CS 162 Beyond Calculation
Fall 2002
Introduction
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Computer is a cultural mediating and thus transforming technology.
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experts view the computer "in a more messianic light, as the
technology that will create new markets and thus reduce proverty and
so-called backwardness in the seemingly undeveloped parts of the
world."
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...but will also contribute to the disappearance of traditional
cultures - just as the interstate highway system led to the demise of
local communities that could not join the new economic order.
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Because a double bind encompasses both benefits and drawbacks, and
because we usually focus only on the benefits.
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...will help us recognize the danger of thinking of computers only
within the framework of their personal use and within the myth of
progress that surrounds them.
Chapter 3
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He (Ellison) further predicted that computers will so radically change
our world in the next twenty years 'that people will scarcely be able
to remember what life was like before'
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..that none of them mention the radically diverging trends between the
world population growth and the quality of our environment.
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note that the average 'ecological footprint' in the US is 5.1 hectares
per person, while in India it is 0.4 hectares, and worldwide it is 1.9
hectares.
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if the enire world's population were to adopt the consumer lifestyle
of the average North American, ' it would need two additional planets
to produce the resources, absorb the wastes, and otherwise maintain
life support.
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At some point the scientific studies of changes in natural systems, as
well as media coverage of environmental disruptions, will lead us all
to ask whether the technological approach to progress is a key part of
the problem.
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the increasing status accorded to technologically mediated data; how
this form of knowledge undermines the importance and existence of
local knowledge; and how the displacement of local knowledge with data
and other decontextualized, electronically communicated symbol systems
contributes to the consumer lifestyle that harms the environment.
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if we use the word ideology to refer to culturally based
interpretative framework that influences how we think, value,
perceive, and manipulate the world...
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myth - scientifically produced commodities represent the highest
measure of human achievement
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the modern educational system is simultaneously the repository of the
society's myths, the institutionalization of the myth's
contradictions, and the locus of the ritual which reproduces and veils
the disparities between myth and reality.
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as the study of the declining condition of ecosystems shows, is that
the values and forms of knowledge learned in universities contribute
to the spread of consuerism, to the loss of knowledge that focuses
more on relationships than economics, and to the acceleration of
environmental decline.
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cultural bioconservatism - representing culture as inseparable from
its impact on natural systems and suggests the transformations that
must occur if we are to separate ourselves from the deep and still
unconscious legacy of the industral revolution.
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cb - the individual is not autonomous and self=directing, but is
better understood as possessing a self-identity, a way of knowing and
valuing, and a set of culturally influenced behavioral patterns that
are reproduced through the everyday use of language.
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human communities are best understood as a network of implicit
relationships rather than as an aggregate of individuals.
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mentoring is the practice of passing on to the next generation skills
that have their roots in the local knowledge.
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in cyberspace, we do not find the qualities of character formation
that are at the core of the mentor relationship.
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'high context knowledge' in order to distinguish it from the "low
context knowledge' learned in academic settings....
Last modified Sep 4, 02 by mike@cs.hmc.edu