Arthur Cordell wrote:
On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Thomas Lunde wrote:
snip, snip, snip.....
> I do not think our solution will come from industrialists or from
> politicians. I think our solution will come from re-educating the public
to
> think of what they want and then to demand that in a way that those in
power
> become powerless to refuse. That education can come from a disaster or it
> can come from frustration with the inequalities of the present situation.
How does this happen? The re-educators have to have legitimacy.
Where do they 'teach', how are they paid, why will anyone listen
to them.
Like Eva's answer, I'm sorry if I misled you Arthur, the re-educating I
think will happen will not happen in the classroom, it will happen from
several other sources. The primary one is experience. There are now
millions of Canadian workers who will never allow a corporation to hold
their loyalties like they once did. Downsize me once and I will be prepared
the next time or even better, I will feel much more free to move when
opportunity becomes available. The stock market is another, as it cycles
through it's attempts at rebalancing, it will cause many to lose and few to
gain. The weather is another, have you heard of El Nino - what do you think
the cost of El Nino will be worldwide in lives, lost crops, ecological
damage, emergency government aid, insurance costs for property and life. Jay
Hanson's information on impending fuel shortages. Nuclear power phase out
with no adequate replacement. The millennium bug. The current welfare
system is another - people who have been self sufficient all their lives are
having the experience of standing in welfare lines. The Internet which
brings everyone's problems to everyone else, instantaneously. Secondly, new
ideas are loose on the land. The Newtonian physics model is dead, it's just
taking a little time to carry the body away. Capitalism is showing major
cracks that were deferred by the cold war, it's like Henry George's Land
Rents in economic thinking, or our idea of a Basic Income, Proportional
voting,, a cashless society. The Internet through your TV set, instant
access for everyone. This kind of learning is going on in everyone's life
and people listen because it is their experience.
The change needed is profound. So profound that I have trouble
finding a place to start (this especially now when children are being
taught computer skills in kindergarten so they can become part of the new
'educated' workforce.)
I too rant at seeing my daughters being trained to use a day timer. I am
consoled by the fact that no permanent harm will be done because daytimers
will probably become obsolete in the kind of society that will exist in 20
years. We are in the middle of a great cultural change. From the centre of
the whirlpool, facing death momentarily, it is very hard to objectively plan
the future, explain the present or learn from a past that is increasingly
irrelevant. The business community at the moment enjoys the strength that
the nobility did in 15, 16 and 17th century Europe. No one then could
foresee what would happen in the 18th, 19th and 20 th centuries except that
the nobility has become very scarce and ineffective. Similar unforeseen
changes will happen soon or are happening now.
Education no longer happens in schools, by the time a teacher learns it,
writes about it and teaches it, it is already obsolete. Most of the noise
about a University education will, I predict, turn out to be redundant. In
a few years, we will walk around with a voice activated data bank that will
provide us any answer we can think of the question too. Education as we
know it, the learning of facts and techniques will be obsolete. The real
education will be learning how to ask the question. Our personal tutor will
be able to assist us in fixing the washing machine, get the latest
statistics on juvenile crime in regards to shoplifting and tell us of the
ten most effective treatment programs as quickly as we can listen to the
answer. In detailing a specific incident, it can provide us with advice,
ask for more information, connect us to someone with that particular
expertise in real time - no more appointments, research, or points of view.
If the expert requires a visual, we will be able to digitize sound and video
to provide remote viewing. Think of the cell phone - a dream ten years ago.
Think of the fax machine, an impossible technological challenge 15 years
ago. Think of the photocopier - it solved an incredible problem thirty
years ago. More and more we are carrying the world with us - we don't have
to go to the world.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
PS Just note on this small list in the last week, about how a question from
Jim Dator re automation provided three book titles, some intelligent
commentary and some anecdotal experience. How long would it have taken Jim
to get the same information in 1960?
