IVIV (1) There Will be Computers for This

[alice wellintown]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> alice wellintown 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.
>
> some tools you can pick up and carry, some you can't; you don't swing
> a computer but you can't type on a hammer...

Depends on the definition of "tool". Using Mumford's & Marx's slightly
different yet handy definitions, a hammer is a tool, and as I noted,
an extension of the human hand. A modern computer or calculator, is an
information machine. What is the impact on labor and the worker? This
is the question we started with. My clain was that Aunt Reed will be
replaced by a Machine--an automatic inflormation machine (i.e. HAL
2001).

Here is a little help for my argument:  (Again, while Freud, Marx,
Mumford, other true Luddites have a profound influence on Pynchon
texts, I don't read P as a true Luddite, but closer to McLuhan and
Postman).

How is a machine distinguished from a tool? For Mumford, the essential
distinction between a machine and a tool lies in the degree of
independence in the operation from the skill and motive power of the
operator.

But is the difference simply in the source of motive power? Although
he notes that tools can be distinguised from machines on the basis of
their motor forces, this is not the important element for Marx.

He describes the transformation of the instruments of labor from tools
into machines as the removal of the instruments of labor from the
hands of the worker. (alienation) The machine takes the place of the
worker, not of the tool. "The machine ... is a mechanism that, after
being set in motion, performs with its tools the same operations as
the worker formerly did with similar tools." (Capital, Vol 1, NY,
Intl. Pub. pp 374-79, Chapt 15 pp 492-).

 Marx also distinguishes the social organization of machine from that
of tool-users, primarily in its need for a reliable organization of
knowledge.

http://christianhubert.com/writings/machine.html