◆ [Date updated: 2023/01/19(Thu) 20:25:19]
■Here's an interesting UseNet post:
│
│Date: Monday, 10 May 1982 14:58-PDT
│Subject: Another irreversable and unconscious decision
│From: norm at RAND-UNIX
│
│I believe that American Society is in the process of unconsciusly
│committing itself to an irreversable restructuring based on an undesigned
│network -- a single national (nay, international) net composed of many
│overlapping nets of computers. I believe that as this undesigned net
│evolves, all of us and our institutions will change to exploit and
│accomodate it. I belive that these changes will make it impossible to
│"change our minds" about the use of this net.
│
│I don't assert that this development is good or that it is bad. I do
│assert that we, as a society, should try and understand what we are doing
│and decide if we want to do it.
│
│An example of a technology which society irreversibly adapted without any
│consideration by any of the members or institutions of society of its
│irreversibility and of the wisdom of making that irreversible step, is the
│institution of the privately owned automobile and supporting institutions,
│including the road networks, the fuel distribution systems, motels, etc.,
│and all the other private and government institutions associated with the
│private passenger automobile. I do not argue that the adoption of the
│privately owned passenger automobile as one of our principal modes of human
│transportation was wise or unwise. I only argue
│
│(1) that its adoption was essentially an irreversible "decision."
│Irreversible not in that if society wanted to badly enough the "decision"
│could not be reversed, but that we could not now do so without large-scale
│economic, political and social dislocations which, as a result, make the
│"decision", in effect, irreversible.
│
│and
│
│(2) this "decision" was made by society without very much of any deliberate
│awareness by the members of society, by any of the professional thinkers of
│the society, or by the institutions of the society that we were going down
│a path of no return. Each individual and institution took very minor steps
│which seemed reasonable and which did not seem very dramatic at the time.
│
│and
│
│(3) this decision changed the way we court, work, play, sleep, buy,
│sell,... It effected everthing from our sexual mores to our legal system.
│
│Another example is the recent revolution in retail credit generated by the
│bank credit cards. This application of computer technology has, I believe,
│irreversibly revolutionized and changed the nature of retail credit.
│Again, I do not argue as to whether or not the decision was a good one or a
│bad one. I only argue that it could not now be reversed without shocks to
│the nature of our economy, and that the acts constituting the decision to
│go to this type of retail credit system were never considered by society as
│to their wisdom as to whether or not they were worth going to, etc.
│
│We have not yet committed ourselves to the reorganization of society which
│will depend on everybody and every institution being on line. Do we want
│to? What would the consequences be? How do we decide if we want to travel
│down this one way road?
│
└■norm at RAND-UNIX was a wise man (;゚∇゚)
│
└■These UseNet posts in general give off an enlightened, even-keeled air that's all but vanished from today's Web.(;´Д`)
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