"Program" or "Be Programmed!"

[gunug]

Back in the day (25-30 years ago) John Lilly wrote a book called "Programming the Human Biocomputer" which was a kind of new age cult classic.  Now a guy named Douglas Rushkoff has followed up with a book called "Program or be Programmed" which seems to follow along with this in a mild (non-drugged) and social conscious way.  There are excerpts at the website below:

QUOTE

Our screens are the windows through which we are experiencing, organizing, and interpreting the world in which we live. They are also the interfaces through which we express who we are and what we believe to everyone else. They are fast becoming the boundaries of our perceptual and conceptual apparatus; the edge between our nervous systems and everyone else's, our understanding of the world and the world itself. And they have been created entirely by us.  

-- http://www.realitysandwich.com/program_or_be_programmed

[krissel]

Interesting read.  But I doubt I'll be doing any programming soon.

Travelled off to some other articles from that page and found some stuff that I put in a new thread. Thanks for the trip.

http://www.techsurvivors.net/forums/index....showtopic=23441

[Xairbusdriver]

Being too lazy to read the article, who/what are "they" in the following quotation:

QUOTE

And they have been created entirely by us (emphasis added)

I assume he is referring to "our screens" since they are made by humans. However, without human eyes/hears, they are nothing, certainly not "windows" or "interfaces." Sounds like the fellow needs to step away from his "screen" and experience real life...

And being aware of the non-religious rules, I beg to differ with his statement that "they are made entirely by humans." I would have sworn there were at least a few elements/compounds used in their construction...and those were around well before humans, IMHO.

[gunug]

By the rules of debate, and I do have on my debating shoes, I am going to say this: These things were created by us and not the cockroaches!  Although you could extrapolate that they didn't create them and they might not be able to do so for 1,000,000 years at least.  They didn't do it and "we" did!