

Wendell Berry: Why I am Not going to buy a computer - rwl
http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/berrynot.html

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rwl
Interesting how some of his criteria for new equipment, which rule out buying
a computer, are very much consistent with the hacker spirit:

3\. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it
replaces.

4\. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.

6\. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided
that he or she has the necessary tools.

7\. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.

~~~
zdw
It seems to me that the next time he needs to get to another continent, he'll
buy a bicycle.

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RodgerTheGreat
If you can only see a computer as a more sophisticated sort of typewriter,
this kind of flat dismissal isn't all that surprising.

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chadgeidel
While I appreciate many points of the article, I find it ironic that I read
this rant on... the Internet. (of course it is old, and most likely
transcribed by someone else, but still hilarious)

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kylelibra
I saw this guy speak at my university my freshman year. He seemed like a bit
of a technophobe. Also this article is 20+ years old, not that I think he has
changed.

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rwl
I heard him on "City Arts and Lectures" recently (a local program on KQED). He
still didn't own a computer in 2010.

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DanHulton
"My final and perhaps mv best reason for not owning a computer is that I do
not wish to fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the
assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a
computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be as scientific
about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a computer to write work
that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably
attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computcr with a
more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one."

Well, if he were writing with a computer, odds are good that it would have
caught the typos "mv" and "computcr".

Frankly, this is a lot of hypocritical horse-puckey. If the author truly
didn't want to be shackled to the "energy corporations", then he also wouldn't
have a website, nor many other modern conveniences.

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adbachman
This was clearly copied or transcribed from another source. What gave you the
idea that this was Wendell Barry's personal website? Do you have any idea who
he is? (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Berry>)

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jerf
Kinda shooting fish in a barrel here, aren't we? Just a big communal pile-on
invitation? A bit unseemly.

