NET12 Informing ourselves to death

Amidst acclamations of the wonders of the computing age, an academic named Neil Postman gave a lecture in 1990 to a group of Stuttgart computer scientists about the pitfalls of computers. Computers, he says are about information. And no amount of information causes or prevents things from happening to us.

The computer is, in a sense, a magnificent toy that distracts us from facing what we most needed to confront – spiritual emptiness, knowledge of ourselves, usable conceptions of the past and future.

The problem, says Postman is the message all this information leads us to believe. That all the information, and management of information will lead to a solution to our problems.

Imagine what might be accomplished if this talent and energy were turned to philosophy, to theology, to the arts, to imaginative literature or to education? Who knows what we could learn from such people – perhaps why there are wars, and hunger, and homelessness and mental illness and anger.

He finishes off with some sage quotes from philosophers, and summarises:

It is all the same: There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory.

An interesting point of view, you get tired of hearing about the miracle of computers and the information age. Although, I do wonder what reception this paper received at that Stuttgart conference.

Postman’s paper at eff.org