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Original Neil Postman: Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change

First, that we always pay a price for technology; the greater the technology, the greater the price Maybe so; maybe not. It's not necessarily so. Second, that there are always winners and losers, and that the winners always try to persuade the losers that they are really winners

Third, that there is embedded in every great technology an epistemological, political or social prejudice. What is balderdash? Sometimes that bias is greatly to our advantage. Sometimes it is not.

Is the following a non-sequitur? The printing press annihilated the oral tradition; telegraphy annihilated space; television has humiliated the word; the computer, perhaps, will degrade community life. And so on.

Fourth, technological change is not addictive; What a waste of words. No change is addictive -- the majority dislikes change.

It is ecological, which means, it changes everything and is, therefore, too important to be left entirely in the hands of Bill Gates.

And fifth, technology tends to become mythic; that is, perceived as part of the natural order of things, and therefore tends to control more of our lives than is good for us. .... When a technology becomes mythic, it is always dangerous because it is then accepted as it is, and is therefore not easily susceptible to modification or control. This seems to be an essay in philosophy or education where it is important to say something -- anything; whether it has real meaning or not.