56 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
56 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
|
From: Richard P. Wilkes <RICK%mit-mc.arpa@csnet-relay.csnet>
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Date: 10 July 1983 08:23 EDT
|
|||
|
|
From: Steve Kudlak <FFM>
|
|||
|
|
To: BILLW at sri-ai
|
|||
|
|
cc: Info-micro at brl
|
|||
|
|
Re: more computer education
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
I must flame just a little!!! Why do we always here what seems to be these
|
|||
|
|
obligatory statements about "obsession with computers" and yet no one moans how
|
|||
|
|
bodybuilders have an obsession with muscles; sports people have not only an
|
|||
|
|
obsession with sports but most of the time with a whole worldview that
|
|||
|
|
emphasizes competion over cooperation, cultivates the "us and them" way of
|
|||
|
|
seeing things and much much more.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The obsessions of MBAs and the business community are legion and much more
|
|||
|
|
widespread in comparison to computer people. They dress up in funny wierd
|
|||
|
|
outfits (from my point of view) and will often refuse to accept anyone who is
|
|||
|
|
not dressed in the same funny wierd outfits. People make beaucoup bucks by
|
|||
|
|
writing books telling people how to do thier funny wierd outfits so that they
|
|||
|
|
have a better chance of success. The funny wierd outfit we are told must be
|
|||
|
|
done exactly right, and can only be in a very narrow range of styles and colors
|
|||
|
|
and if you don't it right it is a real disaster...And these people are not
|
|||
|
|
obsessed!!??
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Furthermore it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of computers
|
|||
|
|
to compare them continually to videogames. Most of the uses of computers are a
|
|||
|
|
great deal different from videogames. To imply that skills in using a computer
|
|||
|
|
are the same as those used to play videogames is so mistaken that it is not
|
|||
|
|
funny.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
What bothers me is that these miscopnceptions seem to have persisted for so
|
|||
|
|
long. Either people have done a very bad job of clarifying what uses computers
|
|||
|
|
have, and how they could be used, or perhaps there is some real emotional
|
|||
|
|
technophobia that is still operating or perhaps both.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
It seems to me that this gibberish and garbage and paranoia has to be cleared
|
|||
|
|
away in order that computer education can proceed in a reasonably pleasent
|
|||
|
|
manner. After all it would be a real drag to try to teach someone how to use a
|
|||
|
|
typewriter, a camera or a car if they were vaguely and intensely afraid of them.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
If these fears could be ameilorated(sp??) and the potentials and limits of
|
|||
|
|
computers could be understood neither as vague terrors nor as panaceas then
|
|||
|
|
perhaps we could begin to have a true and beneficial computer education.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Enuff flames...
|
|||
|
|
Have fun
|
|||
|
|
Sends Steve
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
P.S. Is there anyway to respond to these wire stories?? If one has comments
|
|||
|
|
or rebuttals or kudos for a story is there any easy way of communicating this to
|
|||
|
|
the author.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Call The Works BBS - 1600+ Textfiles! - [914]/238-8195 - 300/1200 - Always Open
|
|||
|
|
|