Ray E. Harrell replied:
> Well, it had to come to this when the road was taken by the West that
> relations with an object as a physical extension of the slave was the
> meaning of life rather than the growth of consciousness. ... So Mr. Gates
> is just the latest version of work for objects sake rather than for the
> evolution of the mind and soul.
...
> The problem is that real personal work (work for its own sake)
> is considered play while the manipulation of the environment is the only
> "work" there is. As long as you believe that you deserve Gates and the
> rest. Maybe we should call it the "Future of Play".
While the concept of "computer slaves" and of "work for objects sake" is
clearly inherent and even promoted by IBM (coming from the Mainframe ages)
and Gates (who "embraced and extended" it), it absolutely cannot be
generalised to computers as such. Quite on the contrary, the *Personal*
Computer (which wasn't invented by IBM and only reluctantly copied by them)
is basically *enhancing* the individual expression of artists and authors
(just imagine what Mozart et al. could have done with a Mac!), and as a
self-owned means of production, the computer can also enhance personal
independence. With the Internet, even more so. So "Mr. Gates" is quite the
antithesis of the original purpose of the personal computer.
Btw, Ray, isn't it ironic that you (the Artist) are using Windows 98
(obviously not for artistic expression!?), whereas I (the Engineer) am
using a Mac without any of Gates' software ? ;-)
Chris
________________________________________________________________________
"It is a rare case that I would ever have to reboot a Mac server because
it ceased functioning or froze up; the [Windows] PCs, on the other hand,
keep me gainfully employed." --Peter Visel, Information Systems Manager
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
