Subject: Re: (no subject)
oconnort@nyu.edu
Date: Sat Apr 26 1997 - 17:00:38 GMT
> tim, i've listened to stoll, birkerts, and postman try and stop the
> oncoming electronic tsunami and nothing they say keeps me from grabbing my
> surf board--is talbott ofering any new ideas? anyone else I should be
> reading who will give my cyberlife critical insights? will
I like Cliff and have discussed this a lot with him; I think his
publisher did a dreadful disservice by rushing the book out before
it was ready. It needed a good editor's pencil. Essentially, I agree
with his notion that an online environment as your sole interaction
with the world is not going to give you the rich experience of life,
and that automation is not going to replace the many human aspects of
life the utopians sometimes suggest it will. That was Cliff's premise,
but it came out as more of a polemic, and more unstructured, than it
should have. The resulting argument sounded more wobbly than it might
have if it had been given more time to germinate.
I love Birkerts, but as with any argument like this, I always hedge my
bets. There are things computers do for me as a writer (and as a writer
who has to pay his way through life doing something other than writing,
while nursing the work along), so, I would not give up those advantages.
I felt that The Gutenberg Elegies very nicely articulated some of the
concerns a reasonable person might have about the issue.
I have not read Postman's work yet, I confess. Just one of those things
I haven't been able to do yet....
I got The Future Does Not Compute because I thought I would review it.
Unfortunately, the book did not work for me, except for the broadest
sweeps. I understand his reminders that we should approach computers
with some skepticism. The greatest problem is that so much of the book
was like white noise, and was numbing rather than convincing. Again, as
with Silicon Snake Oil, the argument has some merit, but is very
difficult to articulate. Even the author's note says it all: "Mr. Talbott
recently moved with his family from the Boston technology belt to rural
New York, where his efforts to reach an accommodation with his computer
continue." I really wanted to like the book. But I couldn't do so.
ObSalinger for everyone who tolerated this digression ("... yell
'Digression!' at him as fast as you can"): I cannot imagine him
peering out his window at the New England mountains from behind a
computer monitor. I cannot even imagine him at an electric typewriter....
--tim
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