Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (08/03/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Tuesday, 2 Aug 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 41
Today's Topics:
Computers and People - Value Systems &
Personal Information Systems (2 msgs) &
The Worth of Technology (2 msgs),
Computers and the Law - Information as Property
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From: Steven M. Bellovin <ulysses!smb@berkeley>
Date: 29 Jul 83 13:22:51 EDT (Fri)
Subject: value systems
A local group is trying to encourage teenagers to read more by
rewarding those who read books on their own. The reward? Free
computer time....
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Date: 31 Jul 83 20:33:24 EDT (Sun)
From: Randy Trigg <randy.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay>
Subject: worldnet fears, etc.
Regarding the recent worldnet discussion, I thought I'd briefly
describe my research and suggest how it might apply: My thesis work
has been in the area of advanced text handlers for the online
scientific community. My system is called "Textnet" and shares much
with both NLS/Augment and Hypertext. It combines a hierarchical
component (like NLS, though we allow and encourage multiple
hierarchies for the same text) with the arbitrary linked network
strategy of Hypertext. The Textnet data structure resembles a
semantic network in that links are typed and are valid manipulable
objects themselves as are "chunks" (nodes with associated text) and
"tocs" (nodes capturing hierarchical info).
I believe that a Textnet approach is the most flexible for a national
network. In a distributed version of Textnet (distributing
Hypertext/Xanadu has also been proposed), users create not only new
papers and critiques of existing ones, but also link together existing
text (i.e. reindexing information), and build alternate organizations.
There can be no mad dictator in such an information network. Each
user organizes the world of scientific knowledge as he/she desires.
Flatworlders in a far different style (probably) than the rest of us.
Of course, the system can offer helpful suggestions, notifying a user
about new information needing to be integrated, etc. But in this
approach, the user plays the active role. Rather than passively
accepting information in whatever guise worldnet decides to promote,
each must take an active hand in monitoring that part of the network
of interest, and designing personalized search strategies for the
rest. (For example, I might decree that any information stemming from
a set of journals I deem absurd, shall be ignored.) After all, any
truly democratic system should and does require a little work from
each member.
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Date: 31 Jul 83 21:08:24 EDT (Sun)
From: Fred Blonder <fred.umcp-cs@UDel-Relay>
Subject: Re: "You will be asked to leave the future immediately." -
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
The first that public terminals have to do is entice random
passersby and then teach them how to use the system. . . .
Aha! I KNEW there was some purpose behind the wave of video games.
It's to make the public literate in the skills they will need
(pushing buttons and reading rapidly-changing readouts) to survive
in an information-oriented world. :-)
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Date: 2 August 1983 19:21 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: Civilizing technology?
Date: 25 Jul 1983 10:54:17 EDT (Monday)
From: Erik Sherman <esherman@BBN-UNIX>
Has any technological development fundamentally changed men and
women for the better?
Biologically/evolutionarily speaking, a body is merely a gene's
tool for making more copies of the gene, mixing those genes with genes
from other compatible organisms so as to achieve beneficial symbiosis
by means of novel gene-mixing experiments, tending for those new gene
mixtures until they have made their own bodies, and tending for those
bodies until they can function independently. Thus a human body is
merely an extension of the genes that program its basic structure,
consisting of essential organs for genomes (testicles, ovaries) organs
for life (lungs, heart), standby organs for copulation (penis,
fallopian tubes) essential organs for organized activity including
mating (lower brain, limbs), extra organs for enhanced intelligent
activity (upper brain) etc. Hookups into computer networks, data
files, processors, software, etc. fit into the class "extra organs
for enhanced intelligent activity". Although terminals aren't yet
physically integrated into the human body, they and associated compute
power are in effect extensions of the human body, really part of the
human-being functionally.
In answer to your question, yes, my body stretches over 3000 miles
in computer mode, 20,000 miles in TV-watching mode (and sometimes
200,000 miles or even a few million miles), and yours does too. We are
more intelligent creatures than we were before networks (computer and
TV), and we'll be even more intelligent creatures when we include
World-Net as part of our effective bodies. -- Note that the idea of
discrete bodies may soon be obsolete, the same way discrete organs in
the body isn't exactly correct. There will still be parts of our
bodies we consider totally ourselves, but most of our bodies will be
shared or intimately intertwined so that we can't say whose body some
video disk is part of except to say it's part of the overall system.
- Radical opinion by REM
- FROM:37'28N122'08W415-323-0720, about 3 miles from Stanford
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Date: 2 Aug 83 13:04:36 EDT (Tue)
From: Charles L. Perkins
Return-Path: <decvax!genrad!wjh12!clp@Berkeley>
Re: Robert Maas' comments on Dynabook with WorldNet, etc.
I think he is being a little too optimistic, especially about when
he states that scientific inquiry would be helped by almost never
re-doing experiments... See, for an extreme example, the imperial
society described by Isaac Asimov in the Foundation trilogy; it is
collapsing from just exactly this problem: no scientific research is
done based on anything but old experiments and theory. The idea is
that the "greats" of the past were so much more perceptive than we,
why should we presume to begin with any other data? There was too
great a reverence for the past. This was brought about, in part, by
the vast information banks of that time...
Also, do not forget that such a large volume of information easily
accessible may be an oppressive influence to many creative minds.
How can some help but feel that with so very much having been done
already, that their contributions will pale in comparison to the
overwhelming amount of existing information which they can "feel"
around them (due to quick and easy access). Already, the widespread
dissemination of paperback books is affecting the way people learn
information and, presumably, is affecting those who write it. The
point is not to be so sure that the effects are predictable; any new
technology of such widespread effect should be carefully watched...
And I think it is naive to say that because we, who are among the
more technologically and research-oriented people in the work-force,
might have few problems with Dynabook/WorldNet, that this implies
anything about whether the technology is good / bad / not worth
worrying about. The average man in the US will have to deal with
whatever we come out with, and how it effects the life of an average
person is the important issue; remember that some of the most
ingenious people came "out of nowhere" from the crowd of average
people to do creative work (e.g., Einstein). We should consider what
effect these new technologies will have on ALL people, as well as on
the early development of children. We cannot afford to make a mistake
that may reduce our creative potential as a whole... This is not to
say that Dynabook or WorldNet necess- arily limits us, but certain
kinds of those technologies, not designed to be as open-ended as our
minds, might.
Charles L. Perkins
...decvax!genrad!wjh12!clp
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Date: Tue, 2 Aug 83 14:40 EDT
From: David Axler <Axler%UPenn@UDel-Relay>
Subject: Information as Property
Did anyone notice one comment in the recent issue of "Time" that
focused on Japan? I refer to the fact that, according to "Time", many
American companies will no longer apply for patents in Japan because
the amount of public disclosure required by Japanese law is so great
that, by the time the patent is issued, so much has been revealed that
the company will almost certainly have its product (and, along with
it, all subsidiary manufacturing processed) copied.
Dave Axler
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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