It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Friday, November 14, 2003
Social Responsibilities, Netiquette, Smart Mobs, etc
Here's my questions for consideration:
How responsible are people who are knowledgable about technology for sharing their knowledge with those who might have the proper social understandings, netiquette, or awareness of technical capabilities?
I am not thinking so much about people who have loud cell phone conversations about waking up with some hot guy at a frat house they didn't realize they were aprtying at. What about people who don't know the new ways of tracking emails at work, or are shopping at sites that aren't kosher/secure/safe. Are we being nosey, or are we being helpful, or should we let the natural selection work and get those who are doing stupid things?
P.S. I don't think these are new questions, but technology changes so fast that there are always new things to know.
AI NEWs: X3D Fritz wins game two after Kasparov blunder
thanks, Mike. Talking about technologies, I wanted to share the news link with the group. A great chess game between a machine and Kasparov is going on and guess what? The machine is leading. Interesting.
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Well, you know ...
It's really not a problem (no deep, dark secrets here). I do not consider myself Mennonite. My parents left the Lutheran church when I was 15, taking my sister and I with them to the Mennonite church. This was, in part, because I was attending a Mennonite-affiliated private high school at the time. Throughout high school and college, I was a member of this church. I have since rejoined the Lutheran church. My decision to not be Mennonite had more to do with the fact that as a "convert" I was really never "Mennonite enough" for most people in that church (which is to say I'm not an ethnic Mennonite) than with anything else.
But, that church (affiliated with the most mainstream Mennonite group) did not really have the view of technology that (most of) the Amish have. Like I said, they drive cars, they have telephones and electricity, and there's not the concern with keeping the community local, as in the more conservative Amish traditions--if you move away from the community, you simply find another Mennonite church to attend.
You do raise an interesting issue, however, in discussing the uncritical acceptance of technology as "progress" in developing nations. It bears more thought, for sure.
the Amish: my last question
Wow, I finally got my burning questions answered! many thanks!
I do have another question for Mike (you do not have to answer it if it makes you uncomfortable). Do you consider yourself a Mennonite? How does that traditional (critical) view of technology affect your decisions in using technologies?
As someone from a developing country, I know that for a long time (even now), the Chinese consider technologies "the" key to progress, development, and a better life. A lot of people who are buying cars in Beijing should probably read about the Amish and realize they should consider human factors (lack of space and parking in the city) first.
play=fun=education?
Neil Postman traces the entertainment-learning link to Sesame Street. See what technology can change the way we perceive learning. The excerpt below is very interesting.
From Neil Postman's
Amusing Ourselves to Death
As reported with great enthusiasm by both WCBS-TV and WNBC-TV in 1984, the Philadelphia public schools have embarked on an experiment in which children will have their curriculum sung to them. Wearing Walkman equipment, students were shown listening to rock music whose lyrics were about eight parts of speech. Mr. Jocko Henderson, who thought of this idea, is planning to delight students further by subjecting mathematics and history, as well as English, to the rigors of a rock music format. In fact, this is not Mr. Henderson's idea at all. It was pioneered by the Children's Television Workshop, whose television show "Sesame Street" is an expensive illustration of the idea that education is indistinguishable from entertainment. Nonetheless, Mr. Henderson has a point in his favor. Whereas "Sesame Street" merely attempts to make learning to read a form of light entertainment, the Philadelphia experiment aims to make the classroom itself into a rock concert.
More on the Amish/Mennonites and Tech
Cars vs. Horse and Buggy This is sort of where I was.... There is a lot of variation here. The Mennonite Church (the large Mennonite organization in the US and Canada) has members that drive any car that you or I (as non-) would drive. At my parents' church every Sunday, there are late model (and older) cars of any make, model, and color. Nothing is taboo here. Conservative Mennonites tend to drive cars that are black (sometimes gray or white), with or without chrome--the more conservative elements here will paint any chrome their car comes with black. And, as I mentioned, in some communities (mostly in Lancaster County, PA), there are horse and buggy Mennonites; in this geographical space Mennonites drive black buggies, while the Amish buggies in this space are gray. Amish buggies in most Amish-heavy communities are black. Various types of Amish have different features on their buggies (though it should be noted that a number of New Order and Beechy Amish groups do drive cars). Some New Order groups and progressive Old Order groups have buggies with rubber tires (others have steel banded wheels), and battery operated lights--and in some cases radios. More conservative groups have buggies that have windshields, reflectors, and slow-moving vehicle (SMV) signs; but not rubber tires, lights, or radios. The most conservative Old Order groups (usually referred to as Swartzentruber Amish, after the bishop who reformed them) have no windshields, no reflectors, no SMV signs, and certainly no rubber tires, lights, or radios--they usually have a single oil lantern for nighttime driving (which you can't see). It should be noted that power among the Amish (and the Conservative Mennonites, though not other Mennonites) is largely vested in the local bishop (each congregation--decided by where you live--has, usually, a bishop and 3-5 preachers), and the bishop makes these decisions; a man who attends my parents' church is a used car dealer, and he jokes--but also believes--that he could make his millions if he could only sell one car to one Old Order bishop. Most Old Order Amish, however, will ride in a car; indeed, many of them employ drivers to haul them around (which we--at home--actually do refer to a "Amish hauling" done by "Amish haulers"). They simply do not own cars or drive themselves (though some Amish are allowed to own tractors, mostly for the power take off hitch, and many drive their tractors as though they were cars--one Amish guy who works for the livestock auction in my hometown has a "company car": a tractor owned by the auction that is "necessary for his job" that he drives everywhere). Swartzentruber Amish will not ride in cars, but they will--when extremely necessary--take the bus. They cannot pay a private person to haul them, but they can pay for public transportation--when NECESSARY.
Electricity. Mennonites (the vast majority, of them, anyway) have and use electricity like you or I. Amish have different takes on this. All but the most conservative elements (again the Swartzentrubers) will use electricity: on the job especially. Some of these Amish will have generators in their personal barns or workshops, but many of them really draw the line between the job and personal use. If you're a carpenter, you need electricity to run your circular saw--on the job. Most times, though, if you have your own workshop at home, the tools will be powered by compressed air--and will use a gasoline powered air compressor. No Amish but the most progressive have electricity in their homes, and the most conservative elements will not even use it--not on the job, not for nothing. Cooking is usually done by propane or natural gas, as is lighting in homes. Heating is generally done (on a limited basis) with gas or wood.
Telephones. Again, most Mennonites have phones, and many have cell phones (my parents, for example, both have cell phones--though my dad hates his with a passion). Some more progressive Amish also have telephones, and even cell phones. Among the Old Order Amish, most do not have telephones (land line or cell). Time was (before cells) that an Amish person would have a "phone booth" at the end of their lane (usually on the other side of the road), where a private land-line phone was enclosed in a teeny-tiny building with a locked door. The phone line was usually in an "English" (non-Amish) person's name (say, a business partner), and the door was usually kept locked, but to keep it from being proprietary to that one Amish person, a key to that door was usually given to a neighbor (preferrably an English neighbor, who had their own phone, because then they wouldn't use it). Now, these Amish also have cell phones--if they have them in someone else's name (my dad works for a contracting firm, and one of the partners in this firm is Amish; he has a cell phone, which is in the English partner's name, but which he can use for personal--as well as business--calls).
I can talk about running water, indoor plumbing, and several other issues if you want. These are just some basic examples.
a question about the Amish
Rheingold quoted "an Amish gentleman": "It's not just how we use the technology that concerns us. We're also concerned about what kind of people we become when we use it."
I have been wanting to ask this question about the Amish for a long time. I heard that they, in principle, refuse to use technologies and hand-make a lot of things." I definitely saw them driving and I guess they use electricity too. So what technologies they do not use? Is there any study on them? They seem to be an interesting group when we consider technologies indispensible.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Blogging Spam
I checked out the blog on HR's site about Smart Mobs and find the Spamming entry interesting - the fact that there is a company with a manifesto against spamming on a blog. Calls into question the idea that anything new can be created - since we seem to keep using new technologies to do the same old stuff.
