I think this is probably the best place to ask this question, since there are a lot of thoughtful and diverse people here. You've all helped with a lot of newbie tech questions I've asked in the past, and have fed ideas for the discussions in several of the ethics and intro to philosophy courses I teach. And i'm grateful for that. So here goes...
My daughter Sarah, 12, is doing a History Day project. The idea is to pick an event or person that you think influenced history; and then write about/present your thoughts on why the event was important and how it changed history. Most people pick "Edison and the light bulb" or "Gutenberg and the printing press" My daughter picked Steve King. And, being a philos prof, with interest in literary criticism and aesthetics and history of philos, I encouraged her. (ooops...) My daughter's point is fairly straightforward: Jesus influenced people through his ideas. So did Shakespeare. And Freud. And Darwin. And Martin Luther Ling, Jr. Clearly an author who sells hundreds of millions of books is having some influence on people, and on society in general. But I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how one might go about proving that a person's ideas influence history. my own argument is that the light bulb, for example, is important precisely because it makes itself disappear. That is, the light bulb does a job--gives light--so that we are free to do _other_ things instead of searching for candles. The computer does the same thing, it disappears and lets us _do_ things we want to (like balance a checkbook) so that we can do things we want to (like think creatively) so that we can live as better more actualized individuals and peoples. Isn't that the point of technology--to free us from doing mechanical tasks, so that we can do things that mean more to us (like living, loving, learning, creating, exploring). Or discussing politics and policies so that we can be more informed and open-minded and apply that knowledge to the world we live in when we vote, for example. Anyway, I know Jared, Stefano, Matt Chuck, Chris and the rest of you must have some thoughts, and it would really be a big help to my daughter, if I could point at something concrete and say "Look--those nutters are talking about Steve King" (at tit-wank dot com).... Thoughts? Many thanks, Jeff _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
