Awesome Quotes Vol 2
By NoDeath 2 Comments
This edition of awesome quotes is a little longer than last time, its a newspaper article I found form 1984 that I think you'll find interesting
The Uneasy Revolution
Home Computers have little to offer the average household, claims professor.
People who feel they are missing out by not owning a home computer can rest easy. They are probably just as well off without one.Dr Graham McMahon, of the Universisty of NSW Computer Science department, says home computers have little to offer the average househole.
"Most of the tings a home computer can do, such as keeping household accounts and giving reminders, can be done as easily by cutomary means", he says.
"As an aid to schoolwork it has only marginal value. I guess the most that can be said for it is that it can help farmiliarise children at an early age with an elemantary form of the technologythey will have to cope with increasingly in later life."
Both in the US and Australia, computers have not yet caught on with the public to anywhere the degree anticipated by computer companies, despite high powered promotion campaigns.
Forecast
Author John Naisbett forecast in his current international bestseller, Megatrends, that home computer shopping is doomed "because people want to be with people", despite the fact that technology will enable us to shop from home.
An even stronger critic of computer veneration is Joseph Weizenbaum, a proffesor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who helped pioneer the development of the computer.
"As for the computer itself, I think it inhibits childrens creativity. In most cases, the computer programs the kids and not the other way around."
Temptation
"The temptation to send in computers wherever there is a problem is great. There is hunger in the Third World. So computerise. The schools are in trouble. So bring in computers."
"The introduction of the computer into any problem area, be it medicine, education, or whatever, usually creates the impression that serious deficiencies are being corrected. But often its principaleffect is to push problems further into obscurity to avoid confrontation with the need for fundamental critical thinking."
While agreeing that there was a "lot of gimmickry" attached to the promotion of home computers, Dr McMahon said computers could be programmed to be valuble teaching aids.
"One great advantage they possess is infinite patience, whereas human beings tend to get impatient", he said