RE: [Futurework] Future Teaching

[Cordell . Arthur]

THE NEW ECONOMY IS BACK -- BUT NOT THE JOBS
The latest economic indicators -- rising productivity, fewer jobs -- could
signal a vindication for all those IT managers who spent big bucks on
technology improvements in the last decade, says Fortune columnist David
Kirkpatrick: "We may be entering the second great technology boom. The
first one, of the late '90s, was a boom in expectations, which pushed up
stock valuations and investor enthusiasm in the belief that the new
technologies born of the Internet would fundamentally transform the
economy. Contrary to what over-eager investors thought in the '90s, the
users of the technology, not the producers, will be the bigger
beneficiaries." Comparing today's corporate processes with those existing
the last time the U.S. emerged from a recession, there are striking
differences. Today, most large manufacturers have built a significant,
sophisticated enterprise resource planning (ERP) infrastructure to automate
the supply chain and provide real-time data on inventory and profits.
E-commerce is now routine -- both for manufacturing giants and for
consumers. Communication among workers both within corporations and between
companies is now automated via e-mail and Web portals, speeding the
implementation of corporate edicts and the fulfillment of business orders.
Meanwhile the casualty of all this efficiency has been jobs -- about 2
million eliminated in the last two years in the U.S. as companies
streamline processes and outsource functions to overseas workers. And
that's not likely to change, says Kirkpatrick, who warns, "To keep your job
in this new world, you'd better be doing something that benefits from a
digitized economy." (Fortune.com 4 Dec 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/04/fortune.ff.real.boom/index.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Franklin Wayne Poley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, December 8, 2003 1:36 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Future Teaching


On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> There will always be a need for human intelligence.  As human intelligence
> gets encoded into routine functions, productivity rises while  fewer and
> fewer people are needed in the labour force.  Good or bad?  Depends on how
> we distribute "the new wealth of nations"

The educational wealth of nations could be mass distributed NOW by
teaching machines so that the poorest eligible student on the planet
would receive quality higher education at little more than the cost of pc
use. The question about MIT's $100,000,000 OCW venture is how much is
"boon" and how much is "doggle". That works out to $50,000/course. If they
give me a budget like that I will ensure that not only are the course
materials presented, but also the ENTIRE COURSE WILL BE TAUGHT. And it
will be taught by teaching machine and the human professors will have
to redefine their roles in society.

The financial contributions of Microsoft to MIT for purportedly
innovative education make me very suspicious. Microsoft's big programs
like Windows and VS .NET are accompanied by such pathetic pedagogy in the
books and manuals which purport to explain them that I have to think that
the "doggle" part of this is deliberate. In other words they are
protecting intellectual property by using deliberate methods of confusion
so it is really counter-education disguised as education, misanthropy
disguised as philanthropy. I guess some people learned their Cold War
lessons well. Now there is a new kind of social class war: technolords
against technopeasants. I would be happy to show Microsoft how to put out
a first rate manual to accompany Windows or .NET but that does not appear
to be what they want. So much for that quaint old slogan, "The customer is
always right".

By keeping the technopeasant masses in the dark, the technolords
have also raised up a new social class beholden to them, the
technopriests. Technopriests disguised as technicians practice
hermeneutics by teaching the ignorant peasants (alias customers) how to
interpret the 'icons' (defined as religious symbols) for program use when
any good manual would make this new priesthood unnecessary.

That is what I would like to see Charlie Rose discuss the next time he has
President Vest on as guest.

FWP

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harry Pollard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, December 8, 2003 4:09 AM
> To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [Futurework] Future Teaching
>
>
> Arthur, who establishes the codes?
>
> Harry
>
>
> ********************************************
> Henry George School of Social Science
> of Los Angeles
> Box 655  Tujunga  CA  91042
> Tel: 818 352-4141  --  Fax: 818 353-2242
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>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 1:10 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [Futurework] Future Teaching
>
> As the saying goes, the smarter the machine the dumber need be
> the operator.
>
> With machine intelligence there will be little need for operators
> to know anything but punching in the codes--this goes for
> computerized machine tools or smart microwaves or smart cars.
>
> Arthur
>
>
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