IVIV (1) There Will be Computers for This

[David Morris]

Alice.  This is so much the perspective of someone who is old.
Everyone knows that the kids are much better at these new information
machines than their elders.  Hell, Gates was a kid when he put
together the pieces of stuff that became his empire.  Likewise the
Apple kids.  And you think they have empowered kartels?  No.  They
have opened doors that cannot be shut, not forged chains.

Alice, this is another example of your shoehorning reality (and TRP's
fiction) into your latest bullhorn.

David Morris

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 2:26 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree, however, while technology itself (the tools themselves) is
> neutral, the leverage of tools is increasing. That is, a tool, like a
> hammer or a sword is an extension of the human hand and affords the
> worker a flexibility that machine tools do not. Machines afford even
> less flexibility. Information machines even less. So, the skill and
> respect (tradition of craft labor ) is compromised thus weakening
> workers, empowering owners (kartlels), and manufacturing consumers. As
> workers, these consumers, having bought into the manufactured virtues
> (Speed and Productivity--the Law of Deminishing Return) are quick to
> dismember the Unions and Organized Labor, discredit the tradition of
> craft labor. Labor is the only organization that can temper the
> excesses of this fundamental element of Late Capitalism. Recognizing
> this, a few workers have rejected the virtues of the owners (Speed
> Cheap), resisted the introduction of new technologies and built
> organizations that repect the tradition of skill and craft. The
> counter-cultures in labor are, it seems to me, where Pynchon novels
> point. The kids are not Hopeless, but maybe too full of Hope Springs
> Eternal. Necessary, but not sufficient. Only Labor can do the job. I'm
> not convinced that these novels are about the Students or Hippies.
>
>
>
> On 9/17/09, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> I agree with alice here as much as I understand her reasoning. The problem
>> with the mechanized looms is much the same as the problems with computers.
>> The way they function in the economy  is not primarily to democratize work
>> but to reinforce the owner/ worker class split. and to replace individual
>> skill and respect for quality with corporatized mass production. This has to
>> do not with the tools themselves , but with whether the design models of
>> those tools that become dominant fit within acceptable power arrangements.
>