IVIV (1) There Will be Computers for This

[Joseph Tracy]

I don't have to "worry" about a scary sci-fi future. I live in one,  
and so do you. The seas are warming, the icecaps  snowpack and  
glaciers that moderate the flow of water  are melting, species are  
being wiped out, a great deal of water is contaminated with  
estrogenic compounds that affect gender and reproductive systems,   
our energy infrastructure is unsustainable,  our food system and  
lifestyle is making sickly overweight people, and the entire crisis  
is being downloaded to the next generation who will spend the rest of  
their working lives paying debts they didn't incur. How scary sci fi  
does it have to get?

The problem with computers has to do with the power structures the  
machines reinforce and the ways that capital and finance( machinery  
including IT) gives the edge to an ever shrinking (as a percentage)  
and more powerful cartel of corporate power brokers who control 90  
percent of the wealth.  Collusion between the government and its  
agencies of control- police, military,and courts - and corporate  
interests is most entrenched  and pronounced in  America, which is  
where most IT started, but  China and other police states are taking  
advantage of the surveillance potential so they don't have to squelch  
the tech itself.  The tech is neutral and could be a powerful  
democratizing force but is it really at this point?

  Unions have had a heroic historic role in democratizing the US  
economy, but too much racism followed by too much anti-communism and  
too little concern for labor struggles outside the US  have cut them  
off from the larger progressive movement. Since WW2 they have  worked  
so hard so long at excluding socialists and being loyal Americans  
that they have no real effect on the balance of power except to prop  
up the Democratic party which is now as corrupted by corporate  
bribery, and military strutting  as the Republicans.





On Sep 18, 2009, at 9:58 AM, David Morris wrote:

> Your distinction (or Mumford's & Marx's) of tools vs machines is
> primarily related to industrial production, ie. robots replacing
> laborers.  This has almost no relation to "information machines"
> which, equally importantly, are quickly becoming "communication
> devices" also.  The P-list is a perfect example of this fusion.
> Instant information coupled with instant communication are liberating
> forces.  That's why totalitarian states are desperately trying to
> squelch both (and failing to do so).
>
> And Aunt Reet will never (don't say "never!") be replaced by an
> information machine unless you believe in what sci-fi calls "The
> Singularity."  If you want to worry about a scary sci-fi future,
> genetic engineering isn't something imaginary...
>
> David Morris
>
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:48 AM, alice wellintown
> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Michael Bailey
>
>>
>> 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).
>>
>> 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
>>