Is it OK to be a Luddite?

[Karen Hudes]

Two words: "A.I."

Actually, did anyone see the PBS special a couple weeks back on robotics?
Most scientists and scholars in the field believe that robots will coexist
with humans as "persons" (servants, co-workers, family members) in the near
future. When you see how lifelike they're becoming--and how useful they
could be--it starts to feel fairly inevitable.


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>From: "Courtney Givens" <givenscourtney at hotmail.com>
>To: paul.mackin at verizon.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Is it OK to be a Luddite?
>Date: Thu, Jun 7, 2001, 3:24 PM
>

>
>
>
>>From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>>
>>The clincher for me on the essay is the quirky (cranky, apocalyptic)
>>ending--including those "converging curves" that Pynchon jokingly wants to
>>go on record insisting we heard about  first from him. What's  wrong with a
>>joke we might ask.  What wrong is that perhaps up to this point we were
>>taking his glib summary of events at face value but now we are suddenly
>>faced with the possibility that the whole thing is a big put on. Of course
>>we don't know for sure. This kind of ambiguity goes better with novel
>>writing that nonfiction. Of course in the end what difference does a silly
>>newspaper piece make. We still love you Tom.
>
>
>I can't agree with you here Paul. As much as I cringe
>when P-listers suggest that Pynchon is a prophet
>or prescient, I think here he is not joking to
>undermine (deliberately) his essay by  introducing  ambiguity.
>What he has done in fact, is introduce a cliché in order
>to make fun, but not to underminde his point.
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