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The Coming Cyberclysm - Part One
from the armageddon-is-coming dept.
There are hordes of serious-minded people who insist that computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm, when humanity becomes overwhelmed as it tries and fails to cope with the number, complexity, speed and nature of the things we make.
Even now, nobody can really keep up, and only a few can even fake it. Everyone is frantic, stressed, tethered, broke or worn out trying to manage. We are bombarded by inventions and advances we might not need or understand, that move more quickly and do more things than we want, that we can barely grasp, let alone service or repair.
The complaints and alarms are piling up.
Author James Gleick in "Faster" complains that technology is forcing everything to move too quickly. In his new collection of essays, Arthur C. Clarke writes "I have seen the future and it doesn't work."
The typical twenty-first-century person's day, he predicts, will include: "Skimming five hundred channel program listings, two hours; viewing television programs selected, four hours; catching up on recorded programs, six hours; exploring the hyperweb, six hours; and adventuring in artificial reality, four hours." He didn't even mention checking e-mail, answering fax-spewing and stock-listing cellphones, or responding to pagers and beepers.
Neo-Luddite Kirkpatrick Sale goes further, warning in his books that technology is destroying the world. He wants us to smash our computers to save the planet.
In his apocalyptic new dirge "Staring Into Chaos," author Bruce Brander proclaims that western civilization itself is coming to an end.
The term Ubiquitous Computing is technological historian Langdon Winner's, who in Netfuture Issue No. 94 [http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/1999/Sep1499_94.html#33], warns that society is drowning in a wave of absurd and unnecessary appliances and electronics, continuously and wastefully cranked out by some of the best minds alive.
Winner, a critic of the Wired-era hype about the Internet and networked computing, exults in what he perceives as a growing realization that Ubiquitous Computing isn't making life simpler or better, but harder, more expensive and chaotic:
"Simplify. Save time. Reduce effort. Liberate yourself from toil. This has been the continuing siren song of consumer technology through the twentieth century. Unfortunately, in its own terms, the dream is always self-defeating. As people add more and more time-saving, labor-saving equipment to their homes, their lives do not become simpler and easier. Instead their days become even more complicated, demanding and rushed."
A disclaimer here : I don't share Winner's summary view of computing. For me, appliances, hardware and software are the least interesting aspects of technology. For me, the siren song would be: Speak and Think Freely. Connect. Learn, and Share What You Learn. Then learn and share more. Grow. For me, this promise has been fulfilled, a thousand times over.
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need. We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful. TV's and sound systems, watches that monitor global time zones, multi-function phones - keep adding features daily, many of them of doubtful necessity to most of the people who buy them. One ad blanketing commercial TV touts new wireless phone technology that will allow people to get their e-mail, weather and sports scores instantly from anywhere. Does anybody really need to be that wired?
Even the most ardent geeks complain that they can never be out of touch, never have time to think, never completely catch up. As the world is able to reach us more easily, it expects us to be always available and more or less instantly responsive. This rushes us and our responses. It makes us edgy, grumpy, impulsive. Technology becomes a means of harassing and pressuring us instead of improving our lives. The genuine blessings of technology - information, opportunity, community, the portability of work - get overlooked in all the gadgetry.
All labor-saving devices don't necessarily improve the quality of life. Autonomous human beings can - and maybe should - take responsibility for the smaller details of life. After all, these labor saving devices require considerable labor: they need installation, adjustment, repairs and replacement - often at considerable time, cost and annoyance. There are enormous ecological consequences as well, to making so much plastic and metal, so many wires and chips.
Newsweek enthused last week, in a gee-whiz cover story about how the Internet is changing our lives, that tomorrow's automatic coffee maker will have access to our online schedule so it can automatically withhold the brew if we're out of town. This is by -now - instantly-recognizable media language of Technohype, computing and technology wrongly presented as a barrage of gizmos with chips that do things we can just as (or more) easily do for ourselves.
But if the laws governing technology are unpredictable, those governing capitalism are unwavering: What is made must be sold and, therefore, hyped.
Such overheated predictions don't evoke the future so much as the past. Remember Walt Disney's Tomorrowland with its notions of intergalactic travel, hover cars, people movers and other things that still don't exist? We may be closer to genetically engineering perfect humans, or even curing cancer, but we still can't cure the cold or come up with a practical battery-powered car, or make computers that don't drive the people using them nuts.
Alas -- according to almost every business or marketing projection, R&D labs will usher in the Millenium by making the creation and sales of info-gadgets and appliances an even greater preoccupation of the next century.
On the East Coast (where I live), in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, one little-noticed consequence of the storm was that power interruption rendered cordless telephones useless even if the phone lines were functioning. Moreover, the flooding of an AT&T installation in New Jersey knocked out hundreds of thousands of cellphones. For a few days, the only phones that worked were the Lo-tech sort, the non-electronic, non-digital kind that plugged into the wall jack, receivers attached to the base with curly cords. That's as apt a metaphor for the coming Cyberclysm as any. Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
Whose responsibility is all this? Nobody's, of course. Technology has a mind, life and direction all of its own. It's inherently uncontrollable, even if anybody was up to trying.
But some of the fault lies in the way our institutions - education, politics, media - deal with technology. We're trapped between two useless states - alarm and euphoria. Either we are railing about pornography, disconnection, and addiction or we are banging the drums for Gee-Whiz Computing that exists much more for its own sake than for our benefit. Like cell phones that receive faxes in taxicabs or 21st century toilets that will monitor the family's health through chemical sampling of fecal matter, or mirrors over bathroom sinks that flash the day's headlines, so nobody in the family has to wait until they get downstairs to get the news, if their wireless phone hasn't already alerted them.
Perhaps the idea that there are people who keep up with all this stuff is in itself a technological myth.
Clarke warns that we're headed for a Cyberclysm (he and others have used the word), a catastrophic collision between computers, technology and humanity. We won't be consumed by evil aliens or runaway AI machines, as sci-fi futurists have long predicted. Instead, we'll conquer ourselves with too much information about too many things and too many appliances performing too many services.
Clarke has written often of the pitfalls of the Dream Machine, the seductive idea that gadgets will run the world and monitor the most intimate details of our lives while we are free to enjoy ourselves.
"There have been many science fiction stories," writes Clarke, "about frantic human attempts to unplug disobedient computers. The real future might involve exactly the opposite scenario. The computers may unplug us." And, he adds: "it would serve us right."
That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices: to fall back with the hare-brained Luddites who want to return to the sylvan forests, or to follow the Techno-Utopians on their runaway CyberBinge.
End Part One.
Tomorrow: Turning to AI computing and the Gods for salvation and survival - Clotho.org.
not saving time? (Score:1)
Has ascii changed? (real ? this time) (Score:1)
Have a little faith in people, already (Score:2)
Look at the mess we made of the early industrial age, with heavily polluted cities and children working in factories and mines. We figured out what was wrong and fixed it, and we'll do it again.
Sure, we'll make some mistakes, including some really big, nasty ones, and a lot of little silly ones. But we'll learn and we'll adjust.
Um, this sounds more like addiction: (Score:2)
This sounds more alarmist than anything else, in my opinion. There are people that do this kind of thing today -- browse the web for hours on end, watch way too much television, IRC and MU* all damn day. These kind of people generally don't amount to much, though. They certainly aren't -- and, I think, won't become -- "typical". I don't envision a world filled with unwashed, television-and-computer-addicted losers, at least not any more so than it's been for the past forty years.
Heck, the typical people of the 21st century would be the ones working 8 hours a day, just as they do now, so the addicts they come home to can sit in front of their TVs and computers. Addicts generally don't have jobs (how could they, if they spend, apparently, 22 hours watching TV and browsing "the hyperweb"?). Typical people of the 21st century will be the same as they are now, only older.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Great minds? (Score:1)
John's Missing the point (Score:1)
People settings themselves up to decide what is good for the rest of us.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I get VERY concerned when a do-gooder / neo-luddite / congress-critter wants to decide what technology is "good" - what I can use (or even invent).
Exactly (Score:1)
I can go out and do more things in life because I only let the technology do for me what I want it to do. As long as people feel this need to always be connected to the phone, the web, or email they will be tied to the phone, the web and email. If you realize that just because you have a cell phone that does not mean that everybody and their monkey should be able to get a hold of you at any time of the day or night, you will be much better off. Having technology should not mean that you must use it, it should mean that you have the choice whether to use it or not.
Jon... (Score:2)
It might be too much to ask but could you at least _credit_ your recycled ideas properly? Toffler is not a guru and does not have a claim to ultimate truth, but he put a lot of work into his concept. Right or wrong it deserves better than to be pre-schoolised and stripped of its context by you.
Re:Cordless telephones. (Score:2)
Uh, no. If the cell site loses land power (and their backup fails), the cell site is off the air. And, cellphones are more subject to congestion issues than landline phones are.
Cellphones are no magic bullet.
...phil
Re:I am a Unix admin who doesn't have a computer@h (Score:1)
On a separate note I do belive that we need the current break neck speed of technology just to keep feeding everyone, with the advance of medcine the population is growing larger and larger but the planet isn't getting any bigger.
>>>
We need to have people running around with pagers/celphones on call 24/7 to keep people from starving? It seems to me that whatever (doubtful) social benefits are afforded by middle-class business and leisure-oriented high technology, virtually none of it goes to the poor underclass.
As for the general problems of overpopulation and resource scarcity, I think we've rightfully stopped looking for a technological solution long ago. Technology alone isn't going to solve them.
Re:Once Again, Lizard beats Katz (Score:1)
As to the conclusion that voluntary simplicity is parasitic, my response is "Great!" I prefer to think of it as low-level economic/social guerilla warfare. It's the poor (or wannabe-poor) are exploiting the (relatively) rich.
As a mild VS'er (no car, no credit card, mostly vegetarian), I pride myself on the belief that if half the people in the U.S. lived the way I do, the entire economy would collapse.
Re:My own thoughts... (Score:1)
Let me know if you find one... I think I'll join them.
In any case, the question here is whether or not people will go to extremes to get wired up. Aside from the rich or the sick (spending $500 on that palmpilot when there's a huge hole in the roof... sounds sick in the head to me.
In this man's case, All I have is a old desktop computer (P166), your normal wall-jack telephones, cable TV, A watch (w/a phonebook) and a scitentific calculator (so, I'm not extremely proficient in normal math... I still get by... with a little help)
Each thing (except the computer) is a tool used only when necessary. This is probably the same for a large number of people in general.
--
Surviving in a faster world... (Score:2)
So the secret seems to be NOT to communicate and to participiate in the global chatter, unless you are forced to.
I think I heard that in the 1800s.. (Score:4)
No one knows where we're going, and those afraid of change tend to embrace the past. This is the way of our species. There will always be the naysays who think we're moving to fast.
They may be right, but we should all hold on for the ride, becouse that's not going to stop what we call progress..
Re:There's a simply solution Jon. (Score:3)
Someone made the point that he thought the decision should be made by the individuals. I personally tend to agree. But Amish have made a commitment to a lifestyle lived deliberately -- they have agreed as adults to be held to the standards of their community, as defined by the elders of the church. I can't find fault with that -- people have the right to choose freely, and they have the right to forego that right. The only compulsion facing an Amish is that, if once they have joined the church, they defy it or refuse to live by its rules they will be shunned by church members. But they are in no way coerced to join the church. The have the opportunity to make an informed decision: most
Amish children spend a period of years (starting at 16) exploring the larger culture. They own cars, go to the movies, listen to rock and roll, smoke dope, and everything else. Something like 80%, having experienced everything the larger culture has to offer (and everything Amish culture has) join the church in the end.
By the way, something like 10% of all Amish are millionaires.
Most of this information is based on the Lancaster PA Amish. Other groups may differ.
There's a simply solution Jon. (Score:4)
Take an axe to the TV. Turn off the radio. Read a book. No, not a book on computers. A nice, eighteenth century book. Look up the big words if you have to. Stop driving anywhere that you can avoid -- you'd be amazed where you actually DON'T need to go. Walk everywhere you can. Use the computer at work and, at home, TURN THE DAMNED THING OFF!
I recently had the pleasure of studying the Amish (for an article in my church's in-house newspaper). I finished my study convinced that they had the right idea.
You see, the Amish don't think that technology is evil. They think that it has potential to corrupt their society. That technology, run wild, can reduce Amish society to rubble. So, they only allow technologies in on a case-by-case basis. Even when they allow a technology, they try to keep it as far away as possible.
So, they can have calculators, but not computers. They can have tractors, but no in the field or on the road. The can have generators, but not light bulbs or most appliances. (Ever lived a farm-sleep cycle? 12 hours of sleep in the winter! It's incredible. Now you know why most amish have 10 kids
That's not to say that they're right about everything. But I think that they do have a point about technology -- it's not necessarily harmless, not necessarily necessary, and should be used only after careful consideration.
Of course, that doesn't mean I practice what I preach. After all, palm-pilots are too nifty to pass up
Reality Check (Score:5)
While I respect your postings greatly, it is plainly clear that you have neglected to observe some of the great technological failures of the past few years.
Who can forget the siren call of Push, which would flood us with more graphics and data than we could possibly handle? Oh, right. Everybody. Once the novelty of Internet Animation wore off, the concept of computers dialing away in the middle of the night, retrieving late data that merely looked pretty looked about as lame as it really was.
Look back a little farther, why not, to the misshappen history of Netscape Plug-Ins. I remember browsing through an index of dozens--soon to become hundreds--of plugins, all sorts of new features(and complexities--uh oh!) that people would have to install to get The Latest Web.
In fact, if you look at the last few years, an entire calvacade of fads have been propped up by VC-desperate firms who, no doubt, all either hire the same PR firm or read the same trade rags. Portals! Plumbing! MULTIMEDIA! It's the next big thing!
For things that are truly useful, success awaits. Everything else gets washed away in the toilet that is Internet Time.
New technologies and infrastructures barely get their name embedded into people's minds before they're revealed as either truly useful(Slashdot, eBay, Linux, Google) or utter garbage(take your pick). It's this massive environment of collaborative filtering that the non-technical sociologists utterly fail to comprehend.
I dunno. Maybe it's a bit of Patent Office grade It's-Net-So-It's-New syndrome, but the concept that people are going to spend hours upon hours searching through their five hundred channel guide is patently ridiculous. Scaling the willingness to poke through a TV Guide for few minutes up to poking through an online channel guide for a few hours is the height of illogic. It reminds me of an old joke--in 1976, there were a few hundred Elvis Impersonators, but by the late 80's, there were tens of thousands of 'em. At that rate, by the year 2030, one out of every three humans will be an Elvis Impersonator.
People who channel surf already will continue to do so, but the real advantage will come to those who will finally be able to watch those shows they want to see--and not just whatever random BS is on. As the channel model is debunked by the sheer quantity of stations advertising content viewers might wish to see, the power moves from the network program directors to the writers, the actors, and the producers of the shows the customers actually want to watch.
If, by some cruel trick of nature, people only watching the shows they want to see is a harbringer of inefficiency and "cyberclysm", then NBC, CBS, and ABC have been poisoning the water supply for quite some time now.
I have a good deal of trouble accepting some of the presumptions I see made. The Sharper Image has existed for most of my life--I recently found a catalog of theirs, and revelled in the memories of drooling over their inventive products--yet, strangely, I don't see most people walking around with GPS capable cufflinks yet. Apocolyptic ravings about featuritis don't take away from the fact that while Geeks Like Me will always be interested in the abilities granted by high degrees of technification, most of the population will have better things to do.
And yet, it's only when something comes from the geek realm into modern, everyday life that the bells start ringing.
Much like the Pokemon Lawyers suing themselves, suddenly a major Geek Champion has been caught in fear of encroaching geekdom?
Please. Using a search engine instead of a card catalog does not a disaster of epic proportions create. There are those who have not yet learned the basics of computer usage, but User Interface developments will continue as they have been since the web finally exposed networked connectivity to a world not raised on control characters and LaTeX markup. Overall, those who want to connect will be able to, unless a hurricane hits. That much technology isn't designed as disaster-proof as Ma Bell's network could be construed as a bad thing, I suppose. I'll have to look into that.
In the meantime, those portending a disastrous future of chemically aware porcelain should do well to know--nobody wants a damn camera in their crapper, except the prisons the things were invented for.
Overall, I think you hit on the strongest point of them all in your column: Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
It is not an accident that the most successful concepts in all of technology are those that remain both the simplest and the most sophisticated. Grace and form, it seems, are as critical in high technology as they are in most human work, be it architecture, sculpture, or even perhaps law.
If any of the futurists quoted can convince me that all of the world will forever embrace that which completely flaunts all tenets of grace and form; if they can prove the mass population will ignore the precedent of their flashing 12:00's and throw themselves at that which is almost designed to thwart the desires of its users, you'd have a case for a Cyberclysm. However, the continual successes of those technologies that Do It Right(and the continual cycle of destruction that everything else is wrung through) tell me That's Just Not Going To Happen.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
Re:Once Again, Lizard beats Katz (Score:2)
Turn on water to let it get a little cold, open the can using the easy-open ripcord, plop it into a pitcher, fill the pitcher with cold water using the now-empty can and, if you don't have a pitcher you can close and shake to mix, give it a few swirls with a spoon. Two minutes, tops. Good god, man...
I might spend two hours making dinner by hand, but that's because it will often taste better/fresher than microwaved stuff (ever try to microwave cuts of meat? Bleh.) and I enjoy the activity. It's often almost meditative and gives me something to occupy my hands while I think over things. Of course, with your apparent dismal lack of basic cooking survival skills, I can see how it would just be torture!
I also think microwaves are the best thing since sliced bread. I'm all for nuking a quick dinner so I can waste more time in front of the computer.
The point is that it's our choice to work for technology or make technology work for us. I get so tired of hearing people whine about pagers and cell phones digging into their precious free time. Well, you know what? Try not answering them for a change! If you're out having a drink after work and work pages you, IGNORE IT. Turn the cell phone off! Let the answering machine get it, let the paging system catch up with you when you've got the time, don't answer email until you have time to address it. Stop trying to read 500 web sites each morning and keep up with 43 different mailing lists if you are drowning in information overload. Pare it down to essentials, and you'll probably find you aren't really missing anything much.
If you let technology dictate how you spend your day, instead of vice versa, you deserve everything you get. My PalmPilot and PageWriter and TalkAbouts and computer all serve *my* needs, and I have no problem leaving them all behind when I need to. Just like the microwave and the kitchen knives.
Alarmists (Score:2)
But the real truth is that people sometimes are at odds with the technology that runs things, but that's not because people are stupid or because there's too much technology. Quite the contrary - humans are absolutely brilliant creatures, and we can (most likely) saddle anything we build as long as we keep our wits about us.
Where I think the problem lies is when the advance of technology outstrips education among the general population. Technology is taking off like a rocket, but the base levels of education aren't really improving all that much in America, or as far as I know, elsewhere either. I don't like hearing people tell me that the U.S. has a great literacy rate and that we shouldn't complain because other people have it worse - that may be true but that's no reason to just think of everything as adequate and not work on anything anymore. Once the education improves both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, the technology that seems to be driving us to this new buzzword that's a mix of Cyber(insert-your-favorite-noun-here) and Cataclysm won't seem nearly as threatening or offensive to anybody. Understand it, and it's a tool. But like racism, or any other product of ignorance (ignorance NOT stupidity) if you don't understand it, it will cause fear and problems.
MDA
http://opop.nols.com/
Technophage's Dilemma (Score:5)
We only have two choices? Abandon all technology and flee to the woods or embrace the 'consuming technological chaos and be subsumed'? (Okay, that's my phrase, but I think I get Jon's point.)
How about treating technology as tools? I don't use a computer because I'm afraid that I can't keep up with the world unless I do -- I use it because it helps me do work. I don't write Perl code because of a deep-seated artistic desire for expression (that's what Perl poetry is for), I write it because it helps me get things done.
That's the same reason my father uses a welding torch or an air compressor or a socket wrench. Not because he wants to have the latest and greatest gadgets, but because he can use them.
Yes, I like to keep up with my e-mail, and I like to check a few web sites and newsgroups regularly, but I can take a week at the beach without any of those things and survive just fine.
I think most people can do the same. Thus, it's a false dilemma.
--
QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.21!
Wafting Another Airball with Jon "Salieri " Katz (Score:3)
And here we see it, in the stark black and white of truth...Jon Katz is no freind to slash dot, hes no seer of the way or a guide of the day. Hes a snivling scared child who sees the potetnial of all this around him and is afraid, mortaly afraid, of the power he can never control.
Katz, and those of his mindset, are not into advocating the possibilites of tech or the geek mindset of exploration, they seeking to slow it down, chain it up, and hobble its progress so that the mediocre will not feel threatened by it.
The potential of the tech today is scary, it has a potential for great things, both evil and good. Does this mean we cower back from it, lay ourselves has helpless on its altar screaming "Do not crush us oh great cuthulian godhead"?
NO
We take the example of folks like TimBL, of Wozniak, of PARC, or MIT labs, of the hundereds of developers and creatotrs of Linux and countless other programs and systems.
In short we grasp firmt he contols and navigate or ships across this vast ocean of discovery. Yes the waves will roll high and the weather may turn foul, but with a clear mind and a firm understanding we will make our way forward and NOT fall off the edge of the world.
Jon Katz and the FLat Web Society need to go cower in a nice cave and leave the exploration and discovery to those that can handel it. They will come crawling out of thier caves when the hard work is done and the way has been paved.
Look at Jon Katz's writtings of the last few years. It is all there to see. he waits for the way to be paved and the safe houses made..THEN he struts in and proclaims himself a seer of the future. He leads the tourists buses thru the creations and nods at each site as if to say "my hands did hew these once rough rocks to tower so high"
In this age of exploration there is no doubt we will have detractors and soldiers of mediocracy to hold back the progress.
Once we had the Inquistion, burning and torturing all that was unkown to them. We have had the Dark ages and its supporters. We have had Churches and Religious Instituions hampering anything that would detract from its glory. We have had Political Correct Facists and Concerned Parents seeking to control that which did not conform to thier Barneyeqsue view of the world.
Now we have the updated version, The Lucid Ludite, the Concerened Powerless, the Saviour of the Mediocre..Yes Jon Katz is no Cyber Spokesperson..he is the Salieri to the genius of the Net's Mozarts.
The best and only way to counter his brand of retarded developement is to SHINE SHINE SHINE on , to blot out his limp mediocracy with brillant progression.
The war of ignorance is never over, the soldiers of stupiity never truly vanquished. So long as there is a force that counters its dark regression we are and shall ever more be victrious.
Once more into the breech!!
Re:Choice (Score:2)
In the hyper-competitive Los Angeles market, I don't think there's a single bank that charges for teller access.
Incidentally, the poor
Unfortunately, there are very good reasons for these things; the 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed virtually every store in poor areas of the city. Owning a store in a poor area is a gigantic risk, so naturally everything costs more. Due to these cold economic facts, I think the poor always will wind up getting the short end of the stick when they visit the bank or market.
D
----
Bunk (Score:2)
I'm truly tired of this cycle every 10 years or so where people get into a round of "gloom-n-doom"(tm) books predicting the end of "something" "Anything!"
First it was the death of the printed book, book sales are higher per capita then ever. Perioticals are down yes - but when the point is to have information to the masses faster a daily rag will loose to the net. That's only logical, movible type beat out hand copied text, now something better has come around.
The notion that we are all going to a hell in a gateway cow computer box - a land illuminated by ghoastly green light from billions of blinking "12:00" VCR displays bouncing off trillions of "Free AOL 4.xxxxxxxxx" cd's is just chicken little crying bloody murder because no one wants to by "The end is at hand - by Chicken Little, fifteenth ed" anymore
Sure some people are lost in this brave new world - screw them. They adapt or die. My grandfather made it out of the depression working his way up from a paper boy and came out a millionar running a large supermarket chain down under. Others sat around and wined about how bad things where.
"Information Overload" - bull
Do any of you remember how much a pain in the rear it was just to find one artical from a magazine on microfilm? I spend days in the basements of libraries going blind scrolling through reals of newpapers and time back issues years ago.
Now I type in a few key words in google, yahoo, altavista, etc and I spend a few moment to scan through the results sifted from the eather.
The only thing technology does is shorten our attention spans and patients. 15 years ago I could dial a phone just fine with a rotoray pulse phone. Now I'm pissed off if people give cute numonic phone numbers, 1-800-call-menow and the like, instead of the damn digits so I can finger my phone pad faster - I don't want to be bothered with remembering the cute number - I just want to make a call and get off the line
I hear people complain about the amount of work today - the average work day has been shortened drasticaly over the last 20 years. Especialy in areas heavy into information systems useage. I have people complaine at work if they have to site down and do anything for six hours out of the work day.
In general yes - the work day hasn't gotten shorter - the often hyped "technology will liberate" montra was always bunk cooked up by the likes of Disney imagineers. An individual can now get more work done in the same time. I have a dozen computers around me at the moment, I'm coding, surfing, monitoring my network, watching the firewall, taking calls, and writing this. Could I do that if all I had was a phone and a typewriter?
--
James Michael Keller
technology makes us less itelligent (Score:2)
With the advent of the telephone people have discovered that being less accurate is easily correctable by the nature of the telephones two-way communication. Literacy suffered!
Computer gui's use icons and other symbolic means to interface. Peoples ability to identify these things hardly confer any increased understanding of their world. The spell/grammar checking ability of programs further decreases the need for full education of an individual with respect to language skills. the cyberclysm will be a whole group of people who need these forms of communication in order to interact. Literacy will further suffer.
Learn to ignore your technology (Score:2)
Then I was forced to spend two weeks without email.
And you know what? When I cam back, I caught up on the _important_ stuff in less than two hours.
If something world changing occurs, you won't miss it if you don't scan the web today - because the important stuff will still be here next week.
Every day billions of events occur - but you have to realise that you really don't care about 99.999% of them - and that you can cope without most of the rest.
Techno-determinism, yet again (Score:3)
While Katz seems to take a break from his techno-boosterism and techno-determinism by giving some space to "neo-Luddite" writers (basically, anyone who expresses reservations about the "Limitless March of Technology" gets labeled a "neo-Luddite" these days), he lets the katz out of the bag with this statement:
With this sweeping statement, all thought of human responsibilty is banished. Forget future AIs and a-life; a-life is here today, and it's name is Technology. Forget futuristic scenarious about human freedom being supplanted by machines; the future is now, and we have lost our freedom to Just Say No. Don't bother unplugging; it's too difficult to try, and you won't make a difference anyway.
"Bah, humbug!" I say.
People are responsible for technology, it doesn't "just happen." People create it, people market it, people build infrastructure for it, and people adopt it. At each of these points, there is responsibility. And there is choice involved. Some of the choices may be difficult. Nobody ever said being a free and responsible human person was going to be easy.
If you would like examples, you need look no further than the Amish, who are the living experts of subordinating technology to a vision of what human society ought to look like.
But who wants to live like the Amish? Not many people. This, however, is a choice.
Another example, nearer and dearer to the hearts of /. readers, is Richard Stallman. Rather than submit to the "inevitable" shift in the computing world to proprietary software, he chose and chooses instead to do without proprietary software, and even to do without employment that would prevent him from creating free software.
But who wants to live like Richard Stallman? :^) Not many people, apparantly.
As a final example, consider Microsoft. They are under no illusion that technology simply happens, and expend every effort to make sure it happens in a way that favors the Reign of Bill. The slogan "Where do you want to go today?" (tm) is not a bad question, except that it's offered as a multiple-choice:
- Windows 98
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000
Notice that there is no "none of the above." Slashdot readers will be quick to recognize that such a "choice" is only "choice" in Newspeak; but are slower to recognize this when the question is larger than that of operating systems and office suites.Choice (Score:3)
One of the good things about technology is that most often it gives you more choices. Think your cordless phone is too fragile? Don't use it! Your beeper is driving you crazy? Chuck it out of the window! Overwhelmed by 500 TV channels? Don't switch the TV on!
I am not going to make wild predictions about the future, but currently people (that is, more or less affluent people in the US) can pick and choose whatever level of technology they feel most comfortable with. Nobody is forcing anybody to use the latest gizmos -- if you think so, you are watching way too much advertising.
As to being overstressed, perhaps those that are need to re-evaluate their priorities. Almost in every situation there is a trade-off of stress against money (usually) or fame (more rarely). Just because a rat-race exists, you don't have to participate in it. Besides, what Katz describes is a US phenomenon. European people take a much more relaxed view of the their workload.
And, by the way, capitalism doesn't work by selling all that is produced. Capitalism works by producting only that which has a chance of being sold (but see the
Kaa
The question is which is to be the master.... (Score:5)
The number one survival skill of the new millennium will be selectivity. Look over the options and throw away anything you don't see an immediate use for. Just don't use it. Be the master of the technology that you allow into your presence, not its servant.
Jarhundertwende and fin de siecle (Score:2)
The thing is, technology redefines what it is to be human. In the past, working with your hands on actual things was thought to be human, wheras being a slave to mass-production machines was thought to be dehumanizing. What has really happened is that since manufacturing has become so productive, "industrialized" nations are now moving away from "industry" to service-based economies. More and more workers are using their "minds" rather than their "hands". We actually look at cultures like the Amish and remark on how "primitive" they are, and how they are "dehuman" in the direction toward "apes".
For the past couple centuries, we've been locked into this scientific angst: we don't want to go backwards and become animals again, and we don't want to go forward and become like robots. Either direction represents a dehumanization.
Everything that Katz says is simply paraphrasing what people said 100 years ago. Its simply a measure of fear and paranoia because they don't know where the world is heading.
Gadgetry as a Way of Life (Score:2)
Simple. People don't want to live like that. Technology will never ever drive the life of the common person. We simply don't want it that way, and never will, despite what the doomsayers predict. We are, first and foremost, physical creatures.
So what good, then, technology? Why all the gewgaws? What can we predict about the future of technology in relation to the common person?
Simple. Technologies will be embraced by the common person only when they become simple enough to easily comprehend.
But, what about all those VCRs blinking 12:00? Well, what about them? A VCR only needs to display the correct time if it is going to be programmed, and most people don't use that function of VCRs. They just pop in a tape and hit Play or Record. Simple.
Take console games. The Sony PlayStation has sold millions of units here and in Japan. The Sega Dreamcast sold over 300,000 units the first weekend it was available. Why? Because they are no-brainers to use. Pop in a CD, turn the thing on. Simple.
Take the Pilot. A computer, yes. Infinitely programmable, but simple to use and easy to program for. Most users will get everything they want from the device out-of-the-box. If a user wants to learn how to download new apps from the web and install them, it's not difficult to do so. The Pilot's simplicity made it a success, and the designers have gone on to make the Visor, which I think is an even simpler design.
What about computers? Are they any different? Yes, because they aren't dedicated like the gadgets mentioned above. A computer can do ANYTHING at all - properly programmed. But a computer out of the box doesn't come programmed to do very much. In order for it to do what the common person wants it to do, the common person must be able to buy software for it, install that software, and learn how to use it. Bingo - orders of magnitude more complex than most other gadgets.
But a computer is worth the investment of time. And computers that are specifically designed, built and programmed to make the above procedure as simple as possible will succeed.
This is why I can't understand the Slashdotters who claim that making Linux easier would "dumb it down". "I had to spend 6 months learning how to unzip tarballs, create executables, learning to grep and awk and configure X! If I had to do it, then by God, everyone else had better, too!" They view deliberate attempts at computer simplification, like the iMac, as wimpburger computers suitable only for newbies.
And what has that attitude gotten us? I recently read a quote from someone who noted that his original 1984 Macintosh could boot up and have his email for him in seconds. That's no longer possible with todays computers, certainly not PCs. Why? Because we've piled technology after technology onto them without attempting to simplify the design in the process. The result? Computers that are difficult to use and crash often.
Computers have managed to penetrate households because they are so useful that people are willing to put up with the shortcomings. But only when these shorcomings are eliminated will computers become as ubiquitous as the TV.
The Wheel of Time (Score:2)
For those of you who started off with the wrong impression, no this is not some off topic Robert Jordan post. However, I think that the incredibly cliche idea of the wheel of time actually applies in this case.
The twentieth century has been the century of statistics. Never before have we more classified just how much time machines save or cost us each day or record it so definitively. What we are doing is externalizing. What I mean by that is this: we are disassociating our actions with ourselves. It is not an overt phenomenon in which people claim lack of responsibility, but a much more subtle syndrome.
By cataloging what "devices" cost us or how they "hurt" us, detriment the quality of our lives, etc., what we are doing is giving those devices power over ourselves. I hate to sound overly Heiddegarian, but we may be losing our Being (I'm not even going to begin to clarify).
The key is that it is not the devices which could cause our downfall, it is ourselves. It is the power we choose to give these devices that worries us. We simply need to make a different choice. Unlike Heiddegar, I am strongly against giving up technology. I think it is very useful, however, it must be our choice when to use it. It is when we let it determine our lives instead of vice versa that the problems begin to occur.
Arthur C. Clarke was wrong when he said that we should worry about machines unpluggin us for they will never be able to do that if we choose not to let them. This is an amazing age where we are determining, perhaps more than ever, what direction the development of all this technology will take. We must simply make sure not to unplug ourselves.
Labour-saving devices do (Score:2)
This is demonstrably false.
Recently a BBC TV series has been showing a family who "went back in time" 100 years, living in a house with only the facilities that would have been there 100 years ago. Gas lights instead of electricity, no washing machine, hot water only for special occasions, and so on.
They hated it. Washday was exactly that: an entire day. Cooking an evening meal for the family took most of the afternoon.
Sure, our lives seem to get more and more hectic. (Who said "Life is so complex that some parts must be imaginanary"?). But that is a matter of individual choice, not driving technology. It is very simple to opt for a less hectic job, or just not work as hard at your current one and forgo pay rises and promotions.
Paul.
Interesting Stuff (Score:2)
I think, all things considered, we aren't any more likely to destroy ourselves than we were 100 years ago. Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Re:Interesting Stuff (Score:2)
I live in New Jersey, and I was staying at my parent's house during the time of the hurricane. They lost power on Thursday evening and didn't get power back until Wednesday of the next week. In those 6 days, the only thing that really got unbearable for me to live without was the hot water. Then again, I had just recently gotten back from Pennsic, where there's no power unless you bring it yourself.
My father, on the other hand, went out and bought an $800 generator just so he could watch the baseball game in the comfort of his own living room. I just don't
Re:not saving time? (Score:3)
Who ... or what ... is to blame here? (Score:2)
A number of people have pointed out that you have a choice: of course you don't *need* to have all the toys that modern society makes available, and this is right as far as it goes; however, it ignores two things:
The culprit, or perhaps a culprit (though the main one, IMNSHO) is the culture of consumption. The economies of most wealthier countries are based on consumption: if people don't spend enough on s**t they don't need, the economy goes to pieces. Economists apparently unaware of the second law of thermodynamics might go on about "sustainable development" or "sustainable growth", and people in the US might complain about gas prices (trust me, you have no right to), but nobody seems aware that the amount of available resources, starting with energy, are finite.
It's not as simple as turning off and dropping out ... the change has to be pretty massive. For example: I have never fully understood the "need" for a cellphone for anyone but a stockbroker, an elected official, and a drug dealer, but once the competition's got it and makes herself available 24/7, you have to too or you fall behind. And even if you decide not to play that game, most people have to stop it or the dizzying spiral upward pulls nearly everyone along with it anyway.
I'd continue rambling on, but I suppose I'll stop here.
Science fiction, indeed :) (Score:3)
I highly encourage everyone to read it. The "murderer" of the story kills communication devices, and as a result has been sent to a mental institution. He has a lot of fun telling the psychiatrist that the specific flavor of ice cream he used to destroy the bus radio is probably going to experience a sales increase soon.
Back in reality, I can certainly understand the instinct. I have a SO who "worries" about me if we aren't in touch several times daily, and I end up putting so much time into my "online life" (both trying to stay "informed" and trying to stay "in contact," though information is key for me), that my work suffers at times. Like now.
And on a certain level, it is distressing when people can't manage without their gadgets. I lived in Rochester for a year without a car; at the time, I was working somewhere within easy walking distance of my house, and I also knew the public transit system quite well. And those who had a car since their 16th birthday always look askance. "You WALKED? Oh you poor thing, let me give you a ride." "How can you stand the bus system, it's horrible?" [No it's not!] And so forth. Similar incomprehension is directed at those who don't have a net-connection, a recent-model computer, a computer at all, a television, a cell phone, etc etc etc. It does get a bit silly after a while.
Zen (Score:2)
Seems particularly appropriate here.
While Buddism is not for me - I like the illusion - a certain degree of detatchment is vital when faced with more of a resource than can be used.
Some of that detatchment can be technological. By not
I also detatch from technology in more drastic ways. I go camping from time to time, without bringing any communication technology more advanced than a notepad and fountain pen. And I tend not to use even that. I go outside and watch rabbits and squirrels in my yard, and I can be reached only by the most direct of methods.
And even when I am doing technological things, I use the simplest appropriate technology.
Yet I enjoy the cool stuff.
Some people write that the advanced technology is a tool to them. I approach new technology differently. It is a toy to me until I am ready to use it, and I am very particular about what I use as a tool. A tool changes the person who uses it. A boy with a hammer sees the world as a collection of nails. Without my tools, I would be much less than what I am. The phrase "just a tool" is absurd to me. So I am careful in my choice of tools. But "just a toy" makes sense to me, and I do love to play with the flashy new toys.
Detatchment, again. I can set down a toy and never look back. It does not become part of me. To set down a tool, though, is to reduce my effectiveness, and that is a serious decision.
Fear my wrath, please, fear my wrath?
Homer
My own thoughts... (Score:2)
Actually ... (Score:3)
When I moved back to the rat race in January, I ended up doing the consultant thing. No more 9 to 5 for this techie. I also declined to buy a car and now use taxis, transit, bicycle or the good old train where necessary.
When on a customer project, I work at the necessary pace to get the job done, and done properly, no rush, no BS. When it's done, I'm done.
My friends, especially the ones with mortgages and car payments and hour and a half commutes to thankless DBA jobs in soulless industrial parks in the faceless suburbs, envy me. They say I'm more relaxed than ever, even look healthier.
In the meantime, I'm very connected. Internet connection, cell phone, pager, the whole works. After all, I'm a technologist. The trick is to use the technology wisely and not get overheated in some endless purposeless spiral ratrace.
I don't think it's the technology that's killing people. It's the rat race in the chase for the almighty buck that's at fault. The technology is just technology. The frantic pace at which we use it and let it control us is our own choice.
MAybe it's easier for some than others, but ultimately it all comes down to choice. If you choose to be controlled by the latest in gadgets for no better reason than "everybody else does it, so I have to as well in order to be cool" then you are a victim of corporate produced, mass enforced peer pressure, AKA fashion.
-M
Technological Darwinism? (Score:2)
If you look at the movie The Road to Wellville [imdb.com], you see a number of technological devices created as a result of mankind's ability to harness electric current. Around the time that Edison was bringing the elctric light to the world, a number of other inventors, both serious and "quacks" were creating everything from electric bathtubs to electric hairbrushes, in an attempt to garner a portion of the electricity consuming market share.
A large number of these devices didn't survive. Why? Some, because they were obvious frauds, but many didn't survive because people found that they could get along without them just as well. And I believe that a similar thinning of the technology market is coming too.
Right now, there are several ways to do anything computer-related, from keeping a calendar, to controlling your refrigerator. But simply because these things exist, does not necessarily mean that they are an immediate benifit, and should be embraced and consumed by the markets at large, or that they will be either. People will find, on their own, which methods work the best for them, and use them. If enough people center around a method (be it Java, *nix, whatever), these methods will prosper, and become defacto standards for accomplishing our goals in life, while other methods will wither and perish from lack of use.
In short, yes, we're moving very fast technologically. But we're also, like many new vairants on a species, trying to adapt to a changing enviroment through trying many mutations and variantions on the base form. Some of the variants will find usefullness in the enviroment, and flourish, while others will not, and drop by the wayside.
Just my $.02.
I am a Unix admin who doesn't have a computer@home (Score:2)
On a separate note I do belive that we need the current break neck speed of technology just to keep feeding everyone, with the advance of medcine the population is growing larger and larger but the planet isn't getting any bigger. So our only solution is to find out how we can get more out of our current land.
Ignoring technology is healthy on occasion (Score:3)
When I'm on a vacation, I deliberately leave behind cell phones, pagers, or any communication devices, including radios and televisions.
My ideal is to spend a couple of weeks every year somewhere in the mountains in a little campsite where you don't know or even care if armegeddon has occured. As long as the fishing is great and you can see the stars at night, everything is OK. Doing this allows you to get a stronger perspective about what is really important in life, and try to actually live.
BTW, some of my former supervisors tended to get rather upset when something breaks and they couldn't seem to get ahold of me. The truth is if it is broke, it doesn't really matter if it gets fixed now or later, and if I get fired, so what! There are other employers as well, so just don't plan on me helping out when I'm on vacation. When I get back I'll put the effort and time in to fixing the problems. Otherwise leave me alone.
An interesting e-mail came my way I'd like to post with this is as follows. Somewhat related to this topic, and although I don't totally agree with it, it does give you something to think about. It it attributed to George Carlin but I'm really not sure who wrote it:
The Paradox of our Time
by George Carlin
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the times of world "peace" but constant conflict, more leisure but less enjoyment, more kinds of food but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom, a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.
Re:Sure, it is a viscious circle... (Score:2)
Re:The question is which is to be the master.... (Score:2)
Same thing with the cell phone. When I'm working, I'll answer it. When I'm bored, I'll answer it. When I go to spend time with my girlfriend, the cell phone and the pager get left behind or turned off.
Filtering is one of the things that the human brain is great at. Ever seen a newbie the first time they walk onto the street in NYC? They're heads and eyes are all over the place... they're craining their heads to view the sky scrapers, they're looking at all the strangely dressed people and the huge billboards... and then they get headaches and neckaches and get tired real quick. Then you see the normal new yorkers that walk with a purpse and hardly ever budge to look at ANYTHING weird. It's kind of funny... but it's all neural filtering. And if we're to survive in this constantly connected world with all of the information, that's what we're going to have to learn to do.
Re:My own thoughts... (Score:2)
The current trends indicate that computers and networks will be (and indeed, already are) a unifying force that bridges the economic class bounderies and creates greater opportunities for those on the bottom to improve thier condition.
---
vilvoy
Common sense with flamebait overtures (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is complete flamebait when posted to a geek forum. It's preposterous. The concept that geeks are "bombarded" by too much data is a bit, well, like saying that when the ice caps melt, the fish will have a little too much water. Sure, there's a problem here, but you're talking to the wrong segment of society.
Katz appears to be talking about a human difficulty that has existed since the industrial evolution. We're too busy. Every month someone suddenly looks around, pisses on the previous speaker, and says, "now we're really too busy." Well, yes. We were too busy last week too. Yes, we keep getting busier. Sure, technology helps (or was that hinders?). So does the sub-urbanization, the increasingly entertainment-based nature of society, and so on.
What Katz, along with most other negative-futures announcers, is missing here is a growing movement of simplification. Is this neo-ludditism? Not at all. Just doing less. It would appear that all you have to do to stay out of this insane media fray is take a walk. With your feet. Crazy, eh? You can even use your computer when you get back home.
And, get this, people are actually doing it. Those folks on the west coast have probably encountered this (I wouldn't know, I don't live there). I keeping seeing this made reference to more and more...
For my part, yes, I'm a programmer. I rarely use my computer at home for more than 3 hours a week. In fact, for about five months, I didn't have a home PC. I have other hobbies, like hiking. It's really pretty easy to avoid being consumed by this rabid, demonic media deluge.
Of course, for those who enjoy the rat's cage, you can keep pushing the e-pedal and the e-soma will just keep on coming...
Calm down... (Score:2)
Try Zen.
I Agree-- technology only rules us if... (Score:2)
Firstly: "There are hordes of serious-minded people who insist that computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm, when humanity becomes overwhelmed as it tries and fails to cope with the number, complexity, speed and nature of the things we make."
Humanity? How are we defining that here? I'd like to bring up the point that there are countries who don't have Y2K problems because they don't even have computer chips in use anywhere. Maybe I'm more aware of this than others because I live in a fairly rural area, but technology hasn't infiltrated the entire sum of human experience on the planet (yet).
Secondly: "Technology has a mind, life and direction all of its own. It's inherently uncontrollable, even if anybody was up to trying."
Perhaps I'm simply misunderstanding what this is trying to say, but it strikes me as ridiculous! "Inherently uncontrollable"? I have to disagree! While the products of technology can be unreliable (as can everything else in the physical world), technology itself isn't some weird anthropomorphic force with a will and mind of its own. I think an attitude like that contributes simply reduces trust in technological developments. Technology is simply a tool of human kind; it is only as good, bad, or unpredictable as we make it. What? We didn't realize that the atom bomb could cause such massive and unsuspected destruction when we first developed them? Oops-- chalk that up to a failure by human beings to fully study the repercussions of such technology. Let's not project human traits onto things that don't deserve it.
Thirdly: "Perhaps the idea that there are people who keep up with all this stuff is in itself a technological myth."
Of course it is! Who COULD? A human being can't even visit all of the exhibits in the Smithsonian Museum, much less absorb even just the useful information available through the Net. This is a notion I've never bought into anyway.
Finally: However, this article also doesn't allow for something humans are extremely adept at: adaptation! We've created a new environment for ourselves with technology; so what? We are an intelligent, changeable species. We have the ability to survive in changing conditions. The technology we are creating is part of our evolution. Yes, there are forces we've unleashed that are beyond our immediate control. But there are better solutions than running around in circles waving arms over our heads and screaming. The people who will out-survive their own technology will be the ones who face it calmly, rationally, and using those big lumps of grey matter nature gave us. "That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices"; yes, we have those two choices, but we also have OTHERS in ADDITION to that!!
-ARJ
Once Again, Lizard beats Katz (Score:2)
Luddites are, basically, parasites, and ought to be denied such things as vaccinations, glasses, sterile medical instruments, and other'complex' things. (Sale, quoted in Katz' article, whines about computers and loves his old manual tyepwriter. Apparently he believes a machine with thousands of precision-engineered moving parts grew on the typewriter tree. Let's see him write his rants with a quill pen.)