Thursday, January 22, 2009
Bob
When concerning one’s self with the future and the various possible outcomes of technology you open doors to questions that can not possibly be answered; such is the nature of the idea of future. This world would be a totally different place if people could peer into the future. What do you think Shelly would think about the present? What would she think of the modern weapons of war: tanks, war ships, jet planes, the atom bomb, are these the monsters she envisioned? Surely some people have greater insight than others but the future will always hold unforeseen outcomes, though the question begs to be raised; how much impact do people like Shelly and Joy who raise conjectures towards the unknown have on the passage of time. In other words would people have developed Shelley’s “monsters” is she hadn’t have opened the door to that path in the minds of the population? People, the complacent masses, are highly influential. Shelley simply planted the seed, an idea of industrial dangers, which grew ultimately into World War. On the other hand, these people are no more than intellects and authors, but, being famous, they have significant power to shape the ideas of popular culture. Although, personally, I like to gain my insight into a subject by experts in that field, and neither Shelley nor Joy have any real experience in the various subjects and disciplines they discuss. Paranoia is a product of fear which is a product of ignorance. Given Joy’s significant insight into the future world of computer programming and his contribution to date, I find it difficult to take his paranoia seriously. I hardly think Joy is ignorant in his field, but his overtly dystopian outlook towards the future points more to personal despair and depression and less to logical and coherent predictions. He, if any, should be aware of the massive and daunting infrastructure overhauls that would be necessary for any “intelligent” computer systems to be integrated into society and the shear amount of time that would be involved would act as a failsafe, unless we are, in fact, mere units of production in a system working towards a singular end; being efficient productivity. I personally refuse to believe that in all of the complex bureaucracy of our government, not to mention all of the other systems of society including religious and educational institutions as well as those of foreign states, not a single person is working toward the advancement of humanity and is apposed to the system whose legitimacy and value is determined by profit margins. The amount of time and subsequent tests in the network would act to evolve the integration as we learn more about the high technology around us we, by our nature, will influence that evolution. Additionally with knowledge comes change, and the knowledge garnered from supercomputer research would pressure the evolution of humanity as well as the evolution of technology. As with the natural world, mother nature, we act as evolutionary pressures on each other, introducing an “artificial” pressure would not act any differently. Humanity has influenced the development of the internet just as the internet has shaped many of our childhoods. I’d like to think the countless hours of data farming, rather harvesting, has made someone’s life a little better, whether it be the album or program anyone of you may have downloaded from me, because I know everyone here enjoys harvesting data like I do. Conversely I’d like to thank you for you may have been the seeder I was looking forJ. Anyhow, I hope that illustrated my point, that however intelligent computers get in the future, they have a very real grounded basis in humanity, likewise in the future, we will have a very real base virtual reality. Humanity acts as an intermediary between mother nature and “mother” (if you will), artificial intelligence. Computers can be integrated into us and introduced into nature and vice versa because we are integrated into both systems. Although we are also in the position to destroy both systems, but however righteous and legitimate Joy’s and Shelly’s concerns about the future may be, the things that they oppose and the systems which frighten them are only being reinforced, and gain power from the paranoia of its constituents. If, in fact, the societal systems in motion during Shelly’s and our time are working against the advancement of humanity as a whole, and the implementations of the technology of the times are progressing towards a frightening destructive end, feeding into the problem by popularizing paranoia the population will reach a state of complacency. Introducing personal fears to others creates a state of panic where-in those very systems that Joy and Shelly oppose with their fear would be rightfully initiated in hopes to settle the population.
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5 comments:
Let me first start by saying that your thoughts blend together very incoherently in the current style you’ve written your paper in. I recommend splitting up your paper into paragraph form to avoid confusion and to help yourself avoid run-on thoughts that lose sense over the course of the paper. Also, I noticed a definite shift in focus in your paper which makes it difficult to pinpoint your actual intended argument until the very end when you abruptly summarize it.
My comments are organized as follows. A sentence or phrase taken from your paper is referenced followed by my comment to that particular statement or idea. I hope this will help eliminate searching for comments within the text itself. If you have trouble locating where I’m referencing, I’d recommend copying the paper into word and using the find feature. If you’d like, I originally completely annotated your paper in text within a word document and I can send you the docx file for easier revision.
In other words would people have developed Shelley’s “monsters” is if she hadn’t have opened the door to that path in the minds of the population -- Shelley’s monster is metaphorical, do we really see her creations come to life as a result of her influence?
Shelley simply planted the seed, an idea of industrial dangers, which grew ultimately into World War -- Industrial dangers fueled the backbone of war, but did not directly cause war (Remember that geography is the midwife to all history) People didn’t need industrialization to kill each other, this just made things a lot easier for those bent on doing so.
Given Joy’s significant insight into the future world of computer programming and his contribution to date, I find it difficult to take his paranoia seriously -- Provide an example of his paranoia to strengthen your argument here.
I personally refuse to believe that in all of the complex bureaucracy of our government, not to mention all of the other systems of society including religious and educational institutions as well as those of foreign states, not a single person is working toward the advancement of humanity and is opposed to the system whose legitimacy and value is determined by profit margins -- Run on – it is very difficult to read where you’re going in this statement. It seems that you’re arguing against Joy on the basis of rejecting capitalism being a fundamental part of government bureaucracy.
The amount of time and subsequent tests in the network would act to evolve the integration as we learn more about the high technology around us we, by our nature, will influence that evolution -- Awkward wording here. Are you suggesting that technology would be evolving by any influence other than that of human input? If so, is this important to your argument and elaborate that point.
Additionally with knowledge comes change, and the knowledge garnered from supercomputer research would pressure the evolution of humanity as well as the evolution of technology. As with the natural world, mother nature, we act as evolutionary pressures on each other, introducing an “artificial” pressure would not act any differently. Humanity has influenced the development of the internet just as the internet has shaped many of our childhoods -- There is a shift in your focus by this point in the paper that seems rather abrupt. Earlier in your paper, the main focus appeared to be Joy and Shelley writing out of paranoia rather than reasoning. Where do you change focus to humanity and technology evolving simultaneously and connectedly?
I’d like to think the countless hours of data farming, rather harvesting, has made someone’s life a little better, whether it be the album or program anyone of you may have downloaded from me, because I know everyone here enjoys harvesting data like I do. Conversely I’d like to thank you for you may have been the seeder I was looking for -- This statement seems rather tangent to the direction the paper was moving thus far. I understand the symbiotic relationship between individuals you’re highlighting in our connection to modern technology, but I don’t see how this connects to the first half of your paper. If this is what you want your paper to focus on, do just that, focus.
Although we are also in the position to destroy both systems, but however righteous and legitimate Joy’s and Shelley’s concerns about the future may be, the things that they oppose and the systems which frighten them are only being reinforced, and gain power from the paranoia of its constituents -- You introduce new ideas here in what seems to be a closing remark. Also, your method of summary strikes me as abrupt and unnecessary. If you need to bluntly state that you hope your point was taken, you obviously don’t feel that the rest of the text achieved its goal. I’d suggest removing this summary statement and instead read through the rest of the paper and determine if you did in fact stress these points enough to deliver your take home message.
If, in fact, the societal systems in motion during Shelley’s and our time are working against the advancement of humanity as a whole, and the implementations of the technology of the times are progressing towards a frightening destructive end, feeding into the problem by popularizing paranoia the population will reach a state of complacency -- Complacency can be summarized as American culture, pre-9/11, and doesn’t seem to fit your argument here. Are you suggesting that paranoid fear of new developing technologies will cause us to drop our guard when fear should normally elicit a response for action?
Don’t forget to define what you want the focus of your paper to be and ask whether each subsequent detail supports and strengthens that idea. If it doesn’t, scrap it and replace it with something that does. Avoid filler and tangent topics and home in on your key point before you’re summarizing remarks.
Chris - this is good and detailed feedback. Strangely, your critique of Bob might apply to this critique in turn - your individual comments are good, but more of an attempt to puzzle out what you see as the probably/best main argument might have been even better.
Bob - I'm not going to write at great length, because Chris dealt well with the fundamental issues. The lack of paragraph structure is not only annoying but indicative: this is paper with very little structure - it's a long listed of thoughts, many of which *are* connected, but which are in no sense an accumulation of evidence trying to demonstrate a larger point. I was certainly interested and even provoked at various points in the paper. For instance:
I’d like to think the countless hours of data farming, rather harvesting, has made someone’s life a little better, whether it be the album or program anyone of you may have downloaded from me, because I know everyone here enjoys harvesting data like I do.
This is a strange, provocative idea, worthy of elaboration - but you don't elaborate, and you don't prove. You just move on to the next idea. Your strength is in your ideas; what you need to work on is execution, by defending your ideas in a structured argument.
When concerning one’s self with the future and the various possible outcomes of technology, you open doors to questions that can not possibly be answered; such is the nature of the idea of future. Given our understanding of history and human culture we can make relatively accurate assumptions about the future, some become famous for their ambiguous literary representations of their predictions, like Shelly. What do you think Shelly would think about the present? What would she think of the modern weapons of war: tanks, war ships, jet planes, the atom bomb, are these the monsters she envisioned? Surely some people have greater insight than others but the future will always hold unforeseen outcomes as well as obvious predictable ones, though the question begs to be raised; how much impact do people like Shelly and Joy, who raise conjectures towards the unknown, have on the passage of time. In other words, would people have developed Shelley’s “monsters” if she hadn’t have opened the door to that path in the minds of a population? People, the complacent masses, are highly influential. Shelley simply planted the seed, an idea of industrial dangers, which grew ultimately into World War. Now I’m not suggesting she is responsible for War, what I am saying is a select few individuals at various points of time have had significant influence over the course of the direct future. People like the president, investment bankers (although maybe a poor analogy given our point in time), people who have power/populatrity, people like Shelly have direct influence on the minds and ultimately the lives of a population. On the other hand, these people are no more than intellects and authors, but, being famous, they have significant power to shape the ideas of popular culture. Although, personally, I like to gain my insight into a subject by experts in that field, and neither Shelley nor Joy have any real experience in the various subjects and disciplines they discuss, but they introduce the idea to the masses and open the intellectual discussion to a significantly influential number of people.
Paranoia is a product of fear which is a product of ignorance. Given Joy’s significant insight into the future world of computer programming and his contribution to date, I find it difficult to take his paranoia seriously. I hardly think Joy is ignorant in his field, but his overtly dystopian outlook towards the future points more to personal despair and depression and less to logical and coherent predictions; of course, there’s nothing wrong with this, some of the best art is born from despair. He, if any, should be aware of the massive and daunting infrastructure overhauls that would be necessary for any “intelligent” computer systems to be integrated into society and the shear amount of man hours that would be involved would act as a failsafe, unless we are, in fact, mere units of production in a system working towards a singular end; being efficient and productive. I personally refuse to believe that in all of the complex bureaucracy of our government, not to mention all of the other systems of society (religious and educational institutions as well as those of foreign states) not a single person is working toward the advancement of humanity and is apposed to the system whose legitimacy and value is determined by profit margins. The amount of time and subsequent tests in the network would act to evolve the integration as we learn more about the high technology around us we, by our nature, will influence that evolution. Additionally with knowledge comes change, and the knowledge garnered from supercomputer research would pressure the evolution of humanity as well as the evolution of technology. As with the natural world, mother nature, we act as evolutionary pressures on each other, introducing an “artificial” pressure would not act any differently. Humanity has influenced the development of the internet just as the internet has shaped many of our childhoods. However wildly intelligent computers do get in the future, they will always have a very real grounded basis in humanity, likewise in the future, we will have a very real base virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Humanity acts as an intermediary between mother nature and “mother” or “hal” (if you will), a.i.. Computers can be integrated into us and introduced into nature and vice versa because we are integrated into both systems. We are also in the position to destroy both systems.
However righteous and legitimate Joy’s and Shelly’s concerns about the future may be, the things that they oppose and the systems which frighten them are only being reinforced, and gain power from the paranoia of its constituents. If, in fact, the societal systems in motion during Shelly’s, and our time, are working against the advancement of humanity as a whole, and the implementations of the technology of the times are progressing towards a frightening destructive end, feeding into the problem by popularizing paranoia the population will reach a state of complacency. Introducing personal fears to others creates a state of panic where-in those very systems that Joy and Shelly oppose with their fear would be rightfully initiated in hopes to settle the population. I think both Joy and Shelly are very intelligent with a savvy business mind and an eye towards the future who became extravagantly successful and influenced the course of history.
my paragraph breaks are not showing up but i hope the changes are evident
i will also elabotare on the data farming comment at some point but i couldnt fit the elaboration in to this idea more than as an aside thought, i was ussing something i though was relevant to illustrate how we are an intigral component of computer systems and will be untill computers themselves conscive, design, program, and build themselves.
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