taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (11/21/86)
This article is from Jess Anderson <rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!anderson>
and was received on Fri Nov 21 07:53:23 1986
By chance postings on essentially separate topics arrived here from
mod.comp.soc in serial order: the professor trying to set up a local newsgroup
for his colleagues, a followup to your book review, and a comment on young
hackers and their parents. I'd like to relate the postings to one another, as
I see connections of sorts between them.
The common thread is belief. Computer professionals are as much as the
rest of the population driven by their belief systems. At Denver, the
department has a serious management problem, to the point that even Mr. Burt's
local newgroup effort seems to flop. Likely the rest of the faculty does not
believe it can work. On the privacy issue, the (some think, shockingly) low
level of concern about invasion and misuses likely rests on the belief, an
abiding trust, in benevolence (especially governmental benevolence). Parents
trust their hacker children and believe that no "real" harm results from what
they believe are games. Now none of these beliefs is unmitigated, but they are
common enough to form a sizable obstacle to acceptance of alternative beliefs,
consigning those who try to raise the level of awareness to a periphery
usually seen as alarmist.
I think we need to be aware ourselves of the extent to which "facts" are
really convenient fabrications of our minds, predicated on maintaining some
acceptable view of the world, usually one that minimizes our level of anxiety.
Computers (and other technology-driven developments) are so strongly associated
with higher stress that defensive strategies may be virtually necessary.