X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 09:26:11 EDT
From:         Tim Weaver <tweaver@HOBBES.KZOO.EDU>
Subject: Re: Software: progress, quality, and professionalism
Comments: To: ETHICS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

From Valdemar W. Setzer
>
> Dear Michael, you write
>
> >Just remember, we control the machine.
>
> My point is that we generally do not! Furthermore, there are machines that
> force us to exercise control over them and others which, on the contrary,
> force us not to control them. In the latter case you find TV sets (as
> communication mass-media) and computers. As the TV set induces a hypnotical
> state (already proved by neurophysiological research - I kwow a paper
> in this direction by Krugman, "Brain wave measurements of media involvement",
> Journal of Advertisement Research, Feb. 1971, pp. 3-9; does anyone
> knows any other reference?)
> the viewer is in general not in possession of his full consciousness - so
> he cannot "control" the machine; for instance, he is not able to criticize
> what is being transmitted (try to do it, try to stay fully conscious while
> watching a program and see how you will get exhausted after some minutes...).
> Only people that have already done extensive programming know that they have
> to exercise an enormous self-discipline to use a program development
> technique and produce a well-documented program. You write
>
> > It gives us guidelines to work with
> >our work, but we ultimately control what we do.
>
> Not in the case of computers! They give you absolutely no guideline, because
> what you are doing is using your thinking ability; the only constraints
> are the syntax of the programming language and the algorithmic logics involved
> in a program.

Forgive me for including so much previously posted material, but my argument
is more coherent if I refer to your points in reverse order.  You speak of
having no guidelines and constraints as if it were a bad thing.  It is the
open format that allows innovation.  If you structure everything and put
guidelines and constraints on the medium, you also put constraints on the
creativity.  Of course you have to maintain discipline, that's why another
word for profession is discipline.

The truth is that the machine doesn't have control over us until such
time as we voluntarily give it up.  This is the way of things.  It is a
lesson as old as time and is taught over and over again in stories about
the devil and temptation.  The solution is always to stay awake, alive
and critical.  Think about what you are doing.  I'm not saying that there
aren't traps out there, tv is a good example, by the same token so are
books (try reading romance novels sometime), pornography (no flames please),
music, drugs, anything that takes over for your imagination.  Many of these
thins used properly also serve to stimulate your imagination.  My points is
that it's not inherent in the technology so much as it is inherent in the
world.  Rather that try to prevent these things from being addicting, teach
people how not to become addicted, or better yet, teach people how to be
awake and alive.

I vigorously object to the concept that the viewer is not able to criticize
the television.  Rather I say that for the half-hour or hour (2 hours in the
case of movies), the viewer has voluntarily given up the critical mind set
in order to enjoy the show.  It's a little trick known in theatre as
suspension of disbelief.  I, for one, tend to remain very critical of what
I watch.  There are some programs for which I will suspend disbelief, and
others for which I will not (90210, any soap opera, commercials, etc).  In
general I tend not to watch these, when I do, I'm very aware that I'm not
enjoying myself (and so are most people around me).  As to the brainwave
experiment, I'd be curious as to how these brainwave measurements compare
to those of someone in deep meditation.  If they are comparable (and I
really have no idea), then your argument has a problem because there is
no machine controling them.  Here again, I stress my point, machines do
not force us to give up control, it is a voluntary action, perhaps done
through ignorance, but it is still a choice.  Where people loose control
over their actions to machines, the answer is not in the machine, but in
the person.

+-----------------------------+---------------------------+----------------+
|Timothy E. Weaver            | Snail: Kalamazoo College  |                |
|Database Programmer/Analyst  |        1200 Academy       | Phone:         |
|email:  tweaver@kzoo.edu     |        Kalamazoo MI 49006 | (616) 383-5656 |
+-----------------------------+---------------------------+----------------+
|These are my opinions!!      |   Don't be humble, you're not that great   |
|Mine!    Mine!    Mine!      |                  - Golda Meir (1898-1978)  |