A few thoughts on the war and technology

[Mr. Anderson]

Ok, I was thinking about this yesterday, remembering how the news handled the original war with Iraq 12 years ago. Well, it was almost all tv and radio - anyone remember the Scud Stud, can't remember his name now, but he's host of History's Mysteries on the History channel (cool show btw).

Anyway, the limited info that I did get online was from a newsgroup that would post the latest. I remember sitting in the computer lab at school reading line after line of monochromatic screen text...no pics, no streaming video.

I have to say, a lot has changed and that I find myself much happier to rely on the web based news over the talking heads on the tube.

Any thoughts?

D

[WinterMute]

I think the same thoughts about the world and technology occoured to me on 9/11, while everyone was watching a small portable telly in the kitchen at work, I tapped a webcam that overlooked the Towers for a while (10 sec refresh), then used QT to get the american coverage which was much more moving and involving than the BBC's dry and factual approach.

I really felt that this was my generations Kennedy assasination, I watched the second plane hit "live" on my laptop.

I've used a combination of netnews and the Beeb ever since, but I can also get sky, CNN, Fox and ITN news feeds on my cable. I get Al Jazeera as well but I don't undestand what they are saying.

I'm waiting for a feed from Iraq from some enterprising net-don, but I'm listening to correspondance from Baghdad as I type, and I have live pictures from the front nightly.

To say the face of the world has been changed by technology is an understatement, but I feel the real change is the mode of personal reception, I'm active now, I use web, radio, TV, newspaper and news agency raw feeds to get a constantly updating picture of the war as it happens, and it's different from all of them.

Technology is, at last, an involving issue.

[pivo6]

Just seeing the videophone images on CNN last night from the 7th cavalry was pretty amazing. It looked like they were just flying across the desert. I wish I had DSL to take advantage of all that's out there on the web. My work has me traveling during the day, so I have to rely on the radio. NPR does a pretty good job of it. They (or Minnesota Public Radio) went to the BBC feed from noon to 1 or 2P.M. It was good to get another viewpoint.

Scud stud=Arthur Kent

edited since I remembered his name

[jethroted]

It was a diferent world back then. No one had internet connections. It's hard for me to remember life without the net. I could't imagine going through something like this without being able to get pdated info from any computer I sit at. Monochrome screens? I can't imaging having to use those archaic devices again. There was a severe lack of information flow back then. All we had was the news on tv, and newspapers. It's like thinking back to the stone age. It certainly was very different, and it has been weird to sit back and really think about it from that perspective. Strange.

[mymemory]

We are gonna have "the pilot of the bomber point of view" and the audience we will be able to choose to drop the bomb on:

1. The school
2. The church
3. The factory
4. The nuclear arsenal

All that on real time.

But I think we may have the screen divided in to 2 and on one side a camera attached to the president heads and on the other screen another camera attached on the leader of the enemy's head.

When Sep 11th I was in my car i the high way listening to the thing in real time on the radio, amazing.

[Mr. Anderson]

10 years from now will be scary, thats for sure. More like nano cameras attached to a mini flying plane that gets right in to the battle, but never seen by the combatants....

But for me, 9/11 was more real than something on tv. I went to the rooftop of my building in DC and was watching the smoke rise from the Pentagon. Then the whole city was evacuated, a truly strange and terrible thing.

D

[bennetsaysargh]

i for one am happy about the internet because if you don't want to see these things, you don't have to, and if you do you can.

10 years from now will be scary, thats for sure. More like nano cameras attached to a mini flying plane that gets right in to the battle, but never seen by the combatants....

as for the quote above, probably will come true because of the rate that technology is going. if there is a war 10 years from now, you might be in the middle of central park with your iPod looking at those nano-web-cams via satalite. kinda creepy when you think about it.

[scem0]

My thoughts on technology are:

Although all of us love it, and most of us use it extensively, it will
be our doom. Some terrorist is going to get a hold on technology
that is capable of destroying the world, and then he will do so.
Allthough technology is great, and can make our world a better
place, it can destroy it just as easily.

[WinterMute]

There is a small number of scientists who believe the human race is now evolving via it's technology, they argue that the physical environmental triggers that cause evolution are no longer the driving forces for the majority of the world's population, and we are altering ourselves with technology to suit our environment.

Nanotech and so-called "sticky-tech", stuff that lives under the skin, will be big growth areas in the next decade, and will begin to change the course of human development at a cellular level.

Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" works in a nano-tech rich society that has returned to an entirely tribal basis. A good read even if the basis may be a bit fanciful.

Opital nerve connectors? Nerve induction shunts? Airport connections directly to the brain?

Just a thought.

[mymemory]

I would like to grow not depending on technology. Once there is no electricity pum! everything is gone.

[Thanatoast]

Although all of us love it, and most of us use it extensively, it will
be our doom. Some terrorist is going to get a hold on technology
that is capable of destroying the world, and then he will do so.
Allthough technology is great, and can make our world a better
place, it can destroy it just as easily.
Which is why the human race is in serious need of an attitude adjustment. With technology as powerful as we have today, we can no longer keep up this antagonistic attitude towards our neighbors (fellow humans), no matter whose "fault" it is. The cost is just too great.

[scem0]

Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" works in a nano-tech rich society that has returned to an entirely tribal basis. A good read even if the basis may be a bit fanciful.

Snow Crash by the same author is also a great book.

Which is why the human race is in serious need of an attitude adjustment. With technology as powerful as we have today, we can no longer keep up this antagonistic attitude towards our neighbors (fellow humans), no matter whose "fault" it is. The cost is just too great.

SHUT UP! NO IT'S NOT!!! jk ;). You are totally correct. :o

[alset]

Originally posted by scem0
My thoughts on technology are:

Although all of us love it, and most of us use it extensively, it will
be our doom. Some terrorist is going to get a hold on technology
that is capable of destroying the world, and then he will do so.
Allthough technology is great, and can make our world a better
place, it can destroy it just as easily.

My thought is that we will come to rely too heavily on tech and a terrorist act taking down our networks will cripple us. Look what happens to the stock market when we're offline for just a day.

Dan