Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Another Effect of Computers
Summary: Response
Keywords: information chaos
Message-ID: <3482@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 20 Mar 89 14:35:57 GMT
References: <8903140313.AA01117@violet.berkeley.edu> <93894@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <12451@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 46

In article <12451@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu (Slime) writes:
> I worry that if more information is available to the average
> citizen, that people can be too easily swayed by false information
> (ie mass opinion change) or that the number of political
> opinons diversify to the point where there is NEVER a consensus.
> 
> So we have either an indecisive world or one which is always in
> revolution. (like Italy?)
> 
> Scary for democracy. 
> 
> With hypertext, could one "slant" the user into reading
> information organized into a propoganda-manner? Seems possible.


(1) I have someone more confidence in the average person than
    Simon does.

(2) Either way, what he worries about can and does happen now.
    For instance, most people still talk about "the Reagan
    budget cuts" -- when Reagan's first budget was bigger
    than Carter's last one --- but because it was smaller
    than the one Carter proposed right before leaving office,
    the Establishment press misleadingly called Reagan's
    proposals "cuts".  Or, for that matter, the 1980
    election -- Reagan eked out a bare majority, but the press
    called it a landslide, as Carter was about six %age points
    behind (Anderson, Clark, Commoner, et alia got the rest).

But, like Jefferson, I still hold that the more information 
available, the better the decisions will be.  Besides, the
alternative is to let The Powers That Be determine what 
information we get ... and there's *no way* that would be
a good thing.  So let's give thanks for the rapid computerization
of society, at least for this aspect of it!

Para un Tejas Libre,

Jeff Daiell



-- 
"Buy land.  They've stopped making it."

                 -- Mark Twain