Blog #8

I developed my topic of laziness from previous discussions I've had with my mom. We've talked quite often about how technology is making students more lazy and in a way less smart. My mom would always tell me about how they had to use typewriters and had to think way before they typed something because there was no backspace, no spell check. The texts we read helped me develop a better view on this topic so I can have more a background to begin with for my writing. I think the perspective I take on my topic is the college student who has had years of technology that has been making me lazier. I have a first hand knowledge on this. Instead of looking up how to spell a word in the dictionary I can just left click the word and see how to spell it right.

Blog Assignment #6

One source I pulled from “Technology Matters” by Nye is “How Computers Change the Way We Think” by Sherry Turkle. The title of this text basically explains its purpose in itself. Turkle has six different areas where she feels computers are changing the way we think. One is privacy; she talks about how college students are habituated to a world online, like blogging and instant messaging. This is particular interesting because I am a college student and I am using online blogging right now. Turkle feels like people don’t realize that posting things on the internet has no safe-guards and that “privacy is a right, not merely a privilege.” Nye uses this point in chapter 10 in his book. It is a good source to include in the argument that he was presenting and I think he explained it in context very well. Another area Turkle feels how computers are changing us is chat rooms. She feels that people present there selves differently online and makes it harder for people to “develop authentic selves”. Nye also uses this point in chapter 10 to show another side of view on chat rooms. One thing that I thought David E. Nye’s could have included from Turkle’s text is her view on word processing vs. thinking. I thought her view on this topic was very interesting and could enhance his argument of encapsulation.
Another text I got from the library was “The Hard Drive and Human Behavior” by John C. Dvorak. This text actually wasn’t found in David E. Nye’s book but I thought it was a good text to use for my research paper. Dvorak explains “the new philosophy of laziness” which is something I wanted my paper to really focus on. This text concentrates on how he believe that technology is forcing laziness and universal futility. Dvorak feels like these developments won’t be stopped until everything falls apart, or the end of the world.

Comparing Concepts

While reading “Technology Matters: Questions to Live With” by David E. Nye, I noticed similarities between this text, “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Human Factor” by Kim Vicente. All three have concepts including technology. In “Technology Matters”, Nye’s rationalizes his feelings about technology by giving examples of disasters that’s happened because of these inventions. Such as, Westinghouse manufactured a system for nuclear reactors intended to shut them down if an emergency occurred. “However, the backup systems used electrical signals that resembled those used in normal operation. At times, the two signals interacted, which simultaneously disabled both systems.” (164) This relates to “The Human Factor” when Vicente discusses the Chernobyl incident. Leonid Toptunov, a graveyard shift worker in the control room of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin nuclear power station, was working on an experimental test with the primary safety system turned off. This caused violent explosions ripping the reactor apart. According to the text, “Toptunov had been told that technical experts had estimated the likelihood of a severe accident to be one in ten million”. (10) Both accidents were because of critical miscalculations or errors in technology.
“The Human Factor” and “Technology Matters”, have another concept in common. Both Vicente and Nye discuss and analysis how technology can increase risks. Nye quotes “If people have used technologies to increase their safety, they simultaneously risk unforeseeable accidents and even disasters that arise from the interplay of changing technical systems and new circumstances.”(167) Basically saying how he feels the more powerful the technology is, the more catastrophic the accident is. Vicente helps expand on Nye’s idea with ‘the human factor’. Since the technology is more complex and powerful, “we see technology that’s beyond our human capacity to control.”(27) So maybe the reason when technology gets more powerful, ‘the human factor’ is the reason why cataclysmic accidents transpire.
“Technology Matters” relates to “Cat’s Cradle” because they both have the concept of inventions in technology to prevent natural problems. Nye’s gives different examples of some natural problems like when he explains how genetic engineers failed to “foresee that a plant they had designed to ward off insects might also release poison that kills valuable microorganisms in the earth, a poison that might even leech into the water supply”(165) This is like ‘ice-nine’ in “Cat’s Cradle”, ‘ice-nine’ is a invention made to help soldiers move faster through the mud, it freezes the mud but it has the potential to freeze all water it comes into contact with. Both giving examples of how technology can cause bigger problems.