonKatz doesn't seem to realize that he is one of the Luddites that he refers to. The luddite mantra gets repeated endlessly, and its all the more pathetic when the current generation thinks its revelations are new. What JonKatz is really espousing is elitism. He thinks that he and a few other "serious minded people" are more qualified than us, the unwashed masses, to determine what technology we need or should be allowed to have. Witness: "One add blanketing commercial TV touts new wireless phone technology that will allow people to get their e-mail, weather and sports scores instantly from anywhere. Does anybody really need to be that wired?" The answer is, for many individuals, yes, or they wouldn't shell out their money for it and there wouldn't be a market.