[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >From Newscan (details below)
>
> ======================
>
> 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,
I am reminded here of something my teacher John Wild wrote in the
early 1960s, about the craftsman who, when he compares his abilities
to those of advanced precision machinery "hides his pudgy hands in shame".
[snip]
> Even the most
> successful individuals often find their work boring, difficult, unnatural,
> and unsatisfying, more like a sustained circus performance than a real
> life.
Certainly in the computer world, some persons do a "high wire" act
without a net all day, conjuring up the next killer app, while
vastly greater numbers toil at "programming", which, although
it is highly abstract-formalized, certainly bears no resemblance to the
delights of a pre-Renaissance God (Aristotle's, e.g.) contemplating
ideas or the empyrean.
As Joseph Weizenbaum said ca. 25 years ago, there has been no
computer *revolution*, if by "revolution" one understands substantive
changes in social relations. One might as well speak of "the
automobile revolution"....
[snip]
> The mismatch between instinct and
> necessity induces alienation in the midst of unprecedented physical plenty.
On National Public Radio All Things Considered this evening, an
energy expert said that each American consumes energy equivalent
to having 100 slaves -- surely no real slaveholders in history
ever derived as little real leisured delectation from their
"power"....
[snip]
> Some
> business trips resemble mammoth-hunting forays but lack the scenery, quiet
> stalks, and satisfying physical marksmanship--and a golfing weekend fills
> the void.
This surely is too modest: Some business trips more resemble
cannibals' head-hunts! (Alain Resnais film _Mon Oncle d'Amerique_
captured this powerfully, along with an analysis of the
"civilization and its discontents" angle, too.)
[snip]
Just one person's e-marginalia....
"Yours in discourse..."
+\brad mcormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
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