jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (03/11/89)
Another effect computerization can have on society is represented
by the net itself. That's the spreading of news that otherwise
might not get spread.
Most major papers and TV and radio stations are owned by Establishment
concerns. They will decline to cover, or will undercover, news that
the Establishment would rather we not know (one recent example is
the refusal of the Network Election 'Service' to report *any*
Independent or third-party votes --- and to deliberately fudge
the percentages for Bush and Dukakis upwards to equal 100% (a
polite way of saying 'lie about it') ... and
before you respond that the alternative vote was too small to
make a difference: the head of the NES said before the election
that this procedure would be followed *regardless* of the
votes garnered by alternative candidates -- even if it reached
10% or more. Other examples would be the creation of a
paramilitary group to suppress demonstrations should Washington
intervene in Latin America, and the issuing of silencers to
DEA folks.)
Now, alternative magazines exist, and there are some alternative
radio stations. But the net can also be a great way to get these
data out to folks who might otherwise never had known of them.
As long as the flow of information remains pretty unregulated, this
aspect could be *very* important -- which may be why there is a
move afoot to charge even non-commercial bulletin boards
commercial phone rates. If the move succeeds, some BBSes will
have to cease, as their operators won't be able to pay the
higher rate. (Think the connection is far-fetched?
A few years ago the government of Czechoslovakia started
requiring that typewriters be registered}!)
Actually, this aspect -- dissemination of news the Establishment
media will spike -- *by itself* might be a good topic for
a thesis or dissertation!
Para un Tejas Libre,
Jeff Daiell
--
"Why can't they be like *we* were -- perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?"
From "Bye, Bye Birdie"jbush@ficc.uu.net (james bush) (03/12/89)
In article <3383@ficc.uu.net>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes: > > > > Another effect computerization can have on society is represented > by the net itself. That's the spreading of news that otherwise > might not get spread. > [Deleted examples etc. ] I hope that you are right, Jefff. I have also been disturbed by thebiased news coverage (except as you can probably figure out since you know me, I would use a different set of examples :-). My only fear is that the net will still only go out to a limited group of people. Most people will still have the networks as their major source of news. I feel a genuine sense of frustration sometimes that it is extremely difficult to get out information to most of the people. However, having the net is certainly better than having nothing. -- James Bush, Ferranti, Houston The Bible - the "source code" of life "Righteousness exalts a nation,but sin is a disgrace to any people." Prov. 14:34 Internal: jbush,5230, mail A/3204, room A/3602 External: ..!uunet!ficc!jbush All opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.
jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (03/12/89)
In article <3385@ficc.uu.net>, jbush@ficc.uu.net (Jim bush) writes: > In article <3383@ficc.uu.net>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (Jeff daiell) writes: > > > > > > Another effect computerization can have on society is represented > > by the net itself. That's the spreading of news that otherwise > > might not get spread. > > [Deleted examples etc. ] > > I hope that you are right, Jefff. I have also been disturbed by the > biased news > coverage (except as you can probably figure out since you know > me, I would use > a different set of examples :-). Jim, by mentioning -- even with a smiley -- that you and I would use different examples, you made me think of another aspect of nettery that has some definite social implications: the fact that, on the net, folks can hash out all sorts of topics, running down every last little aspect, examining every last little perspective, arguing back and forth, etc. This doesn't exist too many other places. In the work setting, policy tends to be policy, and there's only so much discussion/disagreement that is allowed. In the social setting, letters to the editor sections rarely permit replies to replies, and what passes for town meetings these days are often care- fully packed charades designed to advance the agenda of those staging them. For instance, to cite about the worst example, during the mid-to-late 70s, in Miami, Florida, there was a 'public forum' sponsored by the county's delegation to the State Legislature. Speaker after speaker urged *higher* taxes! Odd? Not when you consider that most were officeholders, complaining about their "low" salaries. A judge, who made $36,000 a year at a time I made less than $10,000, angered me the most, when he proclaimed taxes were "too d--- low". Yeah, and a tick wishes his dog had more blood! As I said, most of these so-called town meetings these days are no such thing. So the net provides a way to have thoroughgoing discussions about various matters -- crippler circuitry, alternative keyboards, third parties, the status of computer science in various countries, etc. It's a valuable medium; let's hope it stays as free as it is. And, yes -- this topic by itself could *also* suffice for a thesis or dissertation! Para un Tejas Libre, Jeff Daiell -- "Why can't they be like *we* were -- perfect in every way? What's the matter with kids today?" From "Bye, Bye Birdie"
peb%tma1@Sun.COM (Paul Baclaski) (03/14/89)
In article <3385@ficc.uu.net>, jbush@ficc.uu.net (james bush) writes: > ... My only fear is that the net will still > only go out to a limited group of people. Most people will still have > the networks as their major source of news. ... I also find it very frustrating to get good alternative information and try to explain it to people who are not connected--especially in the politcal relm. The pervading attitude of a considerable number of people is "That can't be true since I did not see that on television." In other words, "Television *is* Reality." If the Christic Institute's civil suit was covered by the major media, it would become Real. Currently, it is alternative/liberal press/ conspiracy theories. I think the psychological concept of Cognitive Dissonance applies here: people like to feel assured that they understand the world. If they get conflicting reports about the same thing, they feel edgy--and will actively avoid conflicting information. The old saying about the person who has only read one book applies here. When I hear someone say "The <some expert> says that <blah, blah>", I like to point out that all the experts do not agree on everything. The follow up question is "what <expert> do you trust and why?" The advent of a public, large-scale hypertext forum will be very important in making discussion possible--an alternative to the spoon fed news we get now. The information overload will be delt with by good filtering in which the reputation of a writer will become very important. A good example of this was the California insurance referendums--the voters had to choose between various proposals, read hard to understand legalese, and evaluate the impact given economic and political implications. How many people have the time to do this? Very few. So, what happens is that they must trust someone--and the name they trusted was Ralph Nader. The proposal Nader stood behind won by a long shot. I think this is a perfect example of how things occur in a democracy with varied sources of information in the context of information overload. A public "hyper-forum" will probably have the same constraints. The good thing about a hyper-forum is that the boundary between just viewing, and interacting is a smooth continuum, which makes it much more inviting. Today, if you want to interact, you must drive somewhere and attend a public meeting or something--this is a hard barrier.
allan@sfsup.UUCP (+Spiegel A.B.) (03/14/89)
In article <3383@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes: > > > >Another effect computerization can have on society is represented >by the net itself. That's the spreading of news that otherwise >might not get spread. > >Most major papers and TV and radio stations are owned by Establishment >concerns. They will decline to cover, or will undercover, news that >the Establishment would rather we not know (one recent example is >the refusal of the Network Election 'Service' to report *any* >Independent or third-party votes --- and to deliberately fudge >the percentages for Bush and Dukakis upwards to equal 100% (a >polite way of saying 'lie about it') ... and [..deleted] One thing to be careful about: netnews can be abused too. Unscrupulous posters can delibrately spread dis-information presented in a manner that makes them appear authoritative. While other netters might dispute the claims this might not always be possible and likely wouldn't repair all the damage. I agree with Jeff and have learned alot from the net that nobody else told me -- Just keep your eyes open wide. --A. --Allan Spiegel attunix!allan My opinions are my own. (except for Tues. and Thurs between 8:15 & 9:30 am while Jupitor is in retrograde. Then I loan them to the oldest thing in my refrigerator ;-)
mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Meyer, I'll think of something yet) (03/14/89)
Just correcting some mis-information: >> A good example of this was the California insurance >> referendums--the voters had to choose between various proposals, >> read hard to understand legalese, and evaluate the impact given >> economic and political implications. How many people have the time >> to do this? Very few. It takes at most a couple of hours. Considering you're dealing with up to $1000/year diferences in rates, that would seem to be a wise investment. To bad very few thought it was worth taking. >> So, what happens is that they must trust someone--and the name they >> trusted was Ralph Nader. The proposal Nader stood behind won by a >> long shot. It was a "long shot" only in the chance sense of the phrase. Prop. 103 had a 50.xx% yes vote. They actually had to count the absentee ballots to dtermine that it had passed. The insurance-industry written no-fault had around 45% of the voters voting for it. It was a close vote. To date, the net result of people relying on a human filter instead of thinking themselves is that there has been no change in insurance industry pricing (the rate rollback is in court, and will probably be tossed out) or rate-setting (easily predictable if you read the proposition and look at current rate-setting), enough of the major firms that sold low-cost, low-risk insurance have pulled out of the state that buying such ranges from difficult to impossible (as promised by the insurance companies - it's obvious if you look at the P&L's for those companies in CA that they can't afford to sell insurance at 20% of the rates as of Nov 1987), one of the best cost-cutting aids in the industry (shared predictions on accident rates) is no longer available in CA, and startups that would compete with the existing firms no longer have any way of predicting overhead, thus pushing their rates up (likewise, implicit in the proposition if you read it). >> I think this is a perfect example of how things occur in a democracy >> with varied sources of information in the context of information >> overload. This is also a perfect example of the aldous dystopia. People believing what they are told by media figures, and not looking at the readily available facts themselves, even in matters that hit them where it hurts. If that's the future I'm working towards, I'd feel better helping the DoD build bigger bombs. <mike
peb%tma1@Sun.COM (Paul Baclaski) (03/15/89)
A summary of my previous posting: Human attention is a limited resource and in context of information overload, experts opinions are used to make decisions. I.e., people trust other people to make a recommendation. A public, hypertext forum will allow better decisions since it is decentralized and will promote discussion because the barriers to discussion will be lowered. It is like the newspaper editorial page side by side with the news (no N day delay for the discussion). In such a system, there would be so many letters, that the reading would have to be filtered. Thus, the problem becomes the same old "who do you trust?" The filter could have a list of authors that it always reads, authors that it always ignores and some authors that it reads sometimes (probabilistic browsing?). In article <8903140313.AA01117@violet.berkeley.edu>, mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Meyer, I'll think of something yet) writes: > To date, the net result of people relying on a human filter instead of > thinking themselves is that there has been no change in insurance >... > This is also a perfect example of the aldous dystopia. People > believing what they are told by media figures, and not looking at the > readily available facts themselves, even in matters that hit them > where it hurts. I was making an example of how decisions are being made, not how they "should" be made in some "perfect" world. There is no need to get into the details of the insurance initiatives.
sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu (Slime) (03/18/89)
I worry that if more information is available to the average citizen, that people can be too easily swayed by false information (ie mass opinion change) or that the number of political opinons diversify to the point where there is NEVER a consensus. So we have either an indecisive world or one which is always in revolution. (like Italy?) Scary for democracy. With hypertext, could one "slant" the user into reading information organized into a propoganda-manner? Seems possible. cheers ** Simon --- Simon Gibson (alias "Slime") sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu
jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (03/20/89)
In article <12451@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, sagibson@dahlia.waterloo.edu (Slime) writes: > I worry that if more information is available to the average > citizen, that people can be too easily swayed by false information > (ie mass opinion change) or that the number of political > opinons diversify to the point where there is NEVER a consensus. > > So we have either an indecisive world or one which is always in > revolution. (like Italy?) > > Scary for democracy. > > With hypertext, could one "slant" the user into reading > information organized into a propoganda-manner? Seems possible. (1) I have someone more confidence in the average person than Simon does. (2) Either way, what he worries about can and does happen now. For instance, most people still talk about "the Reagan budget cuts" -- when Reagan's first budget was bigger than Carter's last one --- but because it was smaller than the one Carter proposed right before leaving office, the Establishment press misleadingly called Reagan's proposals "cuts". Or, for that matter, the 1980 election -- Reagan eked out a bare majority, but the press called it a landslide, as Carter was about six %age points behind (Anderson, Clark, Commoner, et alia got the rest). But, like Jefferson, I still hold that the more information available, the better the decisions will be. Besides, the alternative is to let The Powers That Be determine what information we get ... and there's *no way* that would be a good thing. So let's give thanks for the rapid computerization of society, at least for this aspect of it! Para un Tejas Libre, Jeff Daiell -- "Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain
miket@brspyr1.BRS.Com (Mike Trout) (03/29/89)
In article <3482@ficc.uu.net>, jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes: > Or, for that matter, the 1980 > election -- Reagan eked out a bare majority, but the press > called it a landslide, as Carter was about six %age points > behind (Anderson, Clark, Commoner, et alia got the rest). Six percentage points IS a landslide. True, the media should do a better job in showing how Reagan's vote totals in 1980 and 1984 were really quite less than a "mandate," but a look at American political history shows that six percentage points is an unusually high margin of victory. -- NSA food: Iran sells Nicaraguan drugs to White House through CIA, SOD & NRO. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Michael Trout (miket@brspyr1)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ BRS Information Technologies, 1200 Rt. 7, Latham, N.Y. 12110 (518) 783-1161 "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without...a rebellion." Thomas Jefferson