From: John Draper Subject: Re: SOC: "Make everyone on earth SEE things your way." Really? Date: 7 Sep 1995 20:31:31 GMT Message-ID: <42nkr3$hd2@stc06.ctd.ornl.gov> Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory From John Draper cyberoid@u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) wrote: > >A prominent full-page advertisement by Silicon Graphics Inc. in the >WALL STREET JOURNAL caught my eye. No, more than that: it glared at >me with an eye of its own, a Big Brotheresque image that offers me > > ...a machine that makes everyone on earth > SEE things your way. > > > Think of what you could do. > > With such a machine, you would have complete > powers of persuasion, at your fingertips. This makes it sound pretty grim, doesn't it? It reminds me that we should all realize that every tool can be used for good and for evil. This is so because one critical component of every new device never changes: people. Scientists and technologists often are enthusiastic about their work and see it in a sort of utopian, rosy glow. Ultimately, however, it is not the scientists and technologists who actually use the devices they invent, but rather folks with some self-serving mission. Some of these missions are benign, some are malignant, some are neutral. The point is, in the end, a tool is a tool. A sharp piece of metal on the end of a stick can be a hoe or a battleax, depending on the inclination of the ape holding it. [snip, snip] >countries, the situation is more extreme. In these conditions, for >most individuals, computer-generated pictures may very well come to >stand in for what is happening the real world. It's a fearsome >thought. Communications media have been used this way before (excuse me, ARE being used this way). There is a long history of using film and television to "spin" a story into a favorable light. VR will, naturally, be used in a similar fashion. >Is this the type of enterprise to which we want to be recruited, in >which the power of computing derives not from building understanding >but rather from bringing people into alignment? Foot soldiers in the >campaign of the technology-rich versus the technology-poor? I don't see how you can avoid it. Scientists and technologists don't have control over the uses of what they discover. Technology hasn't yet changed the morals of a populace significantly (except maybe that birth control devices can render them more promiscuous ;> ). >"Make everyone on earth SEE things your way." What about other ways >of seeing? For a thousand years the Church, using that era's tools of >persuasion (faith and exclusionary access to knowledge) and compulsion >(stocks and the personal bonfire), successfully tried to make everyone >on earth see things its way. Only a change in the political >leadership in Europe, and the emergence of more powerful technology of >knowledge and understanding -- science -- created the possibility for >truth to emerge. In the meantime, the toll taken among the >truthseekers was brutal. Maybe. However, totalitarianism and nationalism also emerged, and the new technology helped produce the two world wars. The new manufacturing technologies also caused significant social dislocations. Anyway, the church wasn't all that successful: witness the East/West schism, the many heresies, the conflict between Ireland and Rome, the kidnapped Popes of Avignon, and, eventually, the Reformation. >a line must be drawn between a company and the message its ad agency >promulgates. I disagree. No lines should be drawn between a company and the message it requests, approves, and pays for from an agency. The SGI folks might be guilty of nothing worse than arrogance or negligence, but I think they are responsible for the message. >What do others think? If you've seen the advertisement, what thoughts >and feelings did it inspire in you? Well, you've got my knee-jerks now. Anyone else?