Reading 3
"Discuss the effects of applying computing power to communication. What might Bush forecast today, if he were looking to 2050?"
Everyone: "As We May Think," by Vannevar Bush from The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945.
Bush correctly points out that inventions are limited by many other factors than if they are good inventions. They need to be feasable to create at that time, need to have the money and the facilities to produce them, and they need to be inderstood by those who have the money to create them. So this is why we have so many terrible inventions made...
Inventions and technology have always increased our ability to communicate over distances and communicate in other ways then directly. As computing power increases communication aided by technology will also increase. They now have this cool thing where on your cell phone you can see the status of the people in your address book. Kinda like IM/Addressbook/Phone. Things like that are great. But they do take away the time we actually spend in person with people.
I think all techonology that helps keep people connected is a good thing. I just worry that the negative impact it leaves is bigger than the positive. Even though people can all easily find a community online and have someone to talk to, I think it would be better for them to learn how to communicate and have an actual community. If technology increases in communication, I am afraid it will make communication so short and easy, we will loose a lot in the proccess.
What Bush might forcast, I have no idea. I would have to have some idea of what might happen. He seemed to take technology that existed and improve it, and say thats what we will have in the future. I think though that technology will change so drastically that we don't have the concepts or the words to describe what will happen.
Everyone: "As We May Think," by Vannevar Bush from The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945.
Bush correctly points out that inventions are limited by many other factors than if they are good inventions. They need to be feasable to create at that time, need to have the money and the facilities to produce them, and they need to be inderstood by those who have the money to create them. So this is why we have so many terrible inventions made...
Inventions and technology have always increased our ability to communicate over distances and communicate in other ways then directly. As computing power increases communication aided by technology will also increase. They now have this cool thing where on your cell phone you can see the status of the people in your address book. Kinda like IM/Addressbook/Phone. Things like that are great. But they do take away the time we actually spend in person with people.
I think all techonology that helps keep people connected is a good thing. I just worry that the negative impact it leaves is bigger than the positive. Even though people can all easily find a community online and have someone to talk to, I think it would be better for them to learn how to communicate and have an actual community. If technology increases in communication, I am afraid it will make communication so short and easy, we will loose a lot in the proccess.
What Bush might forcast, I have no idea. I would have to have some idea of what might happen. He seemed to take technology that existed and improve it, and say thats what we will have in the future. I think though that technology will change so drastically that we don't have the concepts or the words to describe what will happen.
posted by Nika at
4:06 PM
