----- Original Message -----
From: "Julian Leviston" <[email protected]>
To: "Fundamentals of New Computing" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 9:11 AM
Subject: Re: [fonc] goals
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.
<snip, cooking>
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.
-->
agreed.
something as trivial as being able to look stuff up on Wikipedia, or do Web
searches via Google, does make things a lot easier. computers also make it a
lot easier to externalize a lot of ones' memory, so one need not remember
everything, but can instead re-fetch information as it is needed, and then
know things, or at least until they forget them again.
granted though, maybe there is a cost here, like there is reason one
"should" go and memorize lots of stuff, but it is easier to leave them in an
external form, and usually one is not adversely effected.
<--
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.
-->
agreed...
I went into a slight bit of a rant on this one.
but, yeah, I have been using computers fairly intensively since I was fairly
young (10 or so...).
if I were not so much into computers, who would I have ended up being?...
maybe I would have been someone other than some computer nerd who never
really gets anything useful done (like learning how to drive or operate
independently, or getting a job, ...), or would maybe find a girlfriend or
similar (yep, no dating in around 8 years now...).
but, alas, I don't know...
maybe all would have been the same, and I would have just pursued some of my
other past interests (like math or science or similar), but then again, I
have seen the egotism and pretension of many of these people, so maybe it is
a good thing that I am a programmer.
then again, I have also noted how terribly poor my math skills are (if
around people who are actually skilled at math), so maybe in such a world I
would have been like "oh well, whatever" and gone and just done something
else.
<--
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.
-->
agreed...
<--
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.
-->
dunno. never really been much into languages personally.
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