WSU IS&T 1100 Week 3

[firemeboy]

Welcome to week three! This is our last week of looking at the 'big picture'. Then we start jumping into specific topics. This week we are defining the information age.

A couple of questions you can keep in mind for discusion. As we discuss and read about the three 'ages' (ie Agricultural, Industrial, Information), which age do you think you would most want to live in? Which age did people do the most work? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each age?

I'll also be interested in your thoughts on Barlow's article when he refers to information being a 'life form', and being a relationship.

[This message has been edited by firemeboy (edited 01-28-2003 10:57 AM).]

[firemeboy]

These are the screen names I have 'real' names for.

MusicLily
Gelit
Beibei
Beebs
Volrath
frank
shining gundam
Don Jones
chocolate
BalbanesBeoulve
Edogg
Kanchaser
catman
Hondo
Cheese
Karrots
360
allstate
JoBlack
Mack
TGR
Chinaman
Arsenalrocks
Spanglish
DNA
Larin
dazedandconfused
Kerioth
Fatex

[CrystyB]

whoa, that article sounds very interesting. Do you have a link or something?

[Allaround1]

I like living in the information age. I cant imagine living in the shitty conditions of the industrial age.

[firemeboy]

I believe you can read the article here...

[firemeboy]

What conditions of the industrial age are you talking about Allaround, be a bit more specific. There certainly were some advantages...

Taxes were lower, there were fewer technologies to invade you life, you often didn't have to learn one skill and then 'update' yourself for the rest of your life. You also didn't have to worry about a college kid graduating and knowing more than you do. You were an experienced worker with X number of years behind your belt and were therefore more valuable.

[Kanchaser]

I think that living in the agricultural age would of ben fun. I think the values in today's society have changed a lot. I think that the family is a really important thing and it's too bad that in today's society we have lost that. I thing it would be really cool to live close to my family all the time. I also think that in todays technology world we get to busy to even stop by a family members house or to busy to even call a family member. That's what I don't like about the new techonology world.

[JoBlack]

Agricultural, Industrial, Information ages are but all stages in advancement of man kind. Each to me has their differences in what we call work. No doubt in todays society there are a lot of different kinds of jobs thanks to the advancement in history. The market has gone global. In this informational age so much is literally at our fingertips. I would have to say that Information age is world of knowledge and as we all know knowledge is power.

At this site that I posted James Dewar start out “ We are in the midst of the "Information Age." Pundits have proclaimed it for years; articles in the popular press have plumbed its implications for every imaginable enterprise;[2] businesses are enamored with it; on-line and print magazines are devoted to it; government is wrestling with it, movies have been made about it; people are talking about it--can there be any doubt?
So, where will it all lead and why should we care? And what exactly is the Information Age anyway?
Go to this site and read for your self. And maybe, just maybe you’ll agree with me.
The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See Ahead James A. Dewar http://www.rand.org/publications/P/P8014/

[karrots]

I like what Kanchaser said about the fast pace that technology has led us too. It will be interesting to see if we ever adjust to this stuff. One day we might wake up and say hey why is it controling my life when I should be controling it? Then take control back into our own hands. You know when I think about it thats what most of the technology movies that are based in the future are about. The Matrix is like that. Minority Report is kind of like that. Interesting thought.

Karrots

[Gelit]

I want to touch on Barlow's comments in his "Economy of Ideas". He definately has several good points & much to ponder. He asks if there would still be "creation & distribution" if people were not to get paid for their ideas. Good question. My response is that there are still many people out there who do things for personal satisfaction and for the benefit of man as a whole and not just for how much money they might get out of it. Too, I think that often times people have ideas but lack the motivation or knowledge on how to build on those ideas; Thus, "free exchange of ideas" would be beneficial to everyone.

[firemeboy]

Bump

[Spanglish]

I grew up on a farm so I got a taste of the agricultural age.. getting up early to help dad feed the pigs and all that stuff, I enjoyed it and know that I learned a lot about hard work from those years but I am also glad that we have the ability now with the help of technology to communicate with friends around the world and have information at the tip of our fingertips.

[firemeboy]

I found this quote and think it is applicable to our class.

quote:

---

If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me
all the right answers, for being good parrots.

I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they had learned from them.
- R. Buckminster Fuller, Inventor

---

[Edogg]

I know that I really enjoy living in the information age, but if I had a choice which age I would live in, I would probably choose the agricultural age. Just to try something new. It seems that the agricultural age involved more physical work than what today involves. The people that grew up in the agricultural age have grown to become hard workers and dedicated to finishing what they start. I think there is a lot more laziness then a while back. I don't like laziness too much. I think that in the agricultural age, since they didn't have the technology and entertainment that we have today, had to find new things for them to do. They had to have good imaginations also. They probably could think of more things to do without technology than we could. Family would be a lot more important than it is today. I agree that the values that should be important to us today were more important back in the agricultural age when you had to be with them a lot.

[DNA]

I like living in the information age, because we have so much technology now that you dont even have to attend class on a regular basis, instead you can do it in the privacy of your own home. This is definately a huge plus! Though I think growing up in the Agricultural age would have been interesting, because you had to donate so much more of your time to your family and the farm, just to make a living. This is definately not the case today. I think we are all spoiled when it comes to technology in this day and age. It has made our nation very lazy in some ways, but the improvement of technology has done more good than bad i feel.

[Jaamal]

If I could live in any time period I would chose agricultural because I have always enjoyed the country. Life was more simple in those days, and alot more laid back. That is more of my personality I have also worked on a farm feeding animals and moving sprinkler lines,and I enjoyed that job. Families where closer and life wasn't so busy. The industrial age was where people worked the most,children would work from sun rise to sun set,and get paid hardly a thing. The whole family worked just to meet ends meet, they defently worked the most. There is more than one set back for each age,but I will only metion a few. The Agricultural the major was you worked on the family farm your whole life you didn't ever expand to bigger and better things. The Industrial the working conditions were horrible and the pay was horrible, and you had to work everyday to surive, you were a slave to your job. Are age in time the problem is we overload are selves with things to do, we as individuals sometimes try to do too much. We are also seprating more and more from are families and I feel family is most important. We, as a nation are forgetting that. Every age as its benifits and its problems.

[Don Jones]

Still today I belive the Agricultural and Industrial ages still exsist. We talk about them as though they had past. I belive it may be a question of where rather than when. I know people that grew up on the family farm and will continue to run the family farm after ma' and pa' step aside. Why not its a good business.

[Frank]

I am glad to live in the Information age and think that everyone else should be as well. With this accesability to information we now can make choices for our selves and decide what we think is right. We dont have to accept what people tell us instead we can reasearch and find out what the true awnser is. People in the Agricultural age probably did the most physical labor, however In the industrial age I believe we do more work.

[volrath]

The information age is the best, without it I would not have a life. Now that is odd to say but it is true. Ever since i saw my first computer I was "sucked" in and it has been up hill from there. I dont care what people say computers only make life better. If you think the oposite you must not know how to use a computer. Granted I may know alot more than the adverage person about computers but if a person can point, click and read his or her life can be so much better. That is all there is to it. I think there is more hard work to be done in the information age than there has ever been. Which is a good thing because that meens more jobs for more people. Shure the manual labor may not be as much. But for every piece of tecnology there is hundreds of man hours put into it. If you think all the lovely programs you use on your computer where just a 1-2-3 were done project. Try programing sometime. It is hard time consuming work. Yet for some odd reason I love it. But anyway back to the point. There may not be as many hard manual labor jobs out there but there are many oportunities to work in the computer world. After all it is the Information age somebody has to keep it moving along. So sit back and enjoy the ride because the information age is going to keep getting better and better.

[firemeboy]

Nice posts... Volrath has made some pretty bold claims, anybody care to refute? Nicely done...

[catman]

Hold on there for one moment. No life? people functioned just perfectly fine for many more years without computers than they did with. If you didn't have a computer you might actually have to get off your butt and get out there and work for a living, oh what a shame! You want to sit there in your special chair and have the computer and machines do all the work and all you do is program them. Now granted porgramming is difficult, I've done some, but I believe that Technology and computers are making more fat genius people than with the "old school of learning" that made people quick thinkers on there feet, thinking of solutions on the job and then executing them. I'm old school and so I love to get outside and work. Nothing feels better than to sit down at the end of the day and know your "worked" your tail off. Not just brainstorming ideas about how to make the computer work. The problem with the technology is that in order to work in it you have to have the money to go to school to learn it, and many don't. Case in point- I know a man who technology wise he's dumber than a rock but give him a hammer and nails and boards and he'll build on of the best houses you've seen. On the show survivor they don't sit at a desk and think of how to make the computer save their life, they have to go out and do it themselves. I'd rather be stuck on an island with an "old school man" than a computer genius any day. Computer can do nothing wihout instructions and electricity. Humans alone can do so much for. GO AGRICULTRUAL AGE!!!!!

[Gelit]

There is much to enjoy and admire about the Information Age: games, rides, entertainment, convinience, and easily accessible information. But I still have to choose Agricultural Age over it because family is sooooo extremely important to me. I'm afraid with the Information Age comes loss of family bonds and ties. For example, with the invention of the dishwasher came a quicker way of doing things, but there are no longer the times of discussion and bonding brought on by the hand washing and hand drying that the family experienced as they washed together after meals; Or an actual conversation with one another is postponed or even eliminated because of one's "favorite program" they just can't miss. I think family was much closer and tighter back then than it is today, and I would trade any new "technology" or "information" for that.

[Spanglish]

I think there has to be a balance between all ages. I like computers, they are fun to play on and make doing homework a lot easier but I think that everyone should also know how to work with his hands. How to do outdoor work and that sort of thing. Think about it, if bill gates was stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire he would just buy a new car.. I guess that doesnt prove my point... but most "computer friendly" people cant afford that so what would they do??

[JoBlack]

I recevied a fun E-Mail and I thougt that it applied to what Marion talked about in class concerning...new technolgy on the phone.

Most of us have now learned to live with voice mail as a necessary part of our lives. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if God decided to install voice mail? Imagine praying and hearing the following:

Thank you for calling heaven.

For English press 1
For Spanish press 2
For all other languages, press 3

Please select one of the following options:

Press 1 for request
Press 2 for thanksgiving
Press 3 for complaints
Press 4 for all others

I am sorry, all our Angels and Saints are busy helping other sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us and we will answer it in the order it was received. Please stay on the line. If you would like to speak to:

God, press 1
Jesus, press 2
Holy spirit, press 3

To find a loved one that has been assigned to heaven press 5, then enter his social security # followed by the pound sign.
(If you receive a negative response, please hang up and dial area code 666)

For reservations to heaven, please enter JOHN followed by the numbers, 316.

For answers to nagging questions about dinosaurs, life and other planets, please wait until you arrive in heaven for the specifics.

Our computers show that you have already been prayed for today, please hang up and call again tomorrow.
The office is now closed for the weekend to observe a religious holiday.

If you are calling after hours and need emergency assistance, please contact your local pastor.

Thank you and have a heavenly day.

[Beebs]

I would like to have lived in the industrial and agricultural ages because they were booming with all of the things that some of us now take for granted. It would have been cool to see the first printing press and not know all of the ways it was going to affect your life for the better. I also think that now is a good time to live in because we have so much technology that can help us in all aspects of our lives. We now are starting to get technology that will one day hopefully cure all of the horrible diseases that could plague our bodies. It is a very exciting time to be alive.

[TGR]

Hmm this is a really though topic to discuss there are many pros and cons that deal with each age. I personally believe that the agricultural age would have been the most working of them all. Think about it you had to do everything. You house has a leaky roof you have to fix. You most likely made all your own tools and all others things you were pretty much self sufficent. Anyways then comes in the industrial age and then you all of a sudden have tradesmen (some did exist in the agriculture age) but you see the self reliance thing start to die out. People became more attached to thier jobs and what not. Things expanded and life got easier. Well I personally like living in the information age although if I weren't living here now I would most likely survive doing something else. I think that people adapt to whatever circumstances that they live. Darwinism to an extent. Also the thing we discussed in class as information being a life force at first did seem a little out there but I can kind of see where he is coming from. Yes iformation is born and if not passed on must certainly die.

TGR

[Beartalon]

I'm one of the regular GL members.

Someone mentioned that the information age has generated more laziness. I don't disagree, but I also think that some laziness is enabled by the very technology.

Most people don't do simple math in their heads anymore. When I started high school, a pocket calculator was a new technology and they were only then becoming inexpensive enough for almost anyone to buy. Most of my generation started using calculators for trigonometry in our last 2 years of grade school, and that was only to check our work. The people who finished after us were very used to using calculators as a fast way to do homework, but since they assumed the calculator was right, they often didn't do well in math. People who were in lower levels used calculators almost exclusively, so they didn't even learn basic mathematics well enough to do without a calculator.

How many people here use a microwave almost everyday to prepare meals? When I was a kid, I cooked for myself. Yes, I may have just opened a can of beef stew and heated in a a saucepan, but then I still had to wash my dishes and put them away. Now technology has given us disposable, microwavable dishes, and many people will pay extra for not having to exert themselves. TV remote controls fall into this category too. I remember having to get up and turn the television knobs.

Technology has made people less social and a little more lazy on one spectrum of comunication: how many of you screen your calls with call display or let the answering machine pick up? Your personal CD or MP3 player (I admit to having a personal tape player) cuts you off from the outside world to some degree. You're not listening to your immediate surroundings. Your cell phone keeps you connected with only the people you want to talk to. While you're walking around using the phone, you're not interacting with the world at large that flows and ebbs around you. You're in a little world where everything is (mostly) as you wish.

[360]

Each "Age" or era that we've discussed definetly have their own advantages, and disadvantages. Some of you have mentioned how bad life would be to live in a prior age, but I think they have not taken several things into consideration.
First of all most of the stressful things in our lives come from having the current technology. We are an afluent society. I know for my self that when ever something knew comes out wether it be electronics or cars or whatever I seem to want it. If you think about what people are living for, that is they go to school, get an education, get involved in a career that will make them alot of money, just so they can buy stuff that they will end up throwing away in a year because they need to get the newest best thing out. Why can't we be totally satisfied without all this stuff? I know I can't.
In prior Ages I think that people were alot happier. I'm sure people were nothing like they are today. In order to be happy you have to own the latest and greatest whatever.
Another point I wanted to make, if you lived prior to the information age you would not realize all the things you missed. It is like this...what if all of a sudden one day you woke-up and had a new sense. You wouldn't have even reallized how resticted life was without it.
However I do enjoy living in the information age.
Okay finally my point...Would you rather live in today's information age or in 30-40 Years From Now? Why?

[chocolate]

Lots of interesting posts to read. JoBlack - that was a fun post on calling heaven!

I wanted to quote a few prior posts. TGR said "I think that people adapt to whatever circumstances that they live in." 360 said "If you lived prior to the information age you would not realize all the things you missed." I agree with TGR - we would adapt to whatever came our way. Not everyone has computeres, cell phones and all the up to date items, but I think they are adapting by choosing not to get tied up with all the technology. People can actually write a letter and mail it. That is a lot more personal than an e-mail. WE can choose how much technology we want in our lives. The Amish certainly don't have a lot of technology and are a happy people. Referring to what 360 said above - It would be hard for us to give up all the technology of our day and try to live in the industrial or agricultural ages because we would know what we were missing. How about going back to outhouses? If we didn't know about flush toilets and all the conveniences, we wouldn't think twice about plopping down on a one holer in the backyard in the middle of the night. But we are witnessing and are using the technology all around us, which is hard for a lot of us to consider anything good about the "olden days". Spanglish said "I think there has to be a balance between all ages." Anything we do in excess is not good for us. We have to work on balance in our lives every day.

I have a question - Someone mentioned that all this technology is making us lazy - my question is - IS IT MAKING US FAT! Are we getting too obese because of all the energy saving technology?

[BalbanesBeoulve]

No. We're getting fat because we're eating too many hamburgers and chicken nuggets.

[Spanglish]

yummmmmm, hamburgers and chicken nuggets... j/k

[MusicLily]

I think that living in the information age has made us soft. WE seem to have computers that will do everything for us. I think that there would be alot more disaplines if we were living in another age. With the agricultural age you had to learn to grow your own food and survive in that enviroment. Now we just have to worry about people telling us false information and trying to have to figure out what is false and what is true. I am not totally sure in what age I would rather live in though. They all seem to have their pros and cons to all situations.

[Gelit]

The Information Age isn't "EVIL" but there definately needs to be "MODERATION IN ALL THINGS!!!" Anything can be taken too far.

[Dark Legionaire]

I think that people have gotten used to the information age, and have become lazy in many ways, but it has also helped out society in the fact that things can be completed faster with more efficency, which means more and more work can be completed in the same amount of time. People should also remember how to do things without technology because if there is a problem in the world that inturrpts the information and technology then where would people be; completely usuless!

[Kerioth]

Has the industrial age automatically been classified the worst age to have lived in? The majority of all the discussions have been based around the information and agricultural age.

I am in complete agreement with TGR’s statement “that people adapt to whatever circumstances [in which] they live.” I have adapted quite well to the information age and wouldn’t trade living at this time for anything. The good comes along with the bad in every society, and every time period. It just seems that the information age has a lot of “bad”.

Reverting to my opening statement, I would like to pursue a question. With everyone skirting around the topic of the industrial age, inferring that it would have been the least preferred lifetime, was it any worse off than the society of today?

In a sense, the industrial age was the foundation of all we know today. Every society is based off of that which came before. The introduction of factories, plants, and heavy machinery brought a higher level of worker exploitation and monopolistic corruption. It brought more jobs, expectations for people to go to a job for a specific number of hours and do a certain amount of work in that time. It formed the ground on which modern technology came to exist how we know it.

We have evolved greatly since that time. There is constant work towards making life easier. This does not cause our society to be lazy. The ease of life does encourage fat cells to grow, but everything is a personal choice. People decide to get fat. Perhaps not in terms so blunt, but they do. I know I must make the decision of how much I’ll eat every day, and whether or not I’ll go work out at the gym. If I become fat in the future, at least I will know it was my own fault.


------------------
"I realize it's the things you pass up that torment you, not the things you do."

-John Dos Passos

[Larin]

I am more partial to the Information age myself. Everything in a way is better than what it used to be we can communicate with each other alot easier. I have extended family that lives all throughout the US and the internet has made it alot easier for us to communicate. Movies are so much better with the new technologies that we have. We can integrate full scenes that would have been impossible at any other time. The information age in my optionion is the best.

Larin

[shining gundam]

Personally, I like living in the information age. Yes our lives have become easier to a certain extent, but isn't that for the better. I work in a warehouse and I know that at the end of the day I have worked my "tail off", but I also know that I don't want to work there for the rest of my life. I work with a few guys in their late thirties and early fourties trying to support a family on $11 an hour. There is no way I want to be lifting heavy boxes ten hours a day four days a week until I'm fourty. Working at my job made me realize even more that technology is making our lives easier and that is a GOOD thing.

Also to respond to the point that we are getting lazier as a nation. That may be true but it's each individuals own fault. There is no law that says you have to be on the internet six hours a day or whatever. If you want to surf the net all day that is your choice, but don't blame technology for YOUR laziness. Technology is not lazy, people are lazy!

[This message has been edited by shining gundam (edited 02-02-2003 01:59 PM).]

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I love the industrial age.

Dickensian orphans ROCK!

[Don Jones]

Hey volrath can you build a campfire if not do they have a program for that

[allstate]

I believe that we are still lacking, with progress, in the technology age. I know poeple that live on ranches and are literally still in the agricultural age today! Sure they use some computers to help them in managment, but NOT TO RUN THERE LIVES! If the world were to be torn apart by conflict, and we were seperated into colonies, I would much rather live with them than with any of you computer dependant people. I agree with the comments of Don Jones on the subject. Don't the the beauty and wonder of OUR technology run the course of our lives.