From: guru-a0@access.digex.com (Guru Aleph-Null)
Subject: Re: industrial- vs. information society
Organization: Express Access Online Communications Service, Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 20:16:14 GMT

tordm@vand (Tord G.M. Malmgren) writes:


> I've read some posts now about what an industrial society "is" like..
>now, since we're leaving that and we're going into information society,
>what would this be like?
> it's like at around the 60's we started going into an information society, or
>is it me miss-interpreting everybody's use of the word "industrial" ?
>or should we use "new industrial age" like "new age" ? what's the next
>stage?? push the button and all available services are displayed, pick
>your choice, and voila(!) there you go!
> any opinions?

I think everyone confuses "Information Society" with "Push Button
Society". I think the term "Information Society" really means more
people work spewing info and trivia and being civil-servants than than
there are people actually creating goods. This won't mean everyone
stays home and telecommutes to work and is his/her own boss. You
probably would have some pretty interesting jobs-- Information
Creditor Enforcer: If you were selling some information to someone,
and refused to provide it after being paid, the ICE (No, I didn't
intend it to be like "Ice" (as in black-)) would come seek you out,
beat you up, drug you, and extract whatever information he/she wanted
and perhaps some extra info they think worthwhile to make up for being
late. This would be a cool "information society" job to have.
	Information Society won't be a push-button life. Expect to
lose some hair if you don't know how to meditate and shake off stress.

I laugh whenever a politician says "We must create more
manufacturing/industrial jobs and blah blah blah JOBS!" If anything,
we should be creating jobs where people need to think more. (Look at
all the college grads comming out now that end up working a register
at McDonalds because they can't find a job!) Perhaps this is just a
subconsious knowledge that an analytic person doesn't throw his vote
someone's way just because someone asks him to, and to create more
"thinking-Jobs" creates more analytic people.

"New Age" is really a period of stupid pseudoreligious hype that's
happening right now because people are freaking out that its less than
a decade until the next century and they feel worthless and hollow.
Looks for things to really bug out in the next eight years or so with
"End of the Universe" and "Elvis Transmorgrification" cults.

One problem with the word "industrial".. you can't tell unless you
have good context if you mean "very strong and better than
professional" ("No,it won't fly apart like the untra-high-speed
vibrating clock") or ("Shoes for Industry!") mass-manufacturing.

"New Industrial Age" to me from what I have seen/understood to have
happened in the last 40 years would be less people doing more work and
getting paid stacks of greenbacks for doing it. This will last up
until universal assemblers are built (Nanotech). Then it becomes a
question: Who can program an assembler to make something really cool
that people will buy?  (This is a strong suggestion to you young-uns
to study Physics, Chemistry, Cryptography and learn how to hack
something "quick 'n dirty" with enough foresight to make "an asshole
full of money".  ;)

>---------------+--------------------------------
> Tord Malmgren | InterNet: TordM@VanA.PhySto.SE | These opinions are my OWN,
>               | BITNet  : TordM@SESUF51        | and NOT of this department!
>---------------+--------------------------------
> Department of Physics, University of Stockholm

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from memory that doesn't remember last time it heard them and couldn't
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