Technology and humanity

[Mondegreen]

>The topic is, and has been, Pynchon's statement about
>the Internet and social control:
>
>[...] What has steadily, insidiously improved since
>then, of course, making humanist arguments almost
>irrelevant, is the technology. ...

Hello everybody. What's the context here? Humanist arguments are relevant
to some things; not to others. What is it that Pynchon is saying they are
irrelevant to?

>We must not be too
>distracted by the clunkiness of the means of
>surveillance current in Winston Smith's era. In "our"
>1984, after all, the integrated circuit chip was less
>than a decade old, and almost embarrassingly primitive
>next to the wonders of computer technology circa 2003,
>most notably the internet, a development that promises
>social control on a scale those quaint old
>20th-century tyrants with their goofy moustaches could
>only dream about. [...]
>- -Thomas Pynchon, Foreword to _1984_


Bandwraith or anyone: What is the MIC?