This link has been bookmarked by 89 people . It was first bookmarked on 07 Sep 2007, by Vikki Costa.
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09 Jul 19
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17 Sep 12
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01 Jun 12
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Marsha RatzelNeil Postman - "5 Things We Need to Know About Technology" http://t.co/HXldc1bz an important filter in my last action research #ConnectEdCa
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30 May 12
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27 May 12
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26 Apr 12
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Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological
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Technology giveth and technology taketh away
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The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off.
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advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage
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technologies are unmixed blessing
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the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population.
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every new technology benefits some and harms others.
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They are more easily tracked and controlled
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and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them. They are more than ever reduced to mere numerical objects. They are being buried by junk mail. They are easy targets for advertising agencies and political institutions.
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they are subjected to more examinations
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In a word, these people are losers in the great computer revolution. The winners, which include among others computer companies, multi-national corporations and the nation state
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That is the way of winners, and so in the beginning they told the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a checkbook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists. Then they told them that computers will make it possible to vote at home, shop at home, get all the entertainment they wish at home, and thus make community life unnecessary. And now, of course, the winners speak constantly of the Age of Information, always implying that the more information we have, the better we will be in solving significant problems
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Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea
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language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments
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ut what they call to our attention is that every technology has a prejudice
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And computer people, what shall we say of them? Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether
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Technological change is not additive; it is ecological
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Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.
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The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible
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media tend to become mythic
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that we always pay a price for technology
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10 Mar 12
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24 Feb 12
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This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage
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Printing gave us the modern conception of nationhood, but in so doing turned patriotism into a sordid if not lethal emotion.
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What will a new technology do?" is no more important than the question, "What will a new technology undo?"
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22 Jan 12
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02 Jan 12
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08 Nov 11
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26 Sep 11
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and 2000. Please select some text and try again.
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Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change
Good morning your Eminences and Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen.
The theme of this conference, "The New
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Technologies and the Human Person: Communicating the Faith in the New Millennium," suggests, of course, that you are concerned about what might happen to faith in the new millennium, as well you should be. In addition to our computers
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which are close to having a nervous breakdown in anticipation of the year 2000, there is a great deal of frantic talk about the 21st century and how it will pose for us unique problems of which we know very little but for which, nonetheless, we are supposed to carefully prepare.
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I can provide, right at the start, some good advice about how to confront it.
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The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off.
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which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population.
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Here is the third. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas.
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the fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological
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come now to the fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic.
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First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price.
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Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners.
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Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not.
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Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.
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fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.
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20 Sep 11
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A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.
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The first concerns education. Who, we may ask, has had the greatest impact on American education in this century? If you are thinking of John Dewey or any other education philosopher, I must say you are quite wrong. The greatest impact has been made by quiet men in grey suits in a suburb of New York City called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tests.
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First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.
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09 Sep 11
David Wees@mrsimpson07 great. Saw your post on @davidwees. With respect don't agree that ICT is a value add. That's entry level. http://t.co/aSHsCf5
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02 Sep 11
Steve RansomGone, but try this
http://web.archive.org/web/20110718043815/http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman--five-things.html
or
http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/postman.pdf-
Who, we may ask, has had the greatest impact on American education in this century? If you are thinking of John Dewey or any other education philosopher, I must say you are quite wrong. The greatest impact has been made by quiet men in grey suits in a suburb of New York City called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tests.
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technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.
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trade-off.
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What will a new technology do?" is no more important than the question, "What will a new technology undo?
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advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly
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hese people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled;
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We have known for a long time how to produce enough food to feed every child on the planet. How is it that we let so many of them starve? If there is violence on our streets, it is not because we have insufficient information. If women are abused, if divorce and pornography and mental illness are increasing, none of it has anything to do with insufficient information. I dare say it is because something else is missing,
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What interests do you represent? To whom are you hoping to give power? From whom will you be withholding power?
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To a person with a computer, everything looks like data
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Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.
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how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies
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echnological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything.
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media tend to become mythic
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as if they were God-given, as if they were a part of the natural order of thing
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accepted as it is,
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The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God's plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us.
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08 Aug 11
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26 Jun 11
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"All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end."
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"One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words."
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it is a delusion to believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages
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I do not have the wisdom to say what we ought to do about such problems, and so my contribution must confine itself to some things we need to know in order to address the problems.
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for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The disadvantage may exceed in importance the advantage, or the advantage may well be worth the cost.
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the question, "What will a new technology do?" is no more important than the question, "What will a new technology undo?" Indeed, the latter question is more important, precisely because it is asked so infrequently.
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This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others.
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The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who is knowledgeable about technological change are these: Who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?
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But to what extent has computer technology been an advantage to the masses of people?
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These people have had their private matters made more accessible to powerful institutions. They are more easily tracked and controlled; they are subjected to more examinations, and are increasingly mystified by the decisions made about them.
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and thus make community life unnecessary.
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it is not because of insufficient information.
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every technology has a prejudice. Like language itself, it predisposes us to favor and value certain perspectives and accomplishments.
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In Kings I we are told he knew 3,000 proverbs. But in a culture with writing, such feats of memory are considered a waste of time
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The television person values immediacy, not history
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In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television.
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That is why we must be cautious about technological innovation. The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible. That is also why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk takers. The most creative and daring of them hope to exploit new technologies to the fullest, and do not much care what traditions are overthrown in the process or whether or not a culture is prepared to function without such traditions. Capitalists are, in a word, radicals. In America, our most significant radicals have always been capitalists--men like Bell, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Sarnoff, Goldwyn. These men obliterated the 19th century, and created the 20th, which is why it is a mystery to me that capitalists are thought to be conservative. Perhaps it is because they are inclined to wear dark suits and grey ties.
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I am making no argument for socialism. I say only that capitalists need to be carefully watched and disciplined.
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they may undo the institutions that make such ideas possible.
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The greatest impact has been made by quiet men in grey suits in a suburb of New York City called Princeton, New Jersey. There, they developed and promoted the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tests.
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The radicals who have changed the nature of politics in America are entrepreneurs in dark suits and grey ties who manage the large television industry in America. They did not mean to turn political discourse into a form of entertainment. They did not mean to make it impossible for an overweight person to run for high political office. They did not mean to reduce political campaigning to a 30-second TV commercial. All they were trying to do is to make television into a vast and unsleeping money machine. That they destroyed substantive political discourse in the process does not concern them.
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Cars, planes, TV, movies, newspapers--they have achieved mythic status because they are perceived as gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context.
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"Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
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Our unspoken slogan has been "technology über alles," and we have been willing to shape our lives to fit the requirements of technology, not the requirements of culture. This is a form of stupidity, especially in an age of vast technological change. We need to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we many use technology rather than be used by it.
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22 Jun 11
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17 May 11
Michael CoghlanWe need to proceed with our eyes wide open so that we many use technology rather than be used by it.
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19 Apr 11
"And so, these are my five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us. "
technology postman history culture social media philosophy change
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09 Mar 11
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02 Feb 11
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school was an invention of the printing press
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school was an invention of the printing press
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30 Oct 10
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29 Sep 10
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: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end."
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t Goethe told us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.
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t the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.
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. Technology giveth and technology taketh awa
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Faustian bargai
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many people believe that new technologies are unmixed blessing
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. The printing press gave the Western world prose, but it made poetry into an exotic and elitist form of communicati
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at the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population
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, television may bring an end to the careers of school teachers since school was an invention of the printing press and must stand or fall
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, the winners speak constantly of the Age of Information
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This age of information may turn out to be a curse if we are blinded by it so that we cannot see truly where our problems lie
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a: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological
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That is also why we must be suspicious of capitalists. Capitalists are by definition not only personal risk takers but, more to the point, cultural risk taker
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. I say only that capitalists need to be carefully watched and disciplined
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they developed and promoted the technology known as the standardized test, such as IQ tests, the SATs and the GREs. Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tes
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. All they were trying to do is to make television into a vast and unsleeping money machine.
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at media tend to become mythic
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. The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God's plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us.
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20 Jun 10
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09 Jun 10
neil stephenson@millerblair: Neil Postman - "5 Things We Need to Know About Technology" http://t.co/HXldc1bz an important filter in my last action research #ConnectEdCa
fromtwitter culture education history information innovation learning philosophy media technology theory
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30 May 10
dolors reigGood morning your Eminences and Excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen. The theme of this conference, "The New Technologies and the Human Person: Communicating the Faith in the New Millennium," suggests, of course, that you are concerned about what might h
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21 May 10
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10 May 10
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15 Mar 10
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14 Feb 10
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03 Feb 10
Phillip LongThe human dilemma is as it has always been, and it is a delusion to believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.
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06 Jan 10
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Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change. I base these ideas on my thirty years of studying the history of technological change but I do not think these are academic or esoteric ideas. They are to the sort of things everyone who is concerned with cultural stability and balance should know and I offer them to you in the hope that you will find them useful in thinking about the effects of technology on religious faith.
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04 Nov 09
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15 Jul 09
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14 Jul 09
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12 Jul 09
Tom Krieglsteina religious based counterpoint speech on why technology is dangerous.
technology change counterpoint msfb4p NeilPostman backlash history rejection danger speech tips
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what might happen to faith in the new millennium
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Henry David Thoreau told us: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end."
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There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and it is a delusion to believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.
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history of technological change
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The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off.
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the greater the wonders of a technology, the greater will be its negative consequences.
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Think of the automobile, which for all of its obvious advantages, has poisoned our air, choked our cities, and degraded the beauty of our natural landscape.
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second idea, which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population.
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in the long run, television may bring an end to the careers of school teachers since school was an invention of the printing press and must stand or fall on the issue of how much importance the printed word will have in the future.
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Then they told them that computers will make it possible to vote at home, shop at home, get all the entertainment they wish at home, and thus make community life unnecessary.
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third. Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences.
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fourth idea: Technological change is not additive; it is ecological
-
In America, our most significant radicals have always been capitalists--men like Bell, Edison, Ford, Carnegie, Sarnoff, Goldwyn. These men obliterated the 19th century, and created the 20th, which is why it is a mystery to me that capitalists are thought to be conservative. Perhaps it is because they are inclined to wear dark suits and grey ties.
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Capitalists are, in a word, radicals
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fifth and final idea, which is that media tend to become mythic.
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Pope John Paul II. He said, "Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes."
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The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God's plan but a product of human creativity and hubris, and that its capacity for good or evil rests entirely on human awareness of what it does for us and to us.
-
five ideas about technological change. First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners. Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not. The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on. Fourth, technological change is not additive; it is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates. And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us.
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10 Jul 09
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09 Jun 09
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29 May 09
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05 May 09
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culture always pays a price for technology
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Marshall McLuhan meant when he coined the famous sentence, "The medium is the message."
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16 Apr 09
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This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage
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In fact, if it were up to me, I would forbid anyone from talking about the new information technologies unless the person can demonstrate that he or she knows something about the social and psychic effects of the alphabet, the mechanical clock, the printing press, and telegraphy. In other words, knows something about the costs of great technologies.
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Idea Number One, then, is that culture always pays a price for technology.
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This leads to the second idea, which is that the advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population.
-
The questions, then, that are never far from the mind of a person who is knowledgeable about technological change are these: Who specifically benefits from the development of a new technology? Which groups, what type of person, what kind of industry will be favored? And, of course, which groups of people will thereby be harmed?
-
This age of information may turn out to be a curse if we are blinded by it so that we cannot see truly where our problems lie. That is why it is always necessary for us to ask of those who speak enthusiastically of computer technology, why do you do this? What interests do you represent? To whom are you hoping to give power? From whom will you be withholding power?
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Embedded in every technology there is a powerful idea, sometimes two or three powerful ideas. These ideas are often hidden from our view because they are of a somewhat abstract nature. But this should not be taken to mean that they do not have practical consequences.
-
every technology has a prejudice
-
Perhaps we can say that the computer person values information, not knowledge, certainly not wisdom. Indeed, in the computer age, the concept of wisdom may vanish altogether.
-
every technology has a philosophy which is given expression in how the technology makes people use their minds, in what it makes us do with our bodies, in how it codifies the world, in which of our senses it amplifies, in which of our emotional and intellectual tendencies it disregards.
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Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.
-
A new medium does not add something; it changes everything
-
That is why we must be cautious about technological innovation. The consequences of technological change are always vast, often unpredictable and largely irreversible
-
Their tests redefined what we mean by learning, and have resulted in our reorganizing the curriculum to accommodate the tests
-
media tend to become mythic
-
Cars, planes, TV, movies, newspapers--they have achieved mythic status because they are perceived as gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context
-
When a technology become mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control
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there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice
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14 Apr 09
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26 Feb 09
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korantengNeil Postman expounds...
culture technology systems social history adoption religion philosophy change
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29 Jan 09
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19 Nov 08
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11 Jul 08
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Technological change is not additive; it is ecological.
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28 May 08
Claire BrooksFirst Idea
The first idea is that all technological change is a trade-off. I like to call it a Faustian bargain. Technology giveth and technology taketh away. This means that for every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding -
14 May 08
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ken .Technology giveth and technology taketh away (a Faustian-bargain, we pay a price) - Unequal distribution (all the way down) - Embedded ideas (mindset, hammer/nail, medium/massage - values, and organising around values, e.g. tv) - Change is ecological (not
change culture ecology fractal history innovation mind myth order philosophy power progress social systems technology wisdom
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06 May 08
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29 Apr 08
Deb Thompsonpre Web 2.0 discussion about technological change - good to look at in the light of current developments
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19 Apr 08
Doug NoonNeil Postman passes along advice "from people we can trust" (Thoreau, Goethe, Socrates, Rabbi Hillel, Micah) and offers some of his own ideas about the "effects of technology on religious faith."
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Here is what Henry David Thoreau told us: "All our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end." Here is what Goethe told us: "One should, each day, try to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words." Socrates told us: "The unexamined life is not worth living." Rabbi Hillel told us: "What is hateful to thee, do not do to another." And here is the prophet Micah: "What does the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God." And I could say, if we had the time, (although you know it well enough) what Jesus, Isaiah, Mohammad, Spinoza, and Shakespeare told us. It is all the same: There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and it is a delusion to believe that the technological changes of our era have rendered irrelevant the wisdom of the ages and the sages.
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18 Apr 08
amiddlet50Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change
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SHU IPDNeil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change
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26 Mar 08
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07 Feb 08
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31 Dec 07
Laura DeisleyPresentation before the turn of the century. Important to keep in mind how we approach technological change.
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29 Oct 07
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16 Oct 07
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07 Sep 07
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