Web of Life: A New Synthesis of Mind and Matter Summary
The Logic of the Mind – 1997
Those of us who have contributed to the new science of cybernetics stand in a moral position which is, to say the least, not very comfortable. We have contributed to the initiation of a new science which embraces technical developments with great possibilities for good and evil.'
Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor.
It is perfectly clear that this will produce an unemployment situation in comparison with which the present recession and even the depression of the thirties will seem a pleasant joke. It is evident from these and other similar passages in Wiener's writings that he showed much more wisdom and foresight in his assessment of the social impact of computers than his successors.
Today, forty years later, computers and the many other 'information technologies' developed in the meantime are rapidly becoming autonomous and totalitarian, redefining our basic concepts and eliminating alternative worldviews.
As Neil Postman, Jerry Mander, and other technology critics have shown, this is typical of the 'megatechnologies' that have come to dominate industrial societies around the world.' Increasingly, all forms of culture are being subordinated to technology, and techno-logical innovation, rather than the increase in human well-being, has become synonymous with progress.
The spiritual impoverishment and loss of cultural diversity through excessive use of computers is especially serious in the field of education. As Neil Postman put it succinctly, `When a computer is used for learning, the meaning of "learning" is changed.'' The use of computers in education is often praised as a revolution that will transform virtually every facet of the educational process.
No comments:
Post a Comment