"most of that technology is making people dumber: It is teaching them how to assemble massive amounts of information...without simultaneously teaching them how to assemble those bits of information into integrated bodies of knowledge"
Is he saying that information technology, of all mediums, is creating a passive society? one in which we sit dumbly and accept whatever programming someone in control thinks we want? Has he completely missed the point of the control that IT gives to the consumer? the otherwise powerless couch potato? The whole concept that everyone with a desire, is a publisher of content? yep, no-one holds your hand online and makes sure you 'get' it. no-one makes excuses for those who truly have nothing to contribute in any one forum. there is no one madated to teaching the old dogs new tricks. The end is nigh.
"information technology bombards us so constantly with entertainment and marketing that quiet, objective consideration of our fate often becomes impossible."
you mean he can't find the close button on his browser? the off button on his tv? c'mon. anyone with such a passive attitude towards liberty and free will deserves to be a marketing department's marionette.
"This leads to a society in which each member is increasingly concerned with the satisfaction of his or her own material appetites, and less and less concerned with the philosophical problems and principles that underlie the successful creation and maintenance of a civil society"
Yep, information technology, the wonder by which marketing noise has -failed- to produce returns - by which philosophical and technical debates have exactly equal presence and footing with the superbowl - is to blame for our obvious lost sight of the prize.
We are all worse off for having invented the wheel. Why when we had to carry rocks on our backs - it made us strong. This wheel is going to make us all weaker, and then we won't be able to defend ourselves from the big nasty teeth and fangs of the wild animals. We will be left to the whims of things bigger than ourselves. Wheels are a bad idea. This single tool will be our downfall.
I have no idea where he makes his disjointed congnitive leap from digital liberty to infernal dystopia... his logic and fear astound me. But i guess someone has to try to argue with George Orwell's fear of big brother right?
Slashdot Mirror
"most of that technology is making people dumber: It is teaching them how to assemble massive amounts of information...without simultaneously teaching them how to assemble those bits of information into integrated bodies of knowledge"
Is he saying that information technology, of all mediums, is creating a passive society? one in which we sit dumbly and accept whatever programming someone in control thinks we want? Has he completely missed the point of the control that IT gives to the consumer? the otherwise powerless couch potato? The whole concept that everyone with a desire, is a publisher of content? yep, no-one holds your hand online and makes sure you 'get' it. no-one makes excuses for those who truly have nothing to contribute in any one forum. there is no one madated to teaching the old dogs new tricks. The end is nigh.
"information technology bombards us so constantly with entertainment and marketing that quiet, objective consideration of our fate often becomes impossible."
you mean he can't find the close button on his browser? the off button on his tv? c'mon. anyone with such a passive attitude towards liberty and free will deserves to be a marketing department's marionette.
"This leads to a society in which each member is increasingly concerned with the satisfaction of his or her own material appetites, and less and less concerned with the philosophical problems and principles that underlie the successful creation and maintenance of a civil society"
Yep, information technology, the wonder by which marketing noise has -failed- to produce returns - by which philosophical and technical debates have exactly equal presence and footing with the superbowl - is to blame for our obvious lost sight of the prize.
We are all worse off for having invented the wheel. Why when we had to carry rocks on our backs - it made us strong. This wheel is going to make us all weaker, and then we won't be able to defend ourselves from the big nasty teeth and fangs of the wild animals. We will be left to the whims of things bigger than ourselves. Wheels are a bad idea. This single tool will be our downfall.
I have no idea where he makes his disjointed congnitive leap from digital liberty to infernal dystopia... his logic and fear astound me. But i guess someone has to try to argue with George Orwell's fear of big brother right?