Computers, the Internet & the Abdication of Consciousnes Personal Commentary6/5/2000; 7:10:15 AM March 20, 2000: View from an Iowa Homestead: Computers, the Internet & the Abdication of Consciousness: 'I'm grateful for my liberal arts education, with a heavy emphasis on philosophy. Is it the case that people with strictly technical educations, say straight computer science undergrad work or engineering, cannot step back like philosophy allows one to do? I can't imagine living such a life, but perhaps people don't know what they're missing. Or don't care. Perhaps, like the retirees feeding nickels to the slot machines in Vegas, they are trying to reach the abdication of consciousness Talbott refers to.'

I think John's right. I'm in my senior year of computer science, taking the bare minimum credits to be considered a full-time student, and I am totally swamped with work. We're horribly over-specialized; the best computer people are well-rounded, but most computer workers are too busy to look around them and see what's going on.

Was Bill Joy's treatise shocking because the thoughts were new and original (hint: no), or was it merely that we don't expect people at his level of accomplishment to ever look around them?

Is it any wonder that the sum total of people's resistance to the destruction of privacy and other assorted rights is a special section on Slashdot and the underfunded and virtually ignored Electronic Frontier Foundation?