Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!limbo!taylor
From: thom@dewey.soe.Berkeley.EDU (Thom Gillespie)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Computer Science jobs without military connections
Message-ID: <1804@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 26 Feb 91 19:50:38 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 29
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com


Rick Smith writes:
> To get back to the opening comment, can computer technology help?
> Do databases help? Improved communication? Computer aided education?
> Or are they all smoke we throw up to avoid confronting the real,
> personal, social problems that require us to think, act, and *change*?

I don't know if they are 'all smoke we throw up to avoid confronting the
real, personal, social problems that require us to think, act, change"
but there is a definite distancing effect of technology on how we relate
to suffering.  The best example being the bombing and destruction of
Iraq compared to the reported destruction of Kuwait.  When we talk about
Kuwait, we talk about violation, rape, murder.  When we talk about the
destruction of Iraq we talk about precision, collateral damage, and
surgical strikes -- and more importantly we are 'shown' the precision of
our 'smart' bombs flying down air shafts.  McLuhan contended that
technology extends our senses.  The car extended movement, TV sight,
radio hearing, etc.  He also contended that electricity extended our
nerve endings to cover the world.  He may have been right, but I'm not
sure he realized that ultimately it would 'over-extend' our senses so
now while we can see from the stars we can't feel any longer.  We seem
to confuse this knowing and seeing with feeling and understanding.
Extending past this current incarnation -- ironic wording -- of computer
technology to virtual realities.  Will we feel more or less because of
the technology?

Frustrated and senseless

Thom Gillespie


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