>From Newscan (details below)
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WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE WAY WE ARE CHANGING
Hans Moravec, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University,
thinks that the world is getting ahead of its inhabitants:
"Today, as our machines approach human competence across the board,
our stone-age biology and our information-age lives grow ever more
mismatched. Work in the developed countries has become increasingly
specialized and esoteric, and it now often takes a graduate degree,
representing half a working lifetime of sustained learning, to master the
necessary unnatural skills. As societal roles become yet more complex,
specialized, and far removed from our inborn predispositions, they require
increasing years of rehearsal to master, while providing fewer visceral
rewards. The essential functions of a technical society elude the
understanding of an increasing fraction of the population. Even the most
successful individuals often find their work boring, difficult, unnatural,
and unsatisfying, more like a sustained circus performance than a real
life. Caffeine substitutes for natural adrenaline. Those original
activities that do remain--eating and child raising, for instance--are
often squeezed by the strange new tasks. The mismatch between instinct and
necessity induces alienation in the midst of unprecedented physical plenty.
"By the standards of our inherited tribal psychology, we are sick and
crazy. Physically, however, we are healthier and live longer than ever, and
we have vastly more options in every sphere of activity. Few city-dwellers
would be prepared to adopt the circumscribed life in a stone-age forest
village, despite uneasiness with their own. On the contrary, much of the
third world is rushing to overcome its physical problems by adopting the
patterns of the developed nations ...The urbanized, meanwhile, have devised
substitutes for some tribal experiences, for instance, churches and other
social organizations that bring together village-sized groups with a common
sense of purpose, a shared experience, a defining mythology, and uniform
behavioral expectations. Others find release in competitive sports (very
like tribal wars), outdoor vacations, or even backyard barbecues. Some
business trips resemble mammoth-hunting forays but lack the scenery, quiet
stalks, and satisfying physical marksmanship--and a golfing weekend fills
the void. But, as the pace, diversity, and global geographic
interconnectedness of life continues to increase, even such occasional
imitations of our ancestors' lifestyles are crowded out and may be becoming
less satisfying. The world is rushing away from our ancestral roots ever
faster, stretching the limits of both our biological and institutional
adaptability."
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195136306/newsscancom/ Hans
Moravec's "Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind." (We donate all
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)
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