The Imagineer Who Came In From The Cold 135
"Why is it that the philosophy of technology has never really gotten underway? Why has a culture so firmly based on countless philosophical instruments, techniques, and systems remained so steadfast in its reluctance to examine its own foundations?" -- Langdon Winner.
ORLANDO -- Good question, one I'm trying to answer in a magazine article, and if that pans out, maybe a book. I came to Orlando because I couldn't imagine a better place to look. I asked for help on Slashdot the other day and got a great outpouring of help, links, ideas, questions (including a lunch invitation from a local Linux group) and a striking e-mail from a man who identified himself as a genuine gee-whiz Disney Imagineer.
Even by the reckonings of my own spectacular relationship with technology, this encounter was odd: a genuine, in-the-flesh Imagineer working (for the moment) in Orlando, who is a fanatic Linux geek and regular Slashdot reader. The Net is a world of surprises.
The Imagineer had e-mailed me after I posting my column asking for help in what I consider an open source writing experiment. The Imagineer reeled off the details of an impressive career. He is responsible for some pretty impressive stuff, none of which I can describe.
"Why Linux?" I couldn't help asking. "I'm bored with everything else," he e-mailed. This, I well understand by now, is an enduring geek strain: the eternal fight to fend off boredom.
The Imagineer loved talking about technology, he said, but he was sure I understood that The Mouse was "touchy" about unauthorized encounters with journalists. And yes, they did seem to know almost everything that went on in their world. He needed a promise of strict confidentiality.
So we met in the best clandestine manner - on a concrete bench halfway between Exxon's "Universe Of Energy" and the closed "Horizons" pavilion. The only people going by were the kids on their way to the "GM Test Track," and they couldn't have cared less about a couple of middle-aged men sitting on a bench trading official secrets. Strange, Enya-like New Age music poured from a cactus.
The Imagineer recognized me, as we had arranged, from my fading Yankees baseball cap. I spotted him by his ... well, I can't say how I spotted him.
The meeting reminded me of one of those scenes in the LeCarre Cold War thrillers where spies gathered across from "Checkpoint Charlie" and at other secret rendezvous' in pre-90's Berlin. The scene was strange to begin with: uplifting Millenial music, as many wheelchairs as strollers, and hundreds of each; Monorails whispering overhead, cars roaring froma nearby test track; a babble of diverse races, nationalities and origins. The space had the feel of a 50's vision of an Intergalactic space station. Nowhere is nostalgia for the future more evident than here.
So there we were, sitting across a manicured, empty stretch of EPCOT center, munching strawberry fruit bars, gassing happily back and forth about books we'd read and ideas we'd heard, disturbed only by a lengthy column of electric wheelchairs with flashing lights and red flags carrying the inhabitants of a Kissimmee, Fla. nursing home. They'd made a wrong term, the group leader advised us: they were seeking the World Of Imagination.
The Imagineer politely pointed across the vast concrete plaza, around the flood-lit spouting and dancing fountain. Then, for the third time, he went over the ground rules again: he would talk with me, but I couldn't describe him or his work in any way, and he wouldn't talk about Disney or its work in any detailed way.
This was okay with me, as I don't want to write about Disney World, the Disney Corporation or its inner workings. Writing about Disney is like writing about Microsoft - everybody has intense feelings, and they've been expressed so long and so often there's almost nothing new to add. But as for Walt himself, that's another story.
I assured The Imagineer that I wanted to write about technology, and to some degree, Disney's original visions of technology, especially trying to come up with the missing philosophy about the subject that people could use, maybe even desperately want.
"Walt Disney would have had a philosophy. He was a complete geek," said the Imagineer. "He just had this oh-mi-gosh quality about anything to do with technology. He especially got the hold technology has on people's imaginations, even though he hasn't fared all that well in history," the Imagineer added. If I wanted to see what he meant, he said, get on over to Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom and check out the "Carousel Of Progress." He said it was Walt's favorite exhibit. Disney had unveiled it at the 1964 World's Fair, and brought it to Disney World. It was the perfect expression of his view of technology. I said I'd check it out.
Disney has, in fact, suffered in the decades after his death, branded a middle-brow shlock-meister, mass-manufacturer of kitsch and junk, and a mean-spirited bigot and lousy employer.
"He died before he could complete some of his most beloved projects, and the company is so big it's disturbing to people, although there are many echoes of the original spirit. Lots of us work here because it's the best place for people like us to work. Where else would you go if you loved technology? But when it came to technology, no one could touch Disney, and no one ever really has. From animation to architecture, movies and design, he understood the beauty and power of technology at its purest; that's why all of these people come here from all over the world.
"Some of them literally have to crawl here, and lots of them spend every penny they have to get here. But nobody makes them. This is the place they want to be, no matter what the intellectuals say. Disney saw technology as something that could render imagined worlds. These worlds varied wildly, but at the core, he believed technology could fix the world, save it, solve it's problems.
"These parks are all rendered worlds. They use technology to invoke visions, past and future. Maybe it was naïve, but it was profoundly moral on Disney's part, maybe his most profoundly moral part. He thought EPCOT could light the way for the world. Now, there's a lot of blabber here about pan-global humanism and all, which everybody understands is about money, not brotherhood."
"Disney was a businessman, but not when it came to EPCOT. That was from the heart, at least his original idea for it, and that vision is still everywhere here, and in a lot of other places, if you know how to look for it."
And you do have to look for it. When Walt Disney announced his plans for Disney World in the mid-60's, he promise it would be more than an "entertainment complex." Most important, he told his friends, was a planned city of the future, a place where Disney employees could live, a real town that included commercial and residential areas, a thousand-acre industrial park, and a highly sophisticated transportation system. He died before this city - he called it EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) could be built, and it was transformed by his successors into the corporate techno- World's Fair it is now.
Disney said his experiment - he sounds like Steve Jobs talking about Apple - was "the most exciting and by far the most important part of our Florida project, in fact the heart of everything we are doing in Disney World."
But not for long.
The Imagineer talked about how unbelievably important the Web was becoming, how it had exploded ("we didn't imagine it, none of us, not for a second") Silicon Valley, Microsoft, and about the difference between Gates and Disney, mostly in terms of their visions of technology (Gates didn't fare too well. "Walt Disney was a visionary. Bill Gates makes software.")
He talked about Linux and open source, and about hand-held computers and wireless modems, and about the explosion in "dot.coms" and "junk appliances." He was smart and funny, nothing like the Imagineer of my imagination, in a white smock with butterflies coming out of his ears.
I pointed out my surprise that EPCOT didn't yet reflect the Digital Age. Other than a mention or two at the AT&T pavillion, and some jazzy interactive exhibits for kids, the network barely came up at all. Was EPCOT being overtaken by technology in the same way Tomorrowland was left without any "Tomorrow" when the Space Age fizzled?
He nodded, and agreed and said that that was understood, and in the process of being corrected.
He repeated that nobody foresaw the explosion of the Web and the stuff around us took a long time to design and build. He talked for awhile about Disney and how Walt would have viewed the Web.
"He would have been obsessed with computing," said the Imagineer. "He would have loved the Net; Good Lord. Every kid who came here would be crawling along a Motherboard. He would have grasped its implications right away."
We talked on that concrete bench for a couple of hours. I was reminded again of what a strange place the Net is. I was talking to a person whose existence I normally wouldn't ever even have known of, let alone gotten the chance to meet through a website.
I was on the right track with my earlier column, the Imagineer said. Technology was inherently tragic. "It's the only way to see it," he said. "At the core, some of us want to improve the world, and people look to us to improve it. No matter how hard we try, we only get so far. We spin our wheels. Unforeseeable things happen. It doesn't ever quite work out the way we expect. That's the first rule. That makes technology heroic and doomed at the same time, which is why it's tragic. Because it serves human beings, and they are tragic. They do horrible things, horrible things happen to them, and they're all going to die."
The Imagineer and I said our goodbyes, and exchanged e-mail addresses, and I walked the length of EPCOT's World Showcase Lagoon, winding between restaurants, stores, food carts, juggler and bands. The circuit reminded me of my talk with the Imagineer. He knew what he was talking about.
Why We Won The Cold War.
The man standing in line next to me waiting to board AT&T's "Spaceship Earth" at the entrance to EPCOT asked me where the line began, and shuffled his nervous wife behind the ropes. It was, he said the first time he'd ever left the Ukraine, and Orlando was the first place he'd always wanted to come.
He looked up at the giant dome, whose roof was sparkling with a giant "2000" sign and various assorted Millenial electric twinkling, and climbed into the moving blue seats that take visitors up on a tour of the history of communications.
In EPCOT, all of humankind's experiences are sponsored by corporations. Communications is brought to you by AT&T (my favorite is "The American Experience," which is brought to us by American Express).
The old Russian and his wife exclaimed repeatedly as the train climbed quickly past Hebrews and Greeks, the invention of fire, papyrus, the printing press, paper and roads, and the destruction of Rome.
"This!," he exclaimed, poking his wife and speaking towards me as we headed down the other. "This is why you won."
I asked him what he meant.
"I don't know how or why, but there's more amazing stuff in this dome than in my whole country," he said. "The Communists just could never do it like Mr. Walt Disney."
The New Thing.
A few minutes later, I found myself standing next to an elderly woman in a wheelchair, as a Parade of trans-global drum- beating puppeteers wound its way around the World Showcase Lagoon. It seemed the worst kind of Millenial Blather - "let's walk hand in hand towards a better world," intoned some remote Orwellian voice that seemed to be - and was, in fact - coming from the trees.
One of the puppeteers maneuvered his 10-feet tall, wooden and cloth, vaguely Asian-like butterfly figure down the parade route. He spotted the woman, who took the puppet's hands and welled with tears.
Surprised and moved by the look on her face, I sat down next to her. She was from Texas. She was frail, and even breathing seemed a struggle for her. I could only guess the toll the trip halfway across country had taken.
I thought of the book I'd bought which had referred to Orlando as the "new mecca, " the world's number one destination.
Maybe they were on to something.
Why had she come to Orlando, I wondered?
"The science, the technology. I'm going blind so I can't get on the computer, but I wanted to see the technology. I think it's here if it's anywhere. I want to see the new things. My mother dropped dead hauling water from a lake in Texas to our house - she had to do it every day, because it was before electric power and the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). I think often how long she might have lived if they'd had dams. So I told my son I wanted to see what they've done before I die. It's amazing, just amazing?"
In his book "The Whale and The Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology," Langdon Winner puzzled over why, in a culture riddled with ideologies and philosophies, there wasn't one for technology. In the United States, he wrote, we are a culture of technological somnambulists.
Samuel Florman, the civil engineer, wrote that there was, in fact, a philosophy of technology, and it was inherently tragic - technology represents the best of the human desire to understand and improve the world, and the relentless tendency of humankind to screw the world up. If we really grasp this and apply it, then we can perhaps relax a bit about whether technology is a good or bad witch. It's both, always.
That was the only way, Florman believed, that one could possibly come to terms with technics in a society literally engulfed by technology, but riddled with passionate moral and other disagreements about it.
From the 1939 World's Fair well beyond World War II, technology and engineering were golden - the country loved all of its new conveniences and wonders, from electric power to TV and cars, to toasters and the Space Age.
But the 60s ended America's unambivalent love of technology. Intellectuals in particular began blaming technology for ruining the environment, threatening catastrophic conflict and destroying classical culture and civilization.
Many have hated technology ever since, along with a broad and growing array of allies: nervous Boomer parents, exploitive politicians, unknowing journalists, professional religious fanatics and political moralists.
But the tragic view of technology eliminates this silly argument. It holds that while there is plenty of evil in the world, the essentially tragic fact is not so much the war of good with evil as the war of good with good. If anything, Disney's dreams and Utopian fantasies seem to support that idea.
Among other things, Orlando - at least the theme park part of it -- is a testament to the fact that these elites are, as they've always been, disconnected from the masses of people they profess to serve. The stream of people who come to Orlando dearly love, even worship, technology and - just like the Imagineer said - flock at all costs across great distances to get just a glimpse of the imagined worlds on display.
Next: Walt's Carousel of Progress and his lost model of the city of tomorrow.
Katz. Jon Katz. (Score:2)
"The penguin flies higher than the mouse"
"Yes, but who will be the leader of us all?"
Whatever happened to World's Fairs (Score:2)
Great article! (Score:1)
Space Opera Philosophy (Score:2)
What am I supposed to walk away with here? (Score:1)
Disney & Technology (Score:2)
Goodness, Since forwarding that message to all my friends and family, I have received hundreds of dollars and free trips to Disney... I tell you, the possibilities of that there Beta Tracker are limitless!
A few thoughts (Score:2)
It also brought to mind the question of the significance of all this technology. Specifically, the woman whos mother had died hauling water was very provoking. (Great writing, Jon!) Isn't the purpose of technology, in the end, to make life easier in general? To save effort such that it may devoted to other, more "human" pursuits? That leads to an inevitable question: does the world's lust for technology really ease human suffering?
*Sigh..* (Score:3)
Don't you just *HATE* it when that happens?
--
Re:Viruses don't strangle. (Score:1)
> technology is a virus that is strangling mother
> earth...
You can put your sister's fear to rest. Modern science has shown that a virus is incapable of a strangling (or much of any other) action. However, it is an expert at embracing and extending.
Somewhat ironic, since Disney Corp had embraced and extended the ideas of the late Walt Disney.
The question - in part - answers itself (Score:4)
What would be the constituent parts of a technological philsophy? Morals, laws, human relations, captial relations? All of these are changed by technology.
What I am saying at heart is that our philosophy, our institutions, our society can all only follow what technology does. We can attempt to apply current social values to new technology but that is vanity and folly. If there is any enduring 'philsophy' we can apply it boils down to one phrase - The dynamic of change.
Z@mzm1.demon.nl
Now how fair is that? (Score:5)
A perspective I can already see echoed in that nebulous 'article and maybe a book' Katz is talking about. But how fair is it really? Was Disney really a starry-eyed big kid who would've used Linux to run his MP3's if only both had been invented at the time? Was Gates really a snide poser whose vision of shoddy upgrade-driven software and world domination crystallized at the age of 3?
If we judge both men by their actions, we see they are remarkably similar. Disney did not invent the cartoon, nor the amusement park, nor the notion of breathless technofairs that cozen corn-hucking families of four in a glittering tin foil vision of the future. But Disney did formulate the concept that these familiar sideshows could be brought together for the common man, in one place by one company. To judge him purely by his actions, Disney believed in the common spark of delight, and he wasn't above turning that ageless need for pleasure into a buck or two for himself.
How does Gates really differ? The Imagineer wasn't entirely wrong: Gates makes software. That, and that alone, is the significant difference between Disney and Gates. Disney recognized the golden possibilities in bringing cartoons and technology into the average home. Gates realized the seas of green to be made bringing computers to Everyman's den, and fabricating software that Everyman would want to use.
We readily accept the statement above from the "Imagineer" because we work in the computer industry, and so we inherit a memory of the time when Gates clawed his way to the top. We remember that there were others who shared Gates vision, and others who could have just as easily assumed that monopolistic throne. So we give Gates no credit at all. He was one face in the crowd, distinguishable only by a pair of goofy glasses, a bad haircut, and a signed IBM contract stuffed in next to his pocket protector.
Disney worked in entertainment, and most of us are unfamiliar with that world. We accept readily, at face value, the claim that he was original and that he was first. The notion that he was a titan with unheard-of ideas seems reasonable to us within our limited sphere of experience. But ideas, great ideas, are always "in the air". From evolution to calculus, from airplanes to money itself, the ideas that transform society have only rarely been the original fruit of one brain. Did Disney pen the first cartoon? No. Did he tighten the screws personally on the first carnival ride? No. Did he hold the first bonanza of Future Tech. No. What he did, and what Gates did, was realize that there was money to be made in the combination of many elements that already existed around him. They were opportunists, both of them. They were also original thinkers. To suggest otherwise, whatever your personal hatred for Gates or Disney, is spiteful.
-konstant
Re:Whatever happened to World's Fairs (Score:2)
//rdj
What? (Score:1)
hrm... (Score:1)
However, this one has caught my attention. First off, the writing was entertaining; but most importantly, it was (*surprise*) thought provoking.
I'll think on it some more and post my thoughts later. Just thought I should comment on the rare occasion Katz writes something good.
The eternal fight to fend off boredom (Score:2)
Re:A few thoughts (Score:3)
Yes and no. Certainly it would have eased suffering for the woman who died hauling water. With better technology, she might have lived a longer, more fulfilling, and productive life. But technology creates new kinds of suffering even as it eases old suffering. Instead of dying tragically young, more people live a long time. But they also die slow, painful, lingering deaths.
Technology has to some extent made humans into domestic animals. We're better fed, and we live longer than our ancestors could have hoped to. But we've given up something too.
Would I choose to go back (to a preindustrial age) if I could? Not a chance! The good old days were not that good. But neither will I give up and admit that those aspects of the preindustrial past that were better (cleaner air, less noise, starry skies, etc.) are no longer attainable. I suspect our best hope to regain them is not through abandoning technology (if that were even possible), but through pursuing better technology.
The past is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Katz Bashers Fsck Off (Score:1)
It's always amazing to me how the criticisms of Katzie are rather inarticulate, often full of spelling errors, and obviously the rantings of someone who flunked English and can't stand to see another geek put more than 2 paragraphs on a page without getting the shakes.
If you don't like Katz, filter him out. Malda has instituted a fabulous set of preferences for doing just that sort of thing. If you can't figure out how to set this up, maybe you can go ask your copy of the Microsoft Dancing Paper Clip.
The technology underlying Disney (Score:3)
...and I do mean "underlying".
The last time I went to Disney World, there was a neat exhibit at EPCOT (which was only a few years old at the time) in the central pavilion, not big enough for a pavilion of its own. It was sponsored by Sperry. No, not Unisys (the bastard child of the Sperry-Burroughs merger), the mid-80's mainframe Sperry. At the time, a significant amount of Disney World's computing power ran on Sperry hardware, and my father (a Field Engineer who had been with the company since it was Sperry-Univac) got us VIP access. The exhibit was literally a window into one of the computer rooms that controlled Disney's technology.
Walt Disney World is like an iceberg in that the vast majority of it lies underneath the surface, where few people ever get to see. Personnel facilities, changing rooms for the "actors", maintenance tunnels, and the computers that operate the rides, shows, and everything else. I've heard that Disney took great pains to hide the underlying workings of his "Magic Kingdom" in order to avoid breaking the illusion he worked so hard to create.
I don't know how much Sperry hardware still exists in the warrens beneath central Florida (there may still be quite a bit of legacy hardware). I wonder if there is still an exhibit like Sperry's anywhere at WDW, that gives visitors a glimpse of that strange underworld. I also wonder how Disney would have felt about letting outsiders see the technological underpinnings of his magic.
Re:What am I supposed to walk away with here? (Score:1)
After Walt died, I guess they removed most of the living and working parts and left the entertainment.
Not that it's not impressive, but it's not quite what Walt was trying to achieve.
On a related note, I've read that the much maligned Jerry Pournelle has also said that Walt Disney wanted EPCOT to be a place where regular people could watch real science being done. Dr. Pournelle was one of a number of writers, engineers, and scientists who were consulted by Walt regarding the details.
Viruses (sorta Offtopic) (Score:2)
Viruses are most proficient at embracing and extending...themselves. Often at the expense of their hosts. True, they're not capable of doing much of anything on their own, being merely a snippet of genetic material w/ a protein coat and all. But that genetic material is stealthy! It sneaks into its host's cellular apparatus and gets the host to do all the work that the virus is incapable of by itself. Like making more viruses and maybe even strangling the host.
Now technology is, of course, not a virus. It has no genetic material and no protein coat. But sucessful ideas and complexes of ideas (like technology) are frequently compared to viruses. They're analogous to viruses. They seem to propagate throughout the human population in the same way that viruses do. By inducing their hosts to replicate them.
This is neither good nor evil. It just is.
Wait a second - (Score:1)
OK, so now $$$ runs Disney; what's the big deal?? (Score:2)
How is this different from Apple? How is this different from Netscape, Sun, Oracle, etc? How is this different from so many other technology companies who started out with a vision, a desire to change the world and a few years later found themselves struggling to meet wall street earnings estimates and foregoing all principlies/vision in the process?
The fact that Katz is actually complaining about this, just drives home the fact that many of his essays seem to be situated a bit far from reality.
Interestingly enough, the only company which seems to have endured (actually prospered) and held on to it's (somewhat greedy) princicples, seems to be Microsoft. Then gain (fincancially speaking), they are in a league of their own.
Philosophy of Technology (Theory and Application) (Score:2)
There really a large existing body of work concerning a philosophy of technology, whether you're in for the "Philosophy as it Should Be" (at the philosophy department of your local U) or "Philosopy as it Is" (the engineering department of your local tech company, the sales rep at your local quik-e-mart). I would actually be very interested in a reading list or beginners bibliography pertaining to either subject.
As it stands, here are a few resources I have found interesting and useful:
This is a damn good book chronicling a slice of the rise and fall of CAD/CAM mania in the 80's- There are a lot of visions that parallel Mr. Katz's vision of Uncle Walt's vision, and some of the realities that conflicted with/resulted from that sort of thinking. This is a reallly in depth study of philosophy type B (quik-e-mart)
This is an essay of the other type (phil. department) and it is heavy- It took me weeks of reading and re-reading to get a foggy notion of what was going on, and my notion is still probably pretty foggy ("Engineers don't need that liberal-arts garbage" thunders a someone at a curriculum planning meating in my distant past...) But It has really changed the way I think about the work that I do in a fundamental way.
(Drifting off of the topic, I would really, really, *really* like to see a "philosophy department philosophy of technology for the rest of us" somewhere- maybe even here at /.???)
Secret Identity (Score:1)
Something wrong here. (Score:1)
but there is something a little dishonest about this article.
1. Yes there are lots of survellence cameras in Disney parks. Including right where John and his anonymous friend sat, so it will be relatively easy to check back and see who talked (faded yankee baseball caps are easy to spot). That being true, I wonder if the person he supposedly met had official blessing from Disney? There are plenty places outside of Disney World where they could have met without fear of being watched. (like tens of thousands of hotel rooms, lots of undeveloped forest....)
2. The TVA is in Tennesee, not Texas. There is a whole state and a really big river between them (Arkansas, and the Mississippi).
Meeting in Disney would be like meeting with a mole in the middle of the CIA HQ (or the Kremlin). It's considered exceptionally stupid and riskey.
As far as Disneys special town for employees. It is generally considered a complete failure. The Home Owner association rules are nothing short or Orwellian, the promise of high speed access to the Internet consists of slow dial up modems (maybe they've improved that, but I haven't heard anything). The shops and stores are so expensive that most people go to nearby discount centers for the goods. The quality of construction is suspect because of the finincial problems of the builders... I could go on, but none of this is news down in here in FL.
More importantly, Disney is not the only High Tech center in Orlando. Universal studios has excellent VR and 3D based entertainment. Disney has nothing, and I mean nothing to match the new Spiderman ride at Islands of Adventure. Even the Back to the Future ride, Terminator 3D and Twister, are far ahead of anything at Disney, with the exception of the 3D bug show at the Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom park.
There is also DisneyQuest at the Downtown Disney park. There they have some excellent VR stuff in the way of Games and interactivity
There is a large and growing tech/entertainment population in Orlando, much of it outside the confines of the Magic Kingdom. So Mr. Katz, if you really want to do a tech piece on Orlando, get rid of your Mouse cap, and open your eyes.
And no, I do not work for Universal, Disney, or any other company in or around Orlando. This article simply doesn't seem genuine, thats all.
One last thing, I am not anti-Disney, nor anti- anything else. I like taking a vacation where I can count on the staff to be professional, courteous and the rooms clean and well maintained.
The article just doesn't add up.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
If what I said is nonsense,
I'm making a point with it.
If what I said makes perfect sense,
you obviously missed the point.
Re:The technology underlying Disney (Score:1)
This came up in a meeting over the summer after some coworkers had a business trip to Disney World (I worked at Unisys). They don't offer VIP views of the machine room anymore, but I'm sure it's possible to pull some strings down there. :)
What's with all the paranoia? (Score:2)
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
This is true. Orlando is the hotbed for simulation work, especially for (yes, I know it's probably a dirty word) the military. UCF in Orlando does a ton of simulation work, and the Army has STRICOM (Simulation and Training Command) there. Lots of hi tech stuff available in the sim world.
science on the march! (Score:2)
Hmm, I can imagine it now:
VO from announcer: And here we see Dr. Flurm engaging the particle accelerator. Watch as he types in the commands into his keyboard. This is an exciting moment particle physics!
Look! There it goes! Aaaaaand it's over!
Now let's look on the big screen to see if muon-decay was achieved...
Bored kid in the audience: What happened? This is stupid! Mom!!! I wanna go on Space Mountain!!
Etc.
Pope
Re:Whatever happened to World's Fairs (Score:1)
Tragedy of the uncommons... (Score:1)
One thing I was surprised you had not mentioned that fit rather well into the theme of technology being tragic, was the Animal Kingdom - I had heard that a fair number of animals had died when the first placed them there, in a way killing them in thier attempt to save them in a high-tech animal reserve. I do not know if that is true, can anyone comment on that?
Your thesis has problems (Score:2)
You might as well say that *any* human artifact (religion, culture, nationalism) is tragic, because sometimes the Gods throw their lightningbolts at them too. But this is also wrong. Many things have been tried throughout history; those that have a net positive benefit (eg capitalism) tend to spread; those that have a net negative benefit (eg slavery) tend to disappear. Put 'em together: that's Progress. It's in those areas where the benefit is uncertain that are the most interesting; nationalism comes to mind. The books are closed on technology -- it's good, and more is better.
Do you think that old woman's mother would have argued with this? Would she have been disturbed that an "unnaturnal" metal cylinder was laid between the lake and her house? Or even that her new, longer expected lifespan would be a wee bit shorter because the pipe was made of lead? I don't think so.
Ironically, sometimes the thing that tells us our technology is harming us is -- more technology!
Disneyland and technology!?! (Score:1)
There was probably more interesting technology used in getting him to Orlando (i.e. jets, air traffic control, etc) than he'll find in the silly rides at Disney.
I'm pretty sure he just wanted to spend time in Florida during the cold months.
Re:*Sigh..* (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:2)
...phil
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:2)
Why would it matter? Early on, Jon says:
Sounds pretty safe to me.
...phil
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
That's where most people miss out on the Disney experience. By all means, if you're looking for thrill rides then go to another park. Disney isn't the place for you.
I've been to both of the American parks several times since the early sixties. Always, I am amazed (and a bit saddened) by all the people who run to stand in enormous lines at the big thrill rides.
Next time any of you go to a Disney park head straight for the "kiddie rides". Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Pay close attention as you go through those slow and totally unexciting attractions. Notice the level of technology that was installed 20-40 years ago to create the illusions. Immerse yourself into the detailed fantasy worlds that Walt set out to create. Walk up the almost unmarked stairways into the castle towers - you never know what you'll find there.
That is where you find the real Disney. The thrill rides are there for the sake of commercial competition. The rest is for us geeks and dreamers.
Re:Tragedy of the uncommons... (Score:1)
Did you hear this from a Disney employee, a regular person or an Animal Rights activist? Consider the source.
One last thing about your visit to Disney. Like anything else, it's what you make of it. Disney, Universal etc... are all about make believe and don't pretend to be real. Disney is about it's own culture. Universal(seperate from Disney) and MGM(part of the Disney parks) are about Movies and Hollywood. Apples and Oranges, both ejoyable.
Above all, considering the money you're about to spend:) please just relax and enjoy yourself.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
Gates makes software. That, and that alone, is the significant difference between Disney and Gates.
Disney made flawless, artistic, captivating animations, the quality of which is unequalled. Look at Fantasia, or Snow White - look at the 3D effects other animation houses still can't do with any amount of computer power.
Gates makes shoddy software.
There's a big difference.
Re:Philosophy of Technology (Theory and Applicatio (Score:1)
> I would actually be very interested in a reading list or beginners bibliography
The standard entries are Kuhn, Popper, and Feyerbend. I think the most important philosopher of technology is Karl Marx. His political remedies stink, but his analysis of how the system and its technology and the people interact is on-the-mark.
To me, the most interesting modern guy is a French Marxist: Michel Foucault. There is an interesting website put together by Steve Dhalgren (it is not G-rated) entitled Doom Patrols. Coincidentally, his website also has an entry on Walt Disney. The URL:
http://www.dhalgren.com/Doom/ch04.html
The best Foucault's are Madness and Civilization (a history of the asylum) and Discipline and Punish (a history of the prison.)
Bukvich
Re:science on the march! (Score:1)
I suppose programming is similar. It's probably boring to watch, say, John Carmack program, but plenty of people follow his progress and are waiting for the end result.
I understand they do (did?) quite a bit of hydroponic research at EPCOT and they grow much (most?) of the fresh vegetables they use hydroponicaly. I believe you can (could?) visit the greenhouses if you wish. So maybe Walt's inspiration wasn't completely lost.
Yes and No (Score:1)
Basically, technology is valueles by itself. "Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right" and this in and of itself should prove that there is more than simply the "dynamic of change" here. It's a feedback loop. Of course advances in technology affect our laws and our perceptions of the world, but the converse is also true. Technologies that are deemed more "important", either by the military or by whomever else has the resources to support research, will get more funding which will fuel growth and affect how that "value-free" technology will be harnessed. The web itself started at DARPA.
>>What would be the constituent parts of a technological philsophy? Morals, laws, human relations, captial relations? All of these are changed by technology.
Sure, but these shape our technology too, from theory to application, from basic research to IPO. Granted there's no way to predict when the major paradigm shifts will happen (for example from a Newtonian to an Einstinian paradigm), it's still possible to guide and predict technology's impact on society over the long haul in broad strokes. We need models like EPCOT to guide us just as we need fiction like "1984" and "Brave New World" to show us the dangers inherent in certain technologies.
Philosophy is not static, and neither is our technology. I'd argue that we can understand the process of technology well by studying the philosophy of science (for ex. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn) and we can guide our visions of the future we want collectively by understanding our past visions of what we think our future will/should be. While that varies greatly from culture to culture, and that's nowhere near as rigourous an outline for a philosophy as the Critique of Pure Reason ;) I still say it's pretty accurate and a better heuristic than "the only constant is change".
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
Any contact/discussion with the public is carefully orchestrated and controlled. Remember earlier this year when a reporter at ABC tried to do a report on mechanical failures of rides at Disney? Disney shut it down (pun intended).
If they reviewed the security tapes, that 'Contact' would probably be out of a job among other things. Which leads to my suspicions that if in fact there was a meeting at of all places Epcot, then it was with Disneys' approval.
Anonymous contact not withstanding.
Less clandestine, more like writers imagination (but hey, imagination is what Disney is all about
Re:The eternal fight to fend off boredom (Score:1)
y'know, IHFPTR when you make arbitary acronyms like that. I can understand using IMHO or AFAIK, but when it inevitably takes some people longer to figure out what the hell that means than it would be to type the whole thing out, you've pretty much missed the point. The purpose of language is communication, in case you've forgotten...
JM2C.
Re:Expo 2000 Hannover Germany (Score:1)
Re:The technology underlying Disney (Score:1)
BTW great article Mr. Katz. Love the description of theme parks as "rendered worlds".
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
BTW, on your next visit, check out DR. Suess land at the Islands of Adventure (adjacent to Universal Studios). Like the rest of the park, full of color and beauty. Extremely well done. The Spiderman ride may be the most spectacular, but it is by no means the only thing worth seeing.
Self defeating philosophy (Score:1)
If your position is true, then your philosophical statement will change and not be true in the future.
Technology doesn't change morality and basic values. For example, you can kill someone by running over them with a horse, a car, an airplane, or a space shuttle. The technology of the transportation doesn't affect the underlying morality of using it to kill in this case.
Does Katz suffer from Tom Brokaw disease? (Score:1)
Brokaw, you will remember, recently wrote a gushing book about the generation that fought and won World War II. Anyway Brokaw laments that Americans no longer have the sort of social cohesion that facing destruction from fascism (and then communism) had. Well duh -- there's nothing like fear of mass destruction to unite people, but neither that fear nor the social cohesion it brings are things to be celebrated in and of themselves.
Katz's Russian couple reminded me of this. One of the major reasons the Soviet empire fell was because, ultimately, they couldn't control the technology. Soviet citizens used everything from photocopiers to VCRs to what have you to spread the message and Gorbachev was unwilling to take the steps necessary to stop this.
Of course in America we don't have that sort of problem so what do we do with our technology? Lots of us download pornography or we spend a weekend like I recently did converting my entire CD collection to MP3 or we play some computer game to fill up the time.
But we don't have any need for any "philosophy" of technology or some need to have some overarching Purpose(TM) except to enjoy our lives, and this seems to really bug people like Katz.
It's the end of the world as we know, and I feel fine.
What can science do? (Score:1)
This is an absurdity (Score:1)
Time Machine, H.G. Wells (Score:1)
Neither tech nor people are inherently tragic. (Score:1)
Technology is tragic only as much as human beings are tragic. Technology, whether it is a lever or a computer, is simply a human amplifier. Used well, it makes better. Used poorly, it makes worse. Unintended evils do accompany the use of technology, but unintended benefits appear as well.
A philosophy can take into account the role of technology in human affairs. It cannot, however, successfully become the foundation of that viewpoint. The Tragic view of Technology is simply the tragic view of Humanity. That tragic view is only one amoung many philosophical views. By pushing a tragic view of technology, one is simply projecting philosophy of humanity as tragedy.
IV
Re:*Sigh..* (Score:1)
That's true (Score:1)
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
Check out this article (Score:1)
sorry it's in the old page format, but ah well...OTOH, there is a really good Disney story in an old book called "Mass Mediated Culture". It was unfortunately stolen from the SAIT library...I would loved to have xeroxed that one. Disney is so obsessed with everything being perfect that everything must be monitored. No sex in the bushes, no litter. It's more Big Brother than anything. I would never go there. I view Disney as an elitist company now - just check out their treatment of Winnie the Pooh. There's "Classic Pooh" for the high-noses with a higher price tag and "modern Pooh" which you can find at any K-Mart or Wal-Mart. Sad.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
I'd have to partially agree with you. the Disney Company of today does seem to be far to commercialized, and money hungry. However, I don't believe that Walt Disney himself would have let Aladdin MCXII happen. In fact, there were no sequels produced while Disney himself was still alive.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
Last I heard, Gates was alive and kicking, and still trying his best to lie, and squirm his way out of the DOJ case, all the while still trying to shove his mediocre crap down everyones throat while he still can.
I see NO resemblance of vision of the two men WHATsoever.
Technology behind Disney... (Score:1)
My dad has been at Disney West (aka Disneyland, the Tragic Kindom, the Crapiiest Place on Earth) for 25 years building, repairing, designing, modernizing, etc. anything electronic on the campus.
Anything and everything at the place is run on Z-80 processors. They are cheap, they are easy to program for.... all the animatronics, all the float controllers, the fireworks launchers, the sound systems for the rides, the ride controllers (except some of the newer rides like Star Tours and Indy, where the Z-80 couldn't handle it)... all of these are run by DOS machines holding the programs and then talking to the Z-80's running the stuff.
factoids -
there is no more analog tape at disneyland on continuous loop for things like ride music, etc.. Its all stored solid state - not harddrive... EPROMs. very^very expensive.. but it never breaks... they never have to fix it. new stuff is digitally recorded and burned in just a few steps. (this was under old management when doing shit right meant it was done right, even if expensive)
Been on Whiplash errrr Splash Mountain? Why is it so fast? Why do things scream by at mach 9? Well, it was supposed to be 25% larger... to save money, they asked "can't we just build it smaller? Everything 1 foot long will now be 9 inches! Save money!" They told them that water moves faster in smaller spaces, but they didn't listen. The ride was delayed weeks because they did everything but install 4-wheel disk breaks to slow down the boats.
They don't clean the scenes of Haunted Mansion. They haven't for over 30 years.
There is a LED counter on the president of Disneyland's (i forget his name now.. and no, its not Eisner... i mean the Pres (VP?) of Disneyland) desk of exactly how many people are in the park. Average worth of each patron is $85 with tickets, parking, food, and Disney chatchka.
Fantasimic was due to Mrs Eisner. They were going to either do a big show thing or a coaster... they went with the show thing. Buttons popped up saying "Could'a had a coster" on them... they were later banned.
___
"I know kung-fu."
Why Katz isn't universally liked (Score:1)
somnambulist (Score:1)
Best Intentions, I'm Sure... (Score:1)
So we met in the best clandestine manner -
(wince)
I can't bear to repeat all the location-specific data you then provide here, utterly negating any hope of anonymity.
The Imagineer recognized me, as we had arranged, from my fading Yankees baseball cap. I spotted him by his
(shakes head) You don't need to! Now they only need to spot *you*!
Didn't somebody in the last article say something about 'cameras everywhere'? With all the information you've provided in your article, I'll bet they (whomever 'they' may be, and depending on whether they care or not), could pinpoint the 'offending' employee after an hour or two of browsing some archival footage.
Age, Gender, location and numerous environmental specifics were provided to aid them in their search.
Whoops!
Heck. If he *does* get fired, it'll make a great follow-up story...
Re:Yes and No (Score:1)
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right" works better as:
"Every tool is a weapon if you choose to use it that way"
I can't remember the definition of a weapon, but I *think* it was something along the lines of.. " any device used to manipulate energy..."
sorry off topic, just a pet peeve.
3C
YNSHO is wrong. (Score:1)
Click here [slashdot.org] to find out why Katz isn't universally liked.
Gates is artless (Score:3)
Please name something that Gates has really BROUGHT forth into this world. MSDOS? BASIC? Windows? And no, I'm not talking about mere invention. I am of the belief that merely inventing a concept is relatively minor part, a first step. Though I'm not a huge fan of say Steven Jobs, I respect him for MAKING the GUI (amongst other things) happen even though PARC technically invented it. Just as I respect Ford, and many others. They made definite contributions to this world by force of personality, willingess to take risk, vision, perseverence, and other such qualities. If Gates ever had such a sparc, it was in his early days (e.g.: Altair) and long since gone. The lack of significant improvement in his product line, his business practices, and his desire to do the most expediant thing speak directly to this.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
Considering that on the first microcomputer, he was the first person to charge for software and whine about people copying it - when he didn't even write it himself ---
Yes.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
My take:
Let's see... hmmm innovations:
Gates:
Charging People for software
Disney:
First cartoon with sound (Steamboat Willie)
First cartoon with color (the flowers & the trees ( I think that was the name)
Development of multi-level animation (debuted in "the Old Mill", perfected in Fantasia)
First Feature Length Motion Picture (Snow White)
One of the first TV shows to film in color (The Magical World Of Disney)
DisneyLand/Disney world. Yes there where amusment parks, but if you think there is an equivalnce, then you've never been.
"Audio-Animatronics" A vast-vast-vast improvement on the moving parts in dark house rides that exsited before.
I'd have to say their is a _big_ difference!
Priesthood vs. CEO (Score:1)
It would be like visiting some of the temples in Japan; donations are encouraged and happily accepted and baubles are always for sale, but it is all done with grace and humor, and the temples themselves are kept imaculate and undefiled, for the enjoyment of all.
Not bad, Mister Katz. Much more honest and entertaining than some of your previous fare.
Imagineers (Score:1)
You don't get it (Score:1)
You should find an older person & ask what it was like before the polio vaccine became available, & if they think vaccination is "tragic." I predict her answer won't be, "Very tragic; now a few thousands of us won't have a character-building obstacle, namely, a non-responsive body, thrust upon us." I, for one, hope to die a slow, painful, lingering death
Not designed for critical thought (Score:1)
If you're going to DW, don't forget to visit the Disney/MGM Studios area. I found an excellent live example of how Disney plays fast and loose with the truth to eke out a little more cash, and they didn't even hide it terribly well to the critical eye.
Last time my family went to DW (95ish), I went to the D/MGM "animation studio", where (supposedly) real live animators actually worked and you got to see all the equipment they used. Well, none of them were in that day. While the desks certainly looked lived-in, something about the artfully arranged Pocahontas sketches made me suspicious - after all, the movie was about to come out, shouldn't it be done by now?
Then they took us around to the tracing and painting tables, and the camera. And that's when my BS detector really went off. I knew from newsgroup postings by Disney employees that from Little Mermaid onwards, all the tracing and coloring had been done by computer. The tables and figurines has visible dust on them. The camera was poorly shielded from extraneous light.
I couldn't figure out why they would rather show the masses the classical animation methods, when they could easily wow the crowds with newfangled whiz-bang digital technology, and be honest about the process to boot. And then I saw the $1000 sericels ("print" cels, not used in production) in the gift shop.
The tour was still worth it, even if not all the laughs came from the pre-recorded Robin Williams guidethrough.
Re:A few thoughts (Score:1)
I think that if you actually looked at the facts of the matter--rather than the popular conception of preindustrial societies, you'll find for the most part that while the skies are starrier, and the noise is a bit less, the air really isn't any less polluted (smoke from cooking fires, the smells of bodily effluents etc.) than our own, it's just different--and in some ways worse.
Much of the pollution we have today--car exhausts etc. lead to long term health problems, cancers etc. The pollutions of previous times lead to more immediate problems of a bacteriological nature. I'd rather get a cancer at 65 than collera at 7, 18, 22 and 30 before dying of bubonic plague at 33.
Evidence of Lead Pollution from the lead smelting operations in Rome during the Roman Empire has been found in Polar Ice.
You have to go so far back in time before you get rid of pollution that by the time you've done it, you get rid of society.
Re:What's with all the paranoia? (Score:1)
Read the book _Built_To_Last_ by James Collins and Jerry Porras. They studied several companies (including Disney) that have been in existance for over 50 yrs (and are looked at as the best of the best), and tried to figure out why. One of big common threads is that there is a "cult-like" culture within the company.
This makes some strange things happen, such as extreme secracy, distrust of outsiders, and no bad news.
Think about IBM in the 1960's. If you were IBM, you bled blue, you only associated with other IBMers, you had to wear the uniform, etc. It should be noted that IBM's greatest success was in the 60's. {OK, IBM's most profitable time was in the late 1980s, but that was due to getting customers to purchase all the hardware instead of leasing}.
Re:Self defeating philosophy (Score:1)
Technology DOES change morality. It changes how we see the world, and how we relate to the world. It changes what we value and why. These values are our moral base.
In your example you state several different technologies that can be used to "run over someone" stating that it doesn't matter which one you use, it doesn't change the underlying morality. In fact, technology has changed our (societies) opnions of when, where, who, and how it is ok to kill people. Look at how the nature of war--largely through technology--has changed in the last 200 years. In the past it was simply a war between assigned combatants with the cities as prizes--civilians were largely safe during the fighting, it was afterwards, if their side lost that things got nasty.
Today--because of the highly technical nature of war, just about any target (other than Hospitals and Schools) can be legitimized as "denying the enemy production" or "weakening the infrastructure".
It has also changed the nature of who we are allowed to kill--it is almost inconceivable to many people that we might go to war with the more modern contries in Europe, both because we are--through technology--so interdependent on them, and because technology lets us enteract with them on a much closer basis. However this same technology shows us how different the little brown and yellow people are, so 38 days of heavy bombing is OK, since they aren't like us, and besides, we need their oil.
Technology doesn't really change the basic nature of people, most are lazy, greedy and stupid. It does change how they, in their sloth and self indulgence, relate to the world and what they value in it.
Re:science on the march! (Score:1)
Wargames was my favorite. How many times did they use the dolly shot of the W.O.P.A.R.? Almost makes one want to be a programer. Or a hacker. Or an actor. Maybe I'll just watch the movie. Much more exciting.
Yes, several animals did die (Score:1)
Yes, it is true.
To quote from ther June 4, 1998 edition of the Los Angeles Times, from an article entitled "Hippo Dies at Disney Animal Theme Park":
"A hippopotamus has died of bacterial pneumonia at Disney's Animal Kingdom, the latest in a series of deaths of animals at the new theme park in Lake Buena Vista. Nearly 30 animals, including cheetahs, an otter, a rhino and another hippo, died at the park before it opened in April."
Here's the URL, you need to register for Hunter (LA Times search bot), but it's free (much like NYTimes registration): http://www.latimes.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli?DBLIST=lt
I definitely remember the press coverage on this when it happened.
Your comment on his thesis has problems (Score:2)
However I believe the point is that the combination of technology and humanity is tragic.
How many of you programmers out there have started out writing some great piece of software, only to eventually give up because of a design issue you couldn't forsee?
How many dams were built by dependable, intelligent engineers trying to make the quality of life of people around them better, only to have the resulting weakening of the downstream flow cause masses of wildlife to die through a string of consequences no-one saw coming?
How many cryptographers around the world are wondering at this very moment whether their lifes work is letting child pornographers get away with hideous crimes?
It is this very relationship, our inability to predict the consequences of our technology, our nothing-but-good intentions in its design and construction, and the pain we suffer and give to others apon failure, that is Tragic.
Every day, every hour, our capabilities expand. Our ability to perform tragedies has well exceeded Shakespeares', and there is no indiction of any letup any time soon. With the generation of masses of nuclear weapons, we and our technology, for the first time ever, presented the opportunity for a Tragedy that would cost the lives of every one of us.
This has only become easier since then. I sincerely hope that we learn to minimise the Tragedy from our symbiotic relationship with technology, for otherwise, we die.
Recursive advice (Score:1)
> take from it what you will, and shut up!
Now there's an enlightened attitude! I read the article, took from it what I wanted, and commented on some of what I took from it - as you did to my comment. Seems fair.
I hope Katz *does* read what's written about him. He might use some of it to improve his writing. My comment wasn't intended as a mindless flame of Katz, but rather because everything he posts generates a slew of this kind of discussion, with incoherent flames (such as your message) on both sides, and I was commenting on why that might be the case - and by implication, why it's not likely to change, unless Katz gets an editor.
Re:Now how fair is that? (Score:1)
(Oh, is it time for my pill? Why, thank you...)
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
Re:Yes and No (Score:1)
Second, there is also the possibility that a weapon can be used unintentionally. Example: Automobile accidents: Unintentional, (most of the time) but often deadly nonetheless.
This is the only reason I can see that technology could be viewed as tragic. The more tools we have, and the more energy they manipulate (I like that analogy) the more likely they are to be used as weapons, intentionally or otherwise.
Otherwise, I think this whole technology discussion is bullcrap.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
Are you kidding? (Score:2)
To behave as if Disney was equivalent to a Gates is very stupid. He was the guy pushing for all this. That said, the Disney cartoons (especially the comics!) put across a _very_ strange worldview, and the ones intended for foreign countries actually have capitalist propaganda put into them (really!) or at least had- dunno if Disney still makes those comics. Particularly at the height of the Cold War, Disney comic books were outright 'a war effort' trying to subvert other societies. That's fair to mention. But don't be dissin' the incredible dedication and technological innovation of pre-WWII Disney! (or indeed after- Disney pioneered the Xerox photocopying process _for_ _cels_, as used in 101 Dalmatians and Robin Hood, and pioneered a version with _grey_ lines for The Rescuers).
Epcot today vs. Walt's Epcot (Score:2)
I later asked someone who was presumably in the know, why this pavilion was such a technological triumph and all the others were kiddie rides. It was explained to me that Disney's original conception of Epcot was of a permanent World's Fair, with each company putting its major technological triumphs on display. Not just dioramas, but real technology. However, there was a disagreement about how that was to be done. Disney wanted the companies to pay for the big displays, and the companies wanted Disney to pay for them. When it became clear that the companies were the stuckees, only Universal came through and did it right; everyone else built dioramas and people movers.
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:1)
On that point I was probably being unfair to Mr Katz. In those days, TVA was so infamous and controversial, that everybody probably refered to electricity coming to them as TVA.
Mr Katz is merely trying to create a stir without saying anything. Maybe it's alright to talk about Walt Disney even if you work there. But talking about him doesn't really reveal anything about Disney today. So the whole tech/tragedy thing he's writing about is just so much blow.
The failed vision thing? Who knows? Who cares... Disney was going down the tubes until Eisner and Katzenburg turned it around in the mid 80's.
Stupid acronyms (Score:1)
And its not like I'm stupid... Apparently, my brain doesn't work in proper fashion to decrypt these things.
(I can't do jumbles or pronounce french words, either... Coincidence? I think not.)
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
Re:The question - in part - answers itself (Score:1)
I agree completely that technology, as a tool of human society, is an essential part of any philosphical understanding of society as well as being influenced by society. Our laws and institutions both inhibit and encourage technological advancement and are influenced to change by that advancement. But it is wrong to imply that by creating laws or having 'morals' we have the ability to control the advancement of technology. Look to the ruling elites of the past who have fallen to technological advances, often that they themselves brought about. Britain introduced the railways to India to drive forward profit from the region and create a way to move troops. Ghandi used those self-same railroads to spread his message to the furthest corners of the country and provoke a revolt that helped end British domination. Neither Ghandi nor Britain controlled the technology in the sense that they had no more than a passing influence on its implementation and use. In fact, if Ghandi had not used the railroad in the way he had someone else would have. The technology existed and its influence had to be felt.
Britain HAD to bring the railways to the region, it was a monetary and military necessity. If they had not used the technology for the purpose other countries would have had a chance to bring that same technology to play against them. Even if some far-sighted official had at the time realised the dangers of the ensuing socialisation there would have been no way to stop it, only delay it. It would have been implemented but with a view to attempting to control its influence. The technology was brought about by one force and used to the detrement of that same force.
During much the same era the unionisation of workers in factories was coming about. Factories were seen as the means to greater exploitation and profit. With the industrial age the technology decreed that workers would no longer work as small groups of individuals in a village but as larger groups in the factory. This brought about an increase in socialisation that would change the employer/employee relationship for good. When large numbers of people were brought together in a social setting they realised their common goals and began to act together, forming unions and pushing back the dominance of the owners. In some countries this even lead to revolution. But even with the example of others to go by the push towards industrialisation hit every modern country. There was no way for profits to survive without it, they could only hope, once again, to control its influence.
In the same way today many countries are worried about the influence that the internet might have over their citizens. Or, rather, the influence that their citizens might have on each other given a new medium of communication. But the imperative of the financial gains to be made exists and it is a dominant one. They fear the possible changes that could occur but have no choice other than to attempt to force the route that technology takes. The problem they face is that they are battling not the technology here, but yet again its social use. I've seen a lot of paranoia around about the potential for technology to be used to control people by wire-tapping the internet. The governments of the world may hope to use this as a mechanism for control and it may work against small groups of people, but if an idea for social change is uttered and spread it spreads as just that, an idea and it is not possible to stop. And if a hundred million people decide to act on that idea and use the internet to communicate about it then all that the NSA will gain from their listening is the safe knowledge that its time to say goodnight. To switch the internet off would leave them with too great a loss in profit, they are constricted by their need for technology.
Technology exists and changes. It changes our society and our understanding and we use those changes to push technology further. Thus the impression of the 'feeback loop'. Technology is however, always at a point beyond the current society. Its influence exists but is yet to impact our morals, our laws and our institutions. Only a society that has the telephone can create the internet but even the most advanced society at the point of the telephone cannot predict the changes that will occur with the internet - an invention it has not yet realised. Science fiction writers and dreamers can perhaps give us a glimpse of the possibilities but they cannot create a readiness for the changes. Only the solid reality of implementation can do that.
On the topic, because its late and I'm rambling and still suffering from a hangover ;>) My original point was that you can create a philosophy to understand how change occurs through technology in current society and try to use it to predict its future influence on the structure of our society but since technology is in itself the dynamic force that creates the possibility of such change and is always by necessity out of our current reach in philosphical realist terms we cannot create a 'Philosophy for technology'.
Z
Fantasy vs. Reality? (Score:2)
Disney is about Fantasy, not reality - Going to disney world to seek out technology is like seeking out a piece of coal in a diamond mine. You are not supposed to see the fantasy, not the hidden gears of technology that drives it. The reason you see it at all is because you are activity looking for - trying to avoid the builtup facade of reality around you. The geek in us asks "How?" instead of "Why?"
The reason Disney is not the bleeding-edge technological paradise you are looking for is because it is not required. What Disney lacks, it makes up for in imagination.
Re:Not flamebait, but: what is your problem? (Score:1)
Re:science on the march! (Score:1)
It is a rare individual, and a special gift to humanity, that endures the tedium knowing that their suffering and brutal scientific scrutiny will pay off.
Oversoul [mailto] would love to hear your thoughs.
Well said! (Score:2)
The biggest difference I can see in society is that of mass-production. It seems that in the past, most workers were more directly connected to the results of their efforts than they are now. Just a thought.
Sad indeed ... :( (Score:2)
When I have kids, and someone throws a baby shower for me, I'm going to make sure they know NOT to get me anything with cartoon characters OF ANY SORT on it, and I'll try to keep the kids away from the stuff as long as possible. I don't care if it's Mickey Mouse, Big Bird, or Pokemon.
Re:Whatever happened to World's Fairs (Score:1)
You only hear about a few of the fairs. Maybe every couple of decades is one worth remembering. Montreal '67 etc. Paris proudly remembers six world's fairs. But the world only remembers the one that gave us the iron tower.
Walt Disney (Score:1)
For the story of Bambi, he had a pair of fawns (motherless, I think) brought to the studio, and kept in a pen out back. Disney artists spent days studying the fawns and making sketches. From there they went on to film documentaries of deer in the wild.
The studio spent *nine* *years*(if I recall correctly) making _Sleeping_Beauty_. It was designed to be more formally drawn, with the backgrounds done to the tiniest detail. The voice actors wore costumes and acted out their parts.
[It's fascinating what one can learn from the short documentaries at the end of Disney commemorative editions...they even had film footage of the fawns. There are a lot more, but I'm sleepy. Go rent them yourself
Yes, Disney himself had a much different outlook on releases from his studio. He simply did not permit imperfection from his studio's creations.
Re:Well said! (Score:1)
It seems to me that certain problems are pretty much eternal. "What's wrong with today's children"-type books have been around for centuries, at
least.
That's definately true. One of my favorite quotations is:
-- Cicero
Of course, that contrasts with:
-- Ovid
Problems (Score:1)
A Perfect Comparison (Score:1)
Re:Katz Bashers Fsck Off (Score:1)
He starts to annoy me when he starts sermonising - he's much better just relating the progress and content of the interview. He needs to learn to guide the reader to a conclusion unintrusively rather than breaking away from the action to bludgeon us to death with the point he's trying to make.
One thing I DO find annoying is the way he gratuitously works Linux into too many pieces, presumably under the supposition it will somehow make it more palatable to the slashdot audience.
I do have to say however that his earlier rant on The Phantom Menace and Star Wars ommercialisation was utter rubbish.
This piece was OK as a work in progress, but more action and less lecturing, please.
Re:Something wrong here. (Score:2)
Well, Disney owns ABC, so I suspect that particular case goes a little deeper.
...phil
Re:The question - in part - answers itself (Score:1)
I tend to think it's the other way around. Just because we haven't expressed what the underlying assumptions are doesn't mean they're not affecting what we've developed.
Take a look at the telephone for an example. There's technology which could have developed in any number of ways. The phone could have been a community instrument rather than a single-user device. Much like an interactive radio - it was our choices and our society that caused it to develop like it has.
Kwil