Computers are both tool and myth. Their silicon centers are made from a natural element, which is The theme of machines taking control has been at the center of many science fiction films. In most cases, the machines take on human attributes, while simultaneously deciding that they no longer need to be controlled by humans. The most well-known of such films are 2001 and the Terminator series. There is Dark Star, in which a stubborn, talking bomb must be reasoned out of exploding. Another is Beneath the Planet of the Apes, in which an underground society actually worships a nuclear warhead. In Colossus: The Forbin Project, the U.S. gives over its nuclear defense system to a computer, which in turn enslaves the nation and the world.

But while science fiction writers and filmmakers, along with media critics and technophobes, have been warning us of this danger for years, we continue to give more power and more control to machines. One reason we don't see any danger is that we do it gradually, one step at a time. And slow, gradual change is much more insidious than rapid change.

Yet now we find ourselves in a time of great, rapid changes. Many of these are related to the communications media, which are, themselves, undergoing big, structural changes. And the media are so pervasive today that when their structures are altered, everything else is affected. Stewart Brand, in The Media Lab, says that the best time to study a subject whole is when it is changing, because the very foundations are revealed.1

So Neil Postman's Technopoly seems particularly insightful right now. I don't agree with his overall theory, but he makes many good points, and poses them at an important time. It is also a great time to be at ITP. I'm glad I arrived when I did, for so much has happened to the media just since August, that the hype quotient alone has risen by about 200 percent. People everywhere are scrambling to learn about the latest "interactive" and "multi" media, and all the other buzzwords. If M.I.T. is the "high church of technology," as Brand stated, perhaps ITP is the Martin Luther, devoted to demystifying the magic, and make the new media more personal, more human.

One of my favorite anthropology professors liked to say that the key to the present is the past, and keys to the past can be found in the present. This means simply that looking at our past helps us understand the present; and to understand the past, look for remnants of it in the present. So, since talk in general, and hype in particular, is so rampant in the realm of the new media today, I will begin by looking at language. It is something we must keep a close eye on in our field.

Postman says that language is "pure ideology". The English language, in particular, he says, is "naturally" agressive in its structure, with subjects "verbing" objects.2 It is the closest that we have to a single global language, and it is particularly suited to the world of science and technology, due to its capacity for precision. And, yes, it carries its own ideology, one that is aggressive, rational and precise. Language, as Postman says, is itself a tool; in fact, the ultimate tool. Throughout this paper, I will pay close attention to language as it relates to technology.

Technology is a way that people relate to their environment. As people have come to deal more with other people, rather than directly with the natural world, their technologies have become more abstract and complex. Indeed, much of the world we live in is human-created. For the last five million years or so, humans have used tools to maximize their competition and survival with regard to other humans. (For example, eyeglasses make a vision-impaired person almost as good as one with perfect vision, all other things being equal.) In this fashion, humans "subvert" natural selection by the construction and use of tools. Postman charges that we have become "tools of our tools." He claims that now, our tools are getting the best of us -- making us serve their purposes.

At this point, let me introduce a helpful theory from anthropology. Although we are often told what powerful things our brains are, and that we only use a small portion of them, in fact our "brain space" is a scarce resource. More specifically, our individual attention -- the things we think about, or concentrate on at any given moment -- is finite. As are our memories. Language, and writing in particular, is a tool that allows us to "economize" our thoughts. It conveniently packs a lot of information into a small package -- a word. (Certainly, people form their own individual meanings, but the word is just as useful to them. When it comes to communicating, misunderstandings often have their basis in language. More on this later.)

Written language is an extension of indivudual and collective memory. Postman correctly distinguishes between memory and recollection. But he fails to note two important points. First, memory is not entirely linguistic; and second, people form meanings not by simple recollection, but by the interconnection of different information. (In fact, some of the most creative people are known for connecting seemingly disparate information.3) This is often referred to as the difference between information and knowledge -- knowledge is information put to good use. Often, it doesn't matter if memories reside within our brains, or outside.

Naturally, we retain important information about survival, comfort and other things dear to us. But writing, and also computer memory, are like an extension of the brain. Our attention is the scarce resource, while external memory technologies are virtually infinite. We use writing and other technologies to preserve information; when we need it we don't have to "rack our brains," but simply know where to look. This frees up our "brain space" to do more important work: connect the information to other information, and put it to use. Writing does not create "false wisdom," but is a way of preserving the past, planning for the future, and most importantly, communicating over time and space.

Every technology has positives and negatives. But how do you weigh the costs and benefits, especially when a technology is emerging? How can you forsee the long-term social effects? And if you decide that the costs far outweigh the benefits, can the technology then be stopped or slowed down? Take the example of nuclear energy. Its destructive effects -- seen both in the weapons and the power plant accidents -- have been enough to generate a significant public outcry against it. On the other hand, governments have continued to produce nuclear weapons and, in other countries, power plants. And nuclear weapons' deterrent power is clear: we probably would not be in the longest period free of international war without the presence of nuclear weapons.

It is possible to cut funding for a particular technology, and it can be stigmatized by the public. But if the technology is not capital-intensive (if it could be produced inexpensively in a garage), someone will find a way to produce it. (Nuclear weapons are capital-intensive; genetics, on the other hand, are much less so.) Distributing the technology is another matter.

Most critiques of technology, Postman's included, overlook this aspect. He fails to acknowledge that most technologies are tied to a certain social class: it is this class that controls, through financial support, the production and most importantly, the distribution, of a particular technology.

I agree with Postman that technologies have "their own agenda," that each technology has a hidden bias. The "agenda" is not necessarily good or bad in itself; it is merely connected to the technology's survival. I am referring here to the work of Richard Dawkins, who proposed the concept of "memes" as an analogue of genes. Memes -- ideas and other cultural "replicators," including technologies -- are concerned only with their own survival, and follow some basic rules of genetic evolution.

It is possible for a particular meme or group of memes to live on after their human creator has died. And in the course of competing with other memes for survival, it is possible for human-created memes to go "against" genes -- to pursue a course of action that is not favorable to human (or other animal) evolution. It may look like they are deliberately plotting their own "agenda," but in fact they are merely behaving according to some basic laws of survival and replication.4 But other factors make possible the technology's ideological bias. The cultural environment, including the presence of other technologies, people's attitudes toward the new one, and many other factors determine whether a technology will spread or not.

So technological change is fairly easy to predict; ideological change is not, Postman says. Long-term and indirect consequences are even more difficult to predict, particularly by the inventors. An inventor's invention embodies his own values, whether or not he realizes it. The mechanical clock, as Postman states, was originally invented by and for monks; yet it spawned regular working hours, standardization, and by extension, capitalism. Printing spread the diversity of beliefs, to the detriment of the Roman Catholic Church's authority. The telescope, Postman says, singlehandedly caused the moral collapse of the West.

This is where Postman descends into what is known in anthropology as technological determinism. Of course the telescope played a role in eroding the Church's power, but it was hardly the sole cause. If the environment in which the telescope-meme had not become receptive to its spread, its power could not have become so pervasive, no matter how strong its inherent "desire" to spread. Its ideological content is directly related to the cultural, social and economic environment; it does not come solely from the object itself. There must be a niche for a technology to fill before it can spread within a culture. Technologies are part of a cultural whole, and not determinants unto themselves.

A particular technology can be especially powerful within a culture, certainly. Look at how the automobile spread in the U.S., to the detriment of other forms of transportation. This is related to all sorts of factors -- the power and manipulations of the big car companies, the receptivity of the general public to the car-meme, the tangible and intangible benefits of owning a car.

Suburbs, like the one I grew up in, were essentially built for cars more than people. You can see this in the wide, straight streets that make it easy for cars to go fast, which is what cars "want" to do. You can see it in the way houses are constructed so that their facade consists mostly of a garage, making it look as if a car lives there, not people. And you can see it in the horizontal layout of the suburbs -- huge parking lots in front of stores, wide freeways and thoroughfares that have "subdivisions" branching off of them. And so on. It is easy to say that the car was the sole agent in all this; but in fact, it was not the car itself, but a car-loving culture -- a big difference.

Every culture "negotiates" with each technology, and the technology must blend with other technologies and other aspects of the culture. Different cultures are more receptive than others to a particular technology. Postman says that once a technology is admitted, it "plays out its role," meaning it maximizes its potential for survival and spread. Other technologies might fall into disuse as a result of the spread of the new technology; others might be complimentary, making possible "meme complexes."

This is where prediction becomes tricky, for when technologies combine, they take on "emergent properties" -- that is, they become more than the sum of their parts. And, they become more intertwined with the culture. The resulting effects, direct and indirect, are not the result of some kind of conscious conspiracy by one or a few technologies, but are more than that. At this level, Postman says that it is "a culture conspiring against itself." I would not say that the culture is conspiring against itself at all, but on the contrary, is "conspiring" for its own interests; it is competing against other large-scale meme-complexes known as cultures, for survival and replication. It can be said that such emergent effects are the result of human action, but not human design.5

This is what Postman means when he says that technological change is "ecological" -- a small change can create broad changes in the environment as a whole. There are other parallels with biology. Memic competition appears to follow the rules of genetic competition, as I have noted. Organizations and cultures are also organic in nature; they, too behave according to some well-known evolutionary rules. The "market," as Adam Smith recognized, behaves similarly. (Smith, incidentally, is one of those who made Technopoly possible, according to Postman.6)

Such super-organisms, in their quest for survival, may work to the detriment of individual organisms, like people. For instance, the goal of a company -- any company -- is to grow and make money. This may mean displacing people or making them do things that are not in their own interest. Yet the company demands it, by its very nature.

Postman goes on to classify whole cultures by their level of technology usage. A major flaw is evident here: he lumps all technologies together and blames them collectively for our ills. Similar theories became popular late in the last century, following the publication of Darwin's work, although these, unlike Postman's, tended to celebrate technological change. They became very persuasive, because they were powerful memes -- they "sounded good" intuitively, and they economized thought by providing convenient categorizations. Stereotypes work in the same way, and in fact, these hierarchical models of classifying present-day cultures begat some directly racist and stereotypical theories, collectively called Social Darwinism. Like all stereotypes, these categorizing models, Postman's included, hold some truth.

In scientific terms, it could be asked, Is Postman's theory testable? Can all cultures (synchronically and over time) be classified as "Tool-Using," "Technocracy," or "Technopoly?" I suspect that it would be very difficult, because cultures are constantly in flux -- they are better thought of as processes than as spatial entities situated at a single point in time. And like all "technologies," Postman's classification of cultures embodies his own values -- it is clear that he yearns for a "Tool-Using" culture, which seems to serve as the pinnacle in his model.

Postman claims that we live in a "Technopoly," which is characterized by "the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology."7 It is progress without limits, rights without responsibilities, technology without cost. Efficiency and economic advantage are the goals, and skills, technical expertise and consumption are the means to attain them.

Again, Postman's technological determinism is clear. While I agree that technologies of all sorts play a large role within our culture, the cause is not the proliferation of technology, but the culture which surrounds it. By ignoring the socio-economic factors underlying technologies, he mistakes the forest for the trees.

Furthermore, to say that technology controls us is to abdicate responsibility. The technologies he views as so insidious did not spread on their own, but by people -- the people who produce and distribute them, and the people who buy and use them. (Some technologies, of course, can only be used by a well-trained "elite" class of people; sometimes this "preisthood" is responsible for the technology's effects.) It is more accurate to think of our culture as created not by technology, but by humans, even if it was not the result of any conscious design.

At any rate, are the technologies Postman discusses -- for instance, writing, the computer, medical technologies -- so evil? No one could argue that people today are not better off than before these things. This is especially true of the medical technologies, including drugs, methods of diagnosis, and noninvasive methods of surgery.

I don't hold Postman's theory against him. It is extremely hard to talk about problems without singling out one aspect as a cause. In fact, Postman falls into the most common trap of techno-centric thinking: he blames our social ills solely on technology, on the physical vessels which carry human values. This kind of thinking avoids placing responsibility; it is "safe". Like in Postman's own conception of techno-dominance, such thinking makes alternatives invisible, hence irrelevant. To suggest that we all are responsible for our plight is not convenient or welcomed in popular discourse, particularly in the electronic media. It is, to quote Noam Chomsky, outside the "bounds of thinkable thought."8

I agree more with Postman's view that today's technology-infested world has no moral center. Technology-memes spread and mutate so fast that our moral and legal structures cannot keep pace. This is what one observer called the "deferred payment plan of the Faustian bargain."9

The most important moral problem, I believe, is when machines are given human attributes, or worse, regarded as smarter or "better" than people. Machines are often regarded as more valuable than humans. I am not referring to situations in which humans are replaced by machines to do a particular job, since, in most cases, the job was a "de-humanizing" one in which the person was treated as a machine anyway. But, for instance, in the case of computers replacing teachers in a classroom (or eliminating classrooms altogether), this is more serious, since no one can teach a person like another person. I don't think computers will ever completely replace teachers.

John Barlow preceded Postman in observing, "If America has a religion, its ark is the computer and its covenant is the belief that Science Knows."10 This is common wisdom today, and it was this belief that the aforementioned science fiction films attacked.

Computers are a main culprit in Postman's Technopoly as well. They are becoming more and more prominent in the culture at large. We could hardly imagine a world without computers today. They are so pervasive that they are now integrated into other machines -- they are increasingly invisible, increasingly powerful, and increasingly fast.

They have become so familiar and useful to us that we want to make them equals -- we want to make them human. We have already given them human attributes: they make mistakes, they get tired and sick. Some "user-friendly" computers have makeshift personalities, even faces or animated figures that talk to us. We blame computers for problems -- "The computer's down" -- shifting responsibility to machines instead of people. And in fact, computers often create real stress in people. One of my instructors operates a computer Bulletin Board System (BBS), and she depends on a PC as a sole source of income; when it "crashes," as inevitably it does, this creates some real anxiety.

Not only do we make computers our equals, but we want them to be better than us. This is what "artificial intelligence" is about. But researchers like Marvin Minsky have found out that a computer could never equal a human brain in complexity, or simplicity -- they lack common sense rules that every human "knows" subconsciously. Now AI researchers are fond of saying, "Computers won't think like humans, but they will think."11 And they are beginning to, with neural networks, parallel processing, and "fuzzy logic."

We have so much respect for computers that in many ways we try to become computers ourselves. Computer literati refer to human brains as "wetware" or "hard wiring." We speak of genetic "information," a "code" that we are trying to crack, and we often believe that certain behaviors are "programmed" into our genes. Physically, we work hard to attain machine-like qualities. Many sports, like golf for instance, require the player to develop repetitive, robotic movements. It is often said, "you have to become a machine." Or, "That Michael Jordan is a basketball machine." In movies, we see women and men alike shedding layers of softness and flab (regarded as feminine) to attain hard, Terminator-like bodies. We surgically alter, color, pierce, tatoo, and shape our bodies to attain a robot-like ideal. Soon, inevitably, we will be wearing computers, and plugging them directly into our brains. We will merge with them even more than we are now. Donna Haraway is insightful in telling us that we must free ourselves from the technophile/technophobe loop by realizing that we already live as "cyborgs" -- we are joined with machines with no turning back.12

Neil Postman isn't optimistic for the future. Already, we see computers being used to help create recombinant genetic forms. We now have the ability to clone identical human beings. At a recent "virtual reality" trade show, a company was touting its "bio-computing" products -- sensors are hooked to a person's pulse, muscles and brain waves, in order to control a computer. How long before the computer controls the user's brain waves, pulse, etc.? And what will happen when fully-immersive "virtual reality" arrives? There is also developing an "artificial life" movement, which involves microscopic machines and computer programs that replicate and "evolve," in direct correlation with biological laws. In sum, the brave new world we are creating is beginning to look a lot like the one Aldous Huxley envisioned.

While it may be a few years before computers are wired directly to our brains, today they are already serving up a glut of information for our minds to consume. And the much-hyped "information superhighway" promises to multiply this. No one seems to have asked the American public if they want or need this superhighway; it is merely being sold to them as better cable service, home shopping, and "video dialtone." We already live in a kind of "virtual reality" in which much our lives are spent in front of the television, in "cyberspace," or communicating via some mediating technology. And certainly, most of us already have more than enough information to survive on. Yet we seem to continually want more and more. Why? Bill McKibben answers, "Because our minds are jazzed. Because we fear boredom. Because we are so hooked on infodrug, on intraveneous entertainment, that any break in the action seems unnatural, a vacuum."13

McKibben is correct. This relates directly to the way our brains evolved. We take in information about our surroundings, and it is "processed" in the cerebral cortex, the top layer of brain tissue. It is the cortex that has grown several times larger in the last five million years, as we have processed more and more information, manipulated it, and put it to use. It may be that we enjoy the flow of information that comes from computers and the media so much because they resemble the workings of our brains -- we reason mostly in linguistic terms, yet we remember events mostly in images. Information of all kinds has been elevated to such "metaphysical status," as Postman says, because the environment we live in involves so much human-created information.

The printing press began the explosion of information. The telegraph, photography, broadcasting and computers all added layers of information. Schools, as Postman tells us, exist to filter and channel information. All social institutions act as information control mechanisms -- they grant or deny access to information, and give value, weight and meaning to it. The family is the foremost such institution, and I agree with Postman when he says that a family that cannot control the flow of information to its children is not a family at all. Courts are another institution that control information flow -- by their very structure, they allow some kinds and not others.

All our institutions are being severely changed by the glut of information. Schools and the family have been affected by television, and now computers are exerting a powerful influence too. The courts, indeed the entire legal system, is being taxed by the proliferation of video and computers. This reinforces the point that our moral and legal structures cannot keep pace with technology.

But worse than information overload is the trivialization of information -- placing all information on the same level. Commercialism, as Postman says, causes the trivialization of significant cultural symbols, by overusing images and words, and by using them out of context. Information without theory is dangerous; here I agree with Postman.

Yet Postman has problems with the very theories with which we organize information, collectively known as science. Science was, of course, once closely connected with magic, yet its past successes have now been institutionalized. Its hegemony is so complete that science -- particularly the "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry -- are required in schools. They are deemed important to the "national interest." The social sciences are not nearly as dominant, yet Postman attacks them for the way they put a scientific gloss on what are decidedly un-scientific issues. He attackes the emphasis on precision, empiricism and objectivity in the social sciences. And he says that social science theories are often mere commonplace conclusions, which cannot be refuted. They offer both science and morals, and he disdains that.

I will defend the social sciences from the perspective of one of them, anthropology. Yes, it emerged within the culture of science, and early theories of social evolution oversimplified what are complex processes, as I have noted. But since then the field has fragmented. Some sub-fields within anthropology, like physical anthropology and, to a lesser extent, archaeology, have retained their scientific principles, and have become more like "hard sciences."

Cultural anthropology, on the other hand, has mostly abandoned all pretension to precision or objectivity, and is more concerned with "telling stories." The researcher's role in the storytelling is usually made explicit, and most of the time an attempt is made to portray other cultures as they see themselves. (This is increasingly done with the aid of technology, for instance, showing people how to use a video camera, and letting them record their own lives as they see them.)

This approach has been to anthropology's benefit, yet the abandonment of scientific principles has often meant a reduction in funding -- a true measure of the hegemony of science. But the conclusions are still valid. Yes, as Postman says, they are usually commonplace conclusions, and they sometimes have moral content. But the morals that are preached are often not far from Postman's own, and the commonplace conclusions are usually things that people do need to be told over and over. Like any good story, some things bear repeating; the past is a valuable guide to the present.

It is also important to note that Postman himself is deeply entrenched in the social science tradition himself, no matter how much he disdains it. His "Media Ecology" program is neither hard science nor literary criticism. Part of the reason is by necessity: by using the English language, he is forced to reason and communicate in a rational, scientific way.

From his perspective, Postman certainly regards the "information superhighway" with suspicion, at best. And so should we all. A technical means of controlling information flow will only make things worse, as he says. But we need to look beyond the highway itself, to the people that are building it, and those that will be using it. The builders include us at ITP.

The "users" are often ambiguously defined as "average people," somewhere "out there" in Middle America. It must be remembered that the builders' values will inherently be in the highway they build, (for they, after all, will be users too). We know that some of the motives will be commercial, whether explicit or not. Some of us want to do things vaguely defined as "educational."

Defining the "audience," I believe is the wrong approach. Instead, we need to first make sure that there will even be one, and that it won't be a passive "audience," but an active part of the creation and dissemination process. This means talking to people of all kinds, and finding out not what services they want, but what they are unhappy with now, and if they are even interested in interactivity at all. This may be tricky -- it is more likely that people will wait to see what is offered them, and pick and choose from that. That means that the most important task is ensuring universal access, modeled on the telephone system, and diversity of access.

This will not be easy. It involves the cooperation of manufacturers, distributors and regulators, as well as the public. Cost, of course, is a key factor -- the new services should not cost any more than anyone pays now for their phone or television service. This can be accomplished either by advertising, or government subsidies. The advertiser-supported model seems to be the one taking shape, and that doesn't bode well for controlling the information flow. So the public needs to be kept aware of the motives behind the hype.

The technologies I am mainly concerned with here are technologies of communication, and these are without a doubt the most important technologies humans have. After all, we evolved as social beings, and our intelligence exists so that we can interact with others. That is why a technology like the computer, on its own, could be harmful. As Postman says, it favors individualized learning. But hook up a modem and phone line, and the computer becomes a social tool. It is this aspect that is causing computers to multiply so fast these days. John Barlow made an excellent point recently when he suggested substituting "interpersonal" for "interactive" when it comes to the new media.14 And Nathan Felde says that "people don't need information, they need relationships." This gets to the core point: People use information for relationships.

This relates to storytelling. An emerging theory in anthropology is that storytelling is a very basic part of our intelligence. To tell a good story, or even to entertain people, is something that all of us strives to do as best we can, in whatever medium. Even people who do not tell stories as a career seem to revel in telling them in their private lives, through gossip, talking about a TV show, etc. (This points out an important refutation of the argument that television promotes passivity -- in fact, it gives us something to talk about.) We like and respect a good storyteller. The narrative structure has a strong power -- it strikes us so deeply because it is so basic to our consciousness. And aren't are most revered things related to the narrative structure? Think of the Bible, the "story" of evolution, the Big Bang and creation of the universe. These are all great stories.

This is vitally important to keep in mind when designing "interactive" media. Notice the cool reception that "interactive movies" have gotten, the ones in which the audience gets to choose twists and turns of the plot, and the ultimate outcome. These are not appealing to us because we long for narrative -- we like to be led by a good story. One of the most innovative new media products I have seen at ITP is called Blam, and its power is greatly magnified because of its relative lack of interactivity -- it leads the viewer/user along much of the time. On the other hand, any two-way communication is popular, because it allows people to communicate -- to "swap stories."

But the most important feature of "interactivity" is not the prospect for two-way communication, but who will be using it. You can buy an AT&T "videophone" today, but you can only call someone who has another one. Again, universal access and diversity of access are the key. Video artist Tiertza Even made a strong case that interactivity should allow for multiple points of view. This merely means more stories. One of the great forces of our time has been the democratization of video technology. Look at the powerful effects it has had, from Eastern Europe to China to Los Angeles.

This shows how misguided Postman's overall theory is. The proliferation of cheap video equipment runs counter to corporate-controlled television. And people do not use camcorders because they are addicted to television; they use them because the television they make themselves is more interesting, to them, than network TV. It is their way of becoming storytellers. To use a popular buzzword, it is empowerment. If the data superhighway fulfills the goals I have proposed, it too should empower.

There have been more drastic responses to the spread of technology. It is possible for a technology to be completely stopped. The Japanese abolished firearms between 1610 and the 1860s; the Chinese crushed the industrial revolution in the 11th century. But both of these technologies continued outside the two nations, and both nations were subsequently conquered by technologically-superior countries -- a fate perhaps worse than allowing the technologies to flourish withing their borders. Within our own country, the Orion program, which involved a hydrogen-powered spacecraft, was killed by the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in the 1960s.

But these examples are rare; most of the time, we have to keep control of technology, and that means keeping control of the people who control the technology. There is a growing anti-technology movement in this country. And people like Bill McKibben are telling us to simply turn off the TV for a while, and tune in to other "broadcasts" that don't appear on our cable box. These broadcasts are the kind that only come from quiet contemplation. This quasi-religious argument should be heeded. It helps to escape from the information glut to "clear your mind."

Even when immersed inside the human-created world we live in, it helps to keep the human factors in mind -- to try to see the creators' values in the technologies we are using. And to keep in mind the things we usually take for granted, like electricity, for instance. Where would we be without it? A blackout often can help put that question in perspective.

It is hard to step outside of the artificial world we live in, but it doesn't hurt to try. Anthropology gives an excellent perspective from which to view human actions. Even Postman, though he seems to disdain the social sciences, agrees that the great "story" of our history is the"ascent of humanity".15 Even for non-religious people, it is possible to have faith -- faith in humanity.

Another goal is to break the barrier between science and art. Science is about following certain rules; art is often about breaking rules. Certainly, some things work best in a particular medium -- emotion and simplicity are well suited to mass-market TV, for example. But to stretch the boudaries, or ignore them altogether, is to take control of a technology. (This is another strength of Blam.)

ITP student Amy Henry made the analogy that technological progress is like a giant, rolling, steel ball. Some people ride on top of it (or roll it), and others get crushed by it. This is a good image to keep in mind to remember the human factors behind a technology. As for the "superhighway," we should ask, Who will be allowed on it? Will everyone have an equal "vehicle?" And what might get paved over in the process of creating it?

The great narrative of the evolution of humanity can continue on, or it can end up as in one of the science fiction movies previously cited. 2001 ends with the computer going crazy and pushing its last human passenger "beyond the infinite." The Terminator movies, well, they were made for infinite sequels. Dark Star ends with the bomb exploding the spaceship; Beneath the Planet of the Apes ends with the bomb exploding the world. The Forbin Project has probably the most eerie ending -- it ends with the super-computer in control of the world, and everyone is helpless, at its mercy. Even the scientist who created it.

References

1. Brand, Stewart. The Media Lab, p. xi. New York: Viking/Penguin, 1987.

2. Postman, Neil. Technopoly, p. 123. New York: Knopf, 1992.

3. Furthermore, there has long been a suspected link between "genius" and madness. Both involve the spontaneous linking of disparate information. Scientific support is growing for this theory. See Angier, Natalie. "An Old Idea About Genius Wins New Scientific Support." New York Times, Oct. 12, 1993, pp. C1, C8.

4. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene, chapter 8. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. See also The Extended Phenotype (Oxford, 1982).

5. Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society (London, 1767), p.187: "Nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design." Quoted in Hayek, Friedrich: Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, p. 96. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1967)

6. Postman, op. cit., p. 40.

7. Ibid., p. 52.

8. Chomsky, Noam. "The Bounds of Thinkable Thought," The Progressive. Oct. 1985, pp. 28- 31.

9. Valovic, Tom. From an online discussion on The Well, "Can a Harmful Technology be Stopped?," June 8, 1991.

10. Barlow, John Perry. Quoted in "Is Computer Hacking a Crime?" Harper's Magazine, March 1990, p. 51.

11. Dator, Jim. "What do 'You" do When Your Robot Bows, as Your Clone Enters Holographic MTV?," p. 365. Futures, v.21, n.4 (Aug.)

12. Haraway, Donna J. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.

13. McKibben, Bill. "Sometimes You Just Have to Turn it Off." Esquire, Oct. 1993, pp. 66-7. See also The Age of Missing Information (Random House, 1992).

14. Comment made in "Exploring Electronic Networks" class, Oct. 28, 1993.

15. Postman, op. cit., p. 187.

Kevin Walker