IVIV (1) There Will be Computers for This

[David Morris]

If Reet has "natural talent," it is not assembling data (something
easily done by a stupid clerk or machine), but interpreting it.
Access to the information is worth money, but if it's already public,
the drudgery of assembling it is a godsend, and does "democratize" it,
in that it can be done without hours of one's time.  I think Pynchon
has finally gone beyond his luddite fear of the internet expressed in
his intro to Stone Junction.  I mean, really, why was Iran so afraid
of Twitter during the last election fallout?  Guns won in the end, at
least that time around, but the dust won't settle there any time soon.

http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html

"The other day in the street I heard a policeman in a police car,
requesting over his loudspeaker that a civilian car blocking his way
move aside and let him past, all the while addressing the drive of the
car personally, by name. I was amazed at this, though people I tried
to share it with only shrugged, assuming that of course the driver's
name (along with height, weight and date of birth) had been obtained
from the Motor Vehicle Department via satellite, as soon as the
offending car's license number had been tapped into the terminal -- so
what?"


On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:27 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> The prophesy is not the point. The point is that Reet's great knowledge and skill will be replaced by a machine. Of course, even if one lacked Reets natural talent, one could go to public libraries and public offices to read about the land and even about many of the disputes, the projects and how they impacted the water flow, the flow of wealth, and so on. But the Computer makes this more readily available to more people.  This democratic flattening of the world by the computer also compromises privacy and democracy. It interesting that Pynchon, whose name was changed from Pyncheon (Hawthorne also changed the spelling of his name) of the House of the Seven Gables, is so fascinated by the family disputes over lines and property rights and the like.
>
> Ahab (Book of Kings), the model for Pyncheon (HSG) and Melville's
> Captain (M-D), as well as Shakespeare's Macbeth and Ibsen's Torvald
> (Doll's House), is the source .... Those evil Real Estate bald headed
> villain in Scooby Doo must be sniffed out by the young people, who,
> although they plan and strategies, use science and research,  need a
> Beat/Hippie and his Dog to, serendipitously stumble onto the case
> breaking clues. So Reet may be a prophet with a super-duper ear to
> ground, but only Larry can fall asleep on the roof.
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 3:37 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> It's been said before, but, rilly, what is the point of this
>> "prophesy?"  REET senses the future, and it's computers?
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "'Someday,' she prophesied, there will be computers for this ...'"
>>> (IV, Ch. 1, pp. 6-7)
>>
>
>