----- Original Message ----- From: John Zabroski To: Fundamentals of New Computing Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 8:44 AM Subject: Re: [fonc] goals
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. hmm, I would have thought technology would have been more about things like productivity, ... rather than the emotional status of its users. it is like, one can measure productivity in various ways: getting products to market; speed at which tasks can be performed; the net profits of a company; ... subjective concerns are much more difficult to measure, and typically much more fluid in nature, and so would likely normally be assumed not to exist (well, unless you are in marketting or similar, at which point it is about giving society the emotion you want them to have: the desire to buy this new and shiny product...). really, in some sense, emotions are not too much different than the products being sold, like sell the product, and sell these feelings associated with the product. then make more and sell them later, and the consumers remain happy (and probably the corporate higher-ups as well, assuming profits remain good, ...). although one can just ignore the matter of whether or not feelings actually exist, and what (if anything) they are, and for the most part one is not really any worse off. like, if the world was without feeling, but in nearly all other ways the same (assume no dystopic goverments or other such changes), what would be the likely effect? maybe no one would notice or care, "business as usual", although it might impact interpersonal interactions/... I don't really know though. in terms of measures of productivity, technology has likely notably improved society vs in the past. this can be inferred partly from the fact that technology actually rose to dominance, whereas if it were not useful in this regard, likely it would not have done so. similarly the lifespan and quality of living tends to be higher in 1st-world nations than in 3rd-world nations, ... however, morals, ... would seem to be degraded in industrialized nations (note the widespread prevelance of promiscuity, gays, gangs and violence, ...), so this may be a cost associated with industrialization (although there is not any obvious reason why one would lead to the other). this may also be a cost of urbanization though, I don't know. or such...
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