tony@vlsi.cs.washington.edu (Tony Marriott) (12/06/87)
RE: the use of computerized phone calls. I have never received any, is this just because the technology in Washington State is lagging? I do have a phone answering machine, which is always ON. I get a lot of calls with no caller, no message. The phone answering machine is an interesting technical product. My wife uses it just to stop the phone from ringing, consequently, most of the time we don't even listen to the messages we do get. Friends ask, "didn't you get my message?" Ha! sorry, the phone is a convenience to which too many people become enslaved. Important people get spoken to anyway. RE: treating social problems as technical ones. I think Marx attempted to address this in Das Capital. Perhaps if you want to use a technical model for social solutions, you would have to find a manipulative item from a field dealing with self-seeking, self- interested, and, not amoral but immoral objects. Thanks