- Sep 2015
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isites.harvard.edu isites.harvard.edufarewell3
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The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage
Why are there so many different meanings for words?!?!?!
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And here, for all the revolutionary talk of the enthusiasts, there is a persistent tendency to yield to the second kind of misapprehension that representations of the future are liable to, where we naturalize contingent features of the current order of things. Indeed, the revolutionary rhetoric of the enthusiasts makes them especially susceptible to this presupposition, because the goal of making the material advantages of the new media sound inviting and exciting requires us to assume a continuity of communicative needs and interests.
It's very difficult for me to puzzle out any sort of meaning here....difficult concept and difficult language
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What is most telling to us now about the Popular Mechanics picture is its presupposition is that in the year 2000 the household cleaning will still be woman's work
I love this--the focus is on technological progress rather than other, more important forms of progress (equality, etc.)
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archive.ncsa.illinois.edu archive.ncsa.illinois.edu
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But this is not for me, nor perhaps for my generation. I climbed with my respirator and my hygienic clothes and my dietetic tabloids! Better thus than not at all.
Humanity is at such a stage that they cannot do anything without the help of man-made devices and technology. Technology is a lifeline.
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You are throwing civilization away."
Mindset that civilization trumps humanity.
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in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally.
Machine valued over human life. People in this society are acting in the opposite manner of human and animal nature--killing off the strongest and letting the weakest survive.
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he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him;
In this society, humans are both weak-willed and physically weak
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vomitories
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At this she grew angry. "I worship nothing!" she cried.
First reaction is to defend herself after she hears Kuno has been threatnened with homelessness--conveys her priorities.
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irreligious
Again, Kuno's language conveys that his mother views the Machine as a god.
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"You are beginning to worship the Machine," he said coldly.
Machine as a god
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The victim is exposed to the air, which kills him.
I was a bit confused about this...is it because their lungs/bodies are unaccustomed to the purer surface version or Oxygen (or the "real" Oxygen because I think they mentioned that the Oxygen underground is synthetic)?
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She was too well-bred to shake him by the hand.
Opposite of what is polite/custom in our culture
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One other passenger was in the lift, the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months.
Human interaction becomes nearly obsolete.
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presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.
One aspect of the machine is similar to our modern-day Skype
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To "keep pace with the sun," or even to outstrip it, had been the aim of the civilization preceding this.
Current goal for science & technology - to increase our sphere of knowledge, to explore farther & farther. In this future world, the technological advances have resulted in the human race secluding themselves. Both literal and metaphorical retreat into darkness
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The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
Reflects our current want for technology to do everything for us.
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hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee
This may soon be anachronistic--save the honey bees!
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