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From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Keeping the Faith in Technology
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Date: 7 Jan 91 02:53:24 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 11, Message 3 of 8


Technology is easier to keep faith in when one has a hand in its
design and development.  When, as is most often the case in Western
societies, technology is invented by large, seemingly faceless
corporations or government agencies and foisted on the general public
for better or worse, "faith" is an understandably rare commodity.  I
appreciate Mr.  Lucky's optimism and self-confidence, but his examples
of technology that "works" -- BART as a remedy for transportation
congestion, and educational technology as a remedy for poor scholastic
performance among students -- are insupportable.  BART has complicated
the Bay Area transportation situation, not fixed it.  And educational
technology -- well, just visit any school (in a "good" part of town)
and see all the machinery strewn around, for purposes unknown.
 
Technology is not without its politics, and these are anything but
democratic.  I am surprised that the general public is as tolerant as
it is of we technologists' experiments with its world.
 

Bob Jacobson