Reading 4

Ecologizing Mobile Media, By Howard Rheingold

"All technological change is a Faustian bargain. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage." Why is it that the corresponding disadvantage always seems bigger than the advantage?

When people lived in tents they had a hard time. And the strong ones usually won. Ok, so weapons even things out, but then came cannons, and poison, and nukes. There's a part where techonolgy has made the world a worse place to live in. Yeah it sucks being out in the woods when you run into a cougar at 2 am and he stares at you menacingly from the hill ready to jump on you (gotta love the Olympic peninsula) and you wish you had a portable cannon, but then, walking through the woods in the moonlite without having to worry about all the nuclear war programs on the earth is worth the cougar. I have a chance with the cougar, I hope.

Or with medicine, yup its great to have a vaccine against mumps. But, with that I now have to worry about them creating some disease that wipes out all people of one race. Great. Is the vaccine worth it?

What about with computers? Yeah, the knowldege, convinience, connections are great. But what really is the cost? I'm not sure we know yet.

As for Flattner....

The flat thing makes no sense to me. Doesnt he realize it takes almost as long to fly to DC as it does to London from Seattle? Why? Cause the roundness of the earth makes connecting everythign a lot faster. Why flat?? I like the level idea way better. Thats what the Indian guy told him, earth is leveling. To me that analogy makes way more sense. We are not going back in time to a flat world...

Besides the title, and his horrible use of metaphors, the concept was ok. I agree with him that our education system sucks. I can't understand the huge sense of entitlement. Why do we think that without hard work we will continue to prosper? I don't get it. Only about 7 of the almost 200 people in my class went on to universities. The rest were amazed that life was hard for them. We are so not prepared.