A few comments: At 14:53 15/01/00 -0800, you wrote: >snip > > >On January 2nd Prof. Bill Buxton, U of Toronto, made an opening statement >on CBC X-Country Checkup : >to the effect that our 20-plus years of computer frenzy have been startling >mainly for the degree to which they have been devoid of creativity. >He commented that the Computer Industry is travelling fast in a sub-optimal >direction, lacking creativity, and that what is missing is consideration of >the human factors I don't think Prof. Bill Buxton has much historical appreciation of the delays that have affected almost all innovations throughout history. For example, Newcomen's steam engine was much admired and talked about, and even copied, but it was 30 years before the first model was actually doing a job of work (pumping water out of mines) and another 30 years before it was perfected sufficiently by Watts for widespread use. The same applies to electricity. It, too, took about 60 years before it had its full effects (efficiently designed factories and a rapid expansion of subcontractors). There seems to be a two-generation effect with most great innovations. It takes a new generation for it to be conceptually acceptable and then another for it to be fully developed. About the only exception to this two-generation rule is when decisions about an innovation can be taken by a restricted number of individuals and the innovation has a very restricted use (e.g. ocean-going freight containers) which doesn't affect the wider public directly. The computer has only been with us for one generation. It has general potential but, so far, it's hardly used in an adequate way by more than 10% of the population in the US and Europe. At the moment it is a Newcomen device which is awaiting its own Watt. We are only just beginning to see the creative potential of the computer as it extends into the world wide web. I think that the computer will only come into its own to its fullest extent when hand-held, voice-actuated devices will be affordable by everyone. Negroponte of MIT reckons that these devices will cost about a dollar in five years' time, so I think that Prof. Bill Buxton had better reserve his judgement until then at least.. >Buxton's website at >http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/people/BillBuxton/billbuxton.html >gives some measure of his thoughts on creativity, and on computers as >(mis)-applied to education If he's saying that computers have been misapplied to education so far, then he's dead right. As the author of "Introducing Computer-Assisted Learning " (Chapman and Hall Computing, 1984), I would say that almost all computer-presented learning material so far has been pathetic. >My own belief is that this is a SUBSET of the fact that we, as a society, >have great difficulty institutionalizing creativity -- on the contrary, our >institutions seem to be incredibly good at STIFLING creativity (this >thought first came to me through John Raven, author of The New Wealth of >Nations - which re-visits Adam Smith's famous work on governance) --3 >chapters are up at >http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/nwn.htm Yes, of course, institutions stifle creativity (and this is the principal reason why radical computer-presented learning has not happened yet -- because it has been led by academe.) Creativity can only come from individuals. >And that another SUBSET of our lack of creativity is that our so-called >democratic governance system acts very effectively to STIFLE creativity in >governance systems in general, the political governance system in >particular, hence my obsession with Direct Democracy I think I probably agree with you about our 'so-called democratic governance'. It's nothing of the sort. It's actually a skilfully contrived simulation which is only partially democratic and can respond only very slowly to changing circumstances. I am not so sure about Direct Democracy, however, because I would not want the general public to vote on matters which are extremely complicated. But we can go a long way towards Colin Stark's ideal by either decentralising huge tranches of government functions which at present are highly centralised or by scrapping them altogether. Tens of thousands of civil servants in UK government departments such as the Ministry of Defence, Agriculture, Trade & Industry, are actually achieving nothing except feeding other parts of their departments with paperwork, committee agendas and attending, or presiding over, appointment boards. Of course, these sorts of reforms would be impossible to achieve quickly because the civil service can block any direct attempts at furthering efficiency, but the public are now getting the message after a century of increasing bureaucratisation, and we can live in hope. What politicians have got to realise -- but, like all members of dead institutions, are constitutionally unable to do -- is that the existing political systems are pretty well stone dead. A revolution of one sort or another is necessary -- and will undoubtedly happen -- but by whom and when is quite another matter. Keith Hudson
