GREAT ESSAY on y2ktoday

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Please take a look at a great essay we're running on our site, Digital Totems: The Blind Faith of the Computer Age. It's by John Ainsworth, an undergrad at Wake Forest University. He's a friend of "Matt the Smart College Kid" who wrote the essay on Cory Hamasaki's WRP # 116. I found this essay as part of a longer one out on the Web; he polished it a bit and we put it up. Good food for thought...

Scott Johnson
Editor,
y2ktoday

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 30, 1999

Answers

Midway through the essay he states that "Nobody doubts computers."

Uhhh.... What planet is this person living on?

-- must be (a@glitch.somewhere), April 30, 1999.


"Must be," I'm not sure that should be taken literally. I think he's referring more to a general attitude in this era that computers run things, and if they make a mistake, it's an exception to a very comfortable rule. "Nobody doubts computers" in the sense that we don't question the automated nature of our silicon society, and we accept mistakes and glitches that we wouldn't accept from other machines. Ever gotten caught in an argument with a bank rep who won't concede that their systems have made a mistake? We've accepted the hegemony of automation as a byproduct of greatly increased efficiency.

just my opinion... scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 30, 1999.


Scott, If you haven't ever read "The Trouble With Computers" you should check it out from the library. I'm probably spelling it wrong, but the author is Thomas Landauer.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 30, 1999.

I thought your site was fairly realistic until I read this essay. Now I'm not so sure.

I agree with the "nobody doubts computers" remark by "must be" above. I am in tech. support. I get people telling me they doubt computers every day.

This is obviously a talented young man. However, the "golem" reference sounds a bit too much like the "false idol" ideas of Gary North.

-- Doomslayer (1@2.3), April 30, 1999.


Here's another cute essay doubting computers, from NetFuture:

Couch Potatoes Feeling Oppressed at M.I.T.
------------------------------------------
Not to pick on M.I.T. (see article on the Media Lab in NF #87), but....
In yet another high-cost, high-profile attack on the future, the M.I.T. Laboratory of Computer Science has kicked off a "ubiquitous computing" project called Project Oxygen. It's the usual stuff: networked chips in walls, doors, cars, refrigerators, and all the rest -- in other words, Bill Gates' house for the masses. But what caught my eye in the New York Times story about this project were two comments by laboratory director Michael Dertouzos: ** "Our overarching goal is to enable people to do more by doing less." It is remarkable that someone could make such an empty statement and not immediately feel compelled to apologize for it. What are these multiplying activities we are filling our lives up with by doing "less" of them? How satisfying will they be in their own right? And what are we sacrificing along with those earlier activities Dertouzos would have us give up? You haven't said anything until you at least begin to answer such questions. One way or another we will spend our time doing things. In exchanging activities we were previously content to do more of for activities we now prefer to do less of, we ought to inquire about the nature of the bargain we are striking -- all the more so when we see our lives filling up with multiplying, decontextualized activities on the "less" side of the ledger. ** Again from Dertouzos: "We want to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of `going to the computer'." The idea is that the computer will be all around us -- everywhere -- and so we won't be bothered with going to it. Ah, liberty! Picture it to yourselves: this is a man for whom the idea of tyranny has contracted to the burden of getting to his computer. We've come a long way from "No taxation without representation"! Even if one's tunnel vision must be restricted to the computer, can't one at least begin to look for the real risks of oppression it poses -- the risks lying, for example, in the subjection of more and more of our lives to the fixed patterns of logic embedded in all those networked chips? Deliverance from "the tyranny of going to the computer" -- and you imagined that professors at prestigious universities spent their time helping students to think large thoughts!


-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2.y), April 30, 1999.


Doomslayer, give me a break. It's an essay. Do we have to post a disclaimer on an essay? You honestly think an editorial reflects the caliber or credibility of our site? IMHO, he raises excellent points, regardless of whether you agree with that particular line or not.

Again, I don't think he was being literal. It's not a matter of whether people doubt individual computers. When you've got a mistake on your bank statement, the burden of proof is on you to prove the computer is wrong.

When he said "nobody doubts computers," think of it as "computers plural"... in general, their invasion into everyday routine has been so seamless that it is accepted as right and natural. IMHO, of course...

Scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 30, 1999.


OK, Scott, I'll give you a break. But "our golem may die" ???

But my advice is for y2ktoday.com to stick to the news and the issues.

-- Doomslayer (1@2.3), April 30, 1999.


Doomslaymaster: point taken. We did struggle a bit over the wording of that last line. But I still think the metaphor is a basically apt one.

As for sticking to the news and issues, we do and we will. But I find it odd that you are so put off by an opinionated essay which DOES deal with issues (maybe not the ones you care about, but I think they are Y2K issues). Do you object to newspaper editorials (clearly marked as such) and syndicated columns? I just changed the title to clearly read "editorial." Now that this has been done, I would like to know if it still bothers you. scott

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 30, 1999.


cheer up Doomy...you'll get the hang of the depressed, manual, low tech future in no time. Like about 8 months.

-- a (a@a.a), April 30, 1999.

Boy---I doubt computers! Had one of the above mentioned arguments with atlanta gas light last summer. all of a sudden one day I get a bill for 91$ at an address I never lived at, and the bill is like 8 years old! I've been paying regular for like almost 14 years now off and on to these guys. sose I call up, and no matter how far up the foodchain I get connected to, the bottom line was "you HAVE to pay this bill or you get shut off". So, I look into converting over my city gas appliances to propane, and getting a large tank, and it's more than 91$ so I just ATE it. Really whizzed me off, too. I got full equipped propane in the camper, but this was too much--their *&^%$$#g computer INSISTED that I pay it. I think this is gonna be even above the tip of the ice berg, if it's only a moderate crash(not that I believe so). Folks accounts with everything is gonna be so screwed up it'll be just a complete disaster. Phooie. Glad I'm leaving now, getting fully setup 100% off-grid, which also means 100% bill's in the mail free, too............

-- zog (zog@avana.net), April 30, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ