
Neil Postman: Things We Need to Know About Technological Change (1998) [pdf] - dredmorbius
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf
======
chipsy
I feel there is something missing in Postman's interpretation. I've seen it
linked a number of times in the past few months and I think I have a grasp on
what it might be: Cycles.

There are no cycles mentioned in this manifesto. And yet everyone who's been
around the business of technology long enough knows and recognizes cycles in
it. What he sees as a "price paid" might also be nothing but a temporary
rebalancing, due to swing back the other way in a few months, years, or
decades. This goes for the little things - the Javascript framework du jour -
and big ones - the Internet, drones, 3D printing...

In that light, the points he makes tend to come across as simple BEWARE CHANGE
moralizing. Are the changes we make really as permanent as he claims, or is
this simply a way in which we mythologize the present? Which is not to say
that it's beneath consideration to examine the impact, but perhaps rather than
focus on the technology aspect of it, focus on the cultural part. It's easy
enough to spot ideological goals that are associated with particular
technologies or technical movements. Technology is simply the force multiplier
to realize those goals - a mechanism for gaining the upper hand, albeit
temporarily. The resulting consequences of technology are the consequences of
"making dreams come true."

~~~
djokkataja
What do you see as an example of something swinging back the other way,
culturally? The examples he used (the alphabet, the printing press, TV) all
seem to have significant permanent cultural effects without swinging back the
other way.

------
renox
Interesting but flawed in many ways:

>Think of the automobile, which for all of its obvious advantages, has
poisoned our air, choked our cities

I'm not sure that the smell of horse shit before the automobile was much
better than car's pollution..

> The printing press gave the Western world prose, [cut]. It gave us inductive
> science, but it reduced religious sensibility to a form of fanciful
> superstition.

That's a drawback???

> If you should propose to the average American that [cut] that there should
> be no television commercials, he will think the idea ridiculous.

In France we have no television commercials in the evening on the public
channels, the average French didn't find this idea ridiculous (though there
was a debate as this obviously has also drawbacks) and I don't think that the
average French is much different than the average American (short of being
less religious and less "patriotic").

Plus when he write "That is why we must be cautious about technological
innovation." he destroy it just after "The consequences of technological
change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible.", how
can we be cautious about technological innovation when its consequences are
unpredictable??

~~~
bmj
There's a lot more to car use than simply pollution. Read Illich or Kunstler
on the sorts of cultural changes that rapid transportation has produced.

I think when Postman speaks of caution, he is arguing against a technocratic
perspective that sees any and all technology as ultimately good because it is
the primary means of fixing a problem. I think Postman (and others like him)
would argue that technology can be good and useful, but it becomes dangerous
when we perceive every issue facing humanity as simply a technical problem.

Regarding ads on TV, what constitutes a "public" station in France? Public
stations in the U.S. do not have commercials, but I suspect the average
American is watching a private station, which has commercials every ten
minutes.

~~~
renox
> what constitutes a "public" station in France?

We have three (four?) of those: and the content is quite similar to private
stations except that they receive money from taxes and ads instead of only
ads. Of course they have some constraint that private stations don't have such
as coverage of elections, etc.

------
dredmorbius
There's a related video from a March, 1997 lecture, in which Postman discusses
the questions. Though I agree with much of what he says, I also feel he
suffered from a bit of failure of imagination in conceiving of what the
possible utility of information might be.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrv7DIHllE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlrv7DIHllE)

Two bits, both in the Q&A, particularly stand out.

First: the observation that as the _hoi polloi_ are told they need to acquire
technical skills, the ruling class retains its power by learning how to speak
and write effectively.

Second:

"I feel very strongly about this: what is distracting us from solving some of
the problems that you mention is a kind of a world view that's being promoted
now by computer technology, that the main reason we have problems in the world
is that we have insufficient information. If only we could get more
information, easier to access, and get it faster, then we can solve this
problem, or any of the others you mention. And I think this is an awesome
conceit, and a terrible mis-judgement. Look, if there are children starving
anyplace, it's not because we have insufficient information. if there's crime
rampant in the streets in New York, Detroit, and Chicago, it's not because we
have insufficient information. If the ozone layer is being depleted and the
rainforest is disappearing, it's not because we have insufficient information.
And if you can't get along with your own relatives, it's not because you have
insufficient information. But we have come to believe that that is the source
of all the misery and pain in the world. If only we had more information. And
I think that that is a complete distraction. That is what Bill Gates wants us
to believe....

"We solved this problem already. How to get more information to more people.
Fast. And in diverse forms. We solved it. Congratulations! It was great!

"But we caused another problem. Information glut, information meaninglessness,
information incoherence. We're are flooded in information. We are drowning in
information. Talk to an educator and ask well, what do we have to do in
schools? I know the problem: they don't have enough information. So, we've got
a new set of problems here in education and the social life. What do we have
to know to learn what to do in a culture that is saturated in information?..

"This truly has never happened before, because prior to the early 19th
century, every culture suffered from information scarcity. It was beginning in
the 1840s, humanity addressed this problem: how to get more information to
more people, fast, and in diverse forms.... And then from the 1840s right into
this century ... and by the way, there were far more technological changes in
the 19th century than there have been in the 20th ... beginning then and right
into our own century, we addressed the problem of how to get more
information."

------
michaelochurch
This is a much-needed reality check for those of us who work on technology.

What we imagine: if we keep digging the tunnel, we'll get to the post-scarcity
world on the other side.

What actually happens: Uber and Clinkle. Drone warfare. Time-tracking software
originally intended for self-employed consultants to install on their own
machines, to monitor themselves, being used to torment corporate serfs and aid
in layoffs. "Story point" tracking systems. Services that help HR departments
of banks and technology companies collude on compensation and make illegal
inquiries (back channel references, aka discrimination) about employees.
_Evil_ tech, in other words. Not even Microsoft "evil" but actual evil evil.

We have this idealistic but delusional belief that just by _working very hard_
we can, collectively, obsolete the overlords and criminals who (for the most
part) are the ones who pay us. It rarely works out that way. Whether
technology is ultimately to the power of good versus evil may be the core
question answered by the coming major conflicts of the 21st century.

~~~
base698
If you haven't read it, Technopoly is really great. It outlines some of the
unintended consequences of what you mention. Technology has an effect of
changing how you see the world. In ancient times of oral history everything
was a song. After the printing press everything a list. When the clock comes
around, time becomes a resource and pressure to produce increases.

[http://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-The-Surrender-Culture-
Techn...](http://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-The-Surrender-Culture-
Technology/dp/0679745408)

