Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc Subject: computers monitoring behaviours... Message-ID: <351@hplabsc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 27-Jun-86 18:44:00 EDT Article-I.D.: hplabsc.351 Posted: Fri Jun 27 18:44:00 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 28-Jun-86 08:24:29 EDT Reply-To: "J.L.EGBERT" Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Lines: 25 Approved: taylor@hplabs on my lunch hour, or overtime, or in the hallway when I meet colleagues going to and fro. This kind of monitoring would be very irritating. The problem increases when you consider the long-recognized intimidation computers can have ("if the computer says it is so, it must be so."). I think this is one use for computers that is inappropriate. Any other opinions? Jeanie Egbert [An interesting issue. I think that this could be another starting point for an 'is technology good?' discussion...rather than lapse into that black hole, however, I'll try to forstall it by saying that I believe that examples like this show that any new technology can be misused. Not only that, but it will have more tendency to be misused when it's new, so I would expect that as time passes, the inspectors on the assembly line/ truck driver supervisors/etc will realize that there is more to a task than quantity. The mystical QUALITY (as Phaedrus the wolf would say) is just as important... -- Dave] [One other thing - I'm not against people discussing the 'value' of technology in a moral/ethical sense, but I recommend some research first, like reading one of a number of books including "The Human Use of Human Beings" or "The Society of Technology". Don't have the authors names handy, though.]