Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (08/18/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Thursday, 18 Aug 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 47
Today's Topics:
Responce to Query - Who contributes to HN?,
Computers and People - National Database &
Technology and Civilization (2 msgs) &
System Limits and People &
"Calling Channel" mailing list
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Date: Wed 17 Aug 83 12:30:06-PDT
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Who contributes?
One of our local BBoards here at Gotham City U. is used for unfettered
general discussion, and is dominated by a group whose composition
changes, but rarely has more than about 10 people at the core. Some
numerical data have been collected, but I don't have them. Most of
what goes on (apart from used cars for sale) consists of semi-private
arguments between these people. They tend to forget about the rest of
their audience, which never says anything. On HUMAN-NETS, it seems to
me that the writing is rather less exclusive, but it would equally be
interesting to know who does the reading. I wonder if this knowledge
would dissuade some of us from making our usual contributions ...
- Richard
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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 83 01:33:47 PDT
From: fair%ucbarpa@Berkeley (Erik E. Fair)
Subject: Re: HN V6 #46: Doesn't anyone know about us?
Clearly that clown hasn't ever heard of the ARPAnet or CSnet. Or he's
fishing for new money, based on Congress' short memory for such
things. Has Argonne done anything significant recently? Obviously
they're not reading the literature in computer science...
For that matter, what is the deputy directoro of Argonne doing
testifying to congress about 5th Generation computers and Networks?
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucb-arpa
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Date: 17 August 1983 01:40 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: The influence of technology to our well being
Although it's true that the median living human today isn't much
better than 2000 years ago, when you start at the top and compare
person for person you find people are much better off now than then.
There are millions alive today who are living much better than the top
millions back then. Further down the line there are billions living
today in poverty who wouldn't have been alive at all back then. Pick
any level of quality of life, from barely-living to very rich, and
you'll find more people living above that level today than back then.
It would be trivial to bring the median person up to our level. Just
kill off the bottom 80% of humanity. There'd still be more people
living today then back then, and they'd be way up in quality of life
too. Now give those bottom 80% the choice of death or poverty. Which
would they choose? It's always possible to lower the apparent median
by including more of the unfortunate people in the survey. That's what
you're in effect doing by comparing the billions who are alive today
with the mere millions who were alive back then. To be fair you should
include all the billions back then who were never even born. Then the
median back then would be dead while the median now would be poverty.
When comparing apples and oranges, there are many "correct" ways to
interpret the data, yours and mine included. Perhaps we should simply
choose which world/society we'd prefer, where 4.6 billion humans can
live, mostly in poverty, a few in luxury, or where only a few million
can live, where probably you and I wouldn't be among the chosen few to
live. (Remember you can claim "well, I'd be alive, it'd be those other
guys who'd be dead"; but to be fair you have to consider that maybe
you would be among the dead if we reverted to pre-industrial society.)
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Date: 27 July 1983 14:12 cdt
From: Bibbero.PMSDMKT
Subject: Technology and Civilization
In reply to the question raised by esherman at BBN
Has any technological development fundamentally changed
men and women for the better?
The answer to this question depends so much on what you define as
"better." If you mean a better life-style for the common man/women in
the sense of more leisure, more access to knowledge and more
development of the intellectual and physical resources of the human
body, to say nothing of better health and longevity, there is no doubt
that nearly every technological development has helped. At least
those preceding the ages of nuclear and chemical pollution in which we
are now residing. The ultimate result of the industrial revolution
was more goods for all and, indirectly, a better status for the
working man or woman. We tend to forget all to easily that the Middle
Ages were a time when life was "short and brutal" for most people. So
far as health is concerned, it is obvious that more people are
surviving diseases that killed them off just a few decades ago (like
TB and pneumonia) and that infant mortality has plummeted as longevity
has risen. Although it is not perhaps immediately clear that a longer
life is a better life, the opposite is certainly true. It is hard to
be "good" or to enjoy life when you are not around.
>From a longer range standpoint, that is, genetically, it is probably
too early to say whether the change in life-style from survival,
food-bound to a motive-bound economy has any lasting effect on the
fundamental patterns of the race. Generally, these changes take
millenia rather than years to become obvious. But it seems that the
gene pool is bound to change when the emphasis is altered from
survival of the most powerful physically to that of the most agile
mentally. There are no doubt more geniuses surviving today (like the
conductor Perlman, for example) who would have perished in the bad old
days. And these live to transmit their superior characteristics to
the race. The history of the Jews might be an indication of what a
few thousand years of intellectual emphasis does to a gene pool.
As far as the "spiritual" aspect of technology's effect on making a
person "better" this is beyond my sphere of expertise. I don't know
what a spirit is much less what makes it better, or even what is
better. But it seems reasonable that a more relaxed physical life
would offer personal opportunities to be kinder and more considerate
of one's fellows. Rather than "spirit" I prefer to think of the
advancement of the human race as a trek toward cooperation, even
cooperation between "machines" (computers) and humans. If this is the
future of the human race, and one to be desired, there is no doubt
that technology is a major driving force in shaping that future.
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Date: 17 AUG 83 16:55 PDT
From: Hathaway@AMES-TSS.ARPA
Subject: Re: system limits and people
I'm afraid our "outrage" at the 80-character company name limitation
is caused simply because we realize the origin of the seemingly rather
arbitrary value of 80 (presumably screen width). There have of course
always been limitations on company names: a few years ago I tried to
3
register the name T ["T cubed"], and was turned down on the grounds
that superscripts and subscripts were not allowed; I would have had
to register "T3" (and that was not available because somebody else
had already registered "3T"!). And obviously there are "arbitrary"
limits on countless other things and we accept them quite well
(e.g., I am only allowed to have seven letters on my personalized
license plate).
I'm afraid this is like the joke about the dude propositioning a
woman for a million dollars and then dropping to five bucks: I think
we all agree on the need for some sort of limits, we're just haggling
over the price.
Wayne
PS: I too had a hard time relating the 80-character limit to the pi=3
episode, as well as to the lousy programming of a billing system.
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Date: 17 August 1983 22:25 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: "Calling Channel" mailing list
One major problem with mailing lists like this is that there's no
control on how many people see a message after it's obsolete because
the first person to see it already answered the question. Sometimes
several people answer the same question. Sometimes everybody figures
this is going to happen to avoid duplication they don't answer the
question, and the result is nobody answers at all. It would be nice to
have a way to send a query to say ten different people. Any subset of
these ten can answer the question, but if fewer than two answer then
the question is sent to ten more or twenty more or whatever. Ideally
only three should get the question but each of the three who doesn't
answer it should forward to somebody more knowledgable in the subject
matter. Even more ideally as soon as one of the three has forwarded
the message to an expert OR answered it directly the question should
dissappear from the other's mailboxes. Or, ... lots of parameters to
adjust to achieve good performance, but simply having a BBOARD mailing
list doesn't seem at all the right way.
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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