Tell me if I am understanding you correctly -- you are asking about technology that keeps people conscious of the fact that they are using technology, and what it means to do so? Specifically, you want programmers to maintain some sort of awareness that they are programming, and what the implications and opportunity costs of the program that they are writing may be, in a broad societal sense? The purpose being to encourage programmers to work for humanitarian reasons, rather than simply to make money?
If so, that's certainly an interesting thought. I have never heard of any technological mechanism designed with that aim. Certainly there are subcultures of programmers, particularly those who work in the privacy and security domains, who work to build tools that may improve some aspect of society. And in some sense, the open source movement can be thought of in this way. Could you elaborate on what kinds of things you had in mind? Cyrus On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 06:01, alex <a...@idoia.com> wrote: > Hello, > > I am a french student and I am trying to support the idea behind which the > act of programming could : > - help to become and stay conscious of the virtual environment, of its > possibilities and of its limits, > - help to build a "self" as a child would do when starting to talk and > communicate with others, and then through this process, > - help to build communities that understand the implications of the > technology in their social meetings, > - help finally, to keep an objective view on the purpose of the technology > in the evolution of societies, > > I assume that most of the subjects of the research in the psychology of > programming is directed with concerns of finding learning methods, > organizational models and overall better productivity, whereas my quest is > in a more general way, to find if the act of programming may help people to > be involve in the development of technology therefore with humanitarian aims > (and not economic). > > I hope I expressed myself clearly. > Thanks for your valuable input. > > Alex > > -- > The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt > charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302). > >
