On 09/07/2010, at 1:44 AM, John Zabroski wrote: > I personally do not believe technology actually improves lives. Usually, it > is the opposite. Technology creates instant gratification and addiction to > it thereof, and the primary reason we are so addicted to technology is > because we have become so empty inside. > > For me, new computing is about putting yourself directly in the pathway of > the consequences of your actions. Do not invent technology if you are > unwilling to do this. Otherwise, you will ultimately influence, but never > produce, anything worth getting truly excited about. You'll just end up > making society more empty than it already is. > > Cheers, > Z-Bo
One of the primarily useful things that technology does for me is the dissemination of knowledge. Without this dissemination, I'd find it very hard to get the information I enjoy using and consuming regularly. Let me tell you a story to illustrate this... The other day I wanted to cook a roast lamb. I'd never done it before. This was about six months ago. I found the knowledge I needed very quickly on the internet. I think it took roughly ten minutes to find out how to cook a lamb roast by cross-correlating various recipes that i found. I've been cooking for quite a long time, but I've also been doing other things for quite a long time and I've become rather good at a few of them. One of the first of them was a martial art I started when I was about 16 years old. Now, because I UNDERSTAND a lot of this martial art to its core, I can abstract that understanding into knowledge of how to be and how to do various things well. If you like, I can take the skill of being that I know in that martial art, and apply it to something else... say, cooking. Without the internet and iPhone and wireless router and computers and various other pieces of technology (stove, electricity, lights for example) at my disposal, I'd find it very very hard to do the same roast. My dad is a little bit of a connoisseur of roast lamb, and he's eaten in many restaurants. He told me last week that I make the best roast lamb that he's ever eaten. So I put it to you that knowledge and information dissemination through technology is an incredibly powerful and useful thing. I'd dare to say it improves lives. It has improved my life immeasurably. However... (and this is a big however) your post made me quite agitated for a few minutes, andI think that this was mostly because people do not take the time to learn (at least) one skill very very well and this is a point I think you're trying to make here... the addiction to information technology can happen at a young age. I was only allowed two or three hours of computer usage per week until I was 14 years old. This meant that I maximised my computing use in the time I had to use. I'm incredibly proficient at using computers, but I do so from a wealth of knowledge of being. I don't get lost in computers. I rather use them to focus and propel my efforts. I do tend to think that perhaps this part of my story isn't all that common these days, irrespective of whether we're talking about computers or not. But I also think that technology is inescapably important in terms of the improvements to accelerating quantities and improving efficiencies that are possible when it comes to learning things; especially when it comes to minimising frustration. I know that frustration is a useful quality every now and then especially when it comes to growing in some skill, but I don't see why we need hamper ourselves from achieving whatever it is we'd like to achieve. For example, I'd really like to learn to speak and understand at least twenty human languages. My plan is to build systems that allow the accelerated learning of these languages. Perhaps I'm insane. I hope not. I know what I want to achieve is difficult, but I also can see a path towards it, so hopefully it's achievable. In the process, I also hope to build a system which allows its own transcendence in terms of facilitating all kinds of learning, because I really hope that our current methods of learning things aren't "all we have"... they totally suck. Thoughtfully, Julian. _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
