Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 14, No. 680.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 08:04:45 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: prurient interest & political science
A recent unsolicited piece of e-mail testifies to the democratisation of
Big Brother, or at least to its appeal:
>Internet Investigator
>
>New for 2001 -- Internet Software Program for Online Investigations
>- Find Out Anything about Anyone Online -
>
>Uncover Information about: neighbors, enemies, friends, debtors,
>employees, your boss, yourself, relatives, former school or military
>buddies, even a new love interest!
>
>Become an "Internet Investigator" and explore an exciting new world
>of valuable information.
>
>With Internet Investigator You Can Investigate:
>
>People, credit records, social security numbers, employment records,
>school records, criminal records, driving records, addresses, phone
>numbers (even some unlisted), hidden assets, family trees
Once upon a time, in the era of mainframes, the dystopic vision of
computing was Orwellian; evil was oligarchic, clearly separate from the
common man and woman (except, of course, for the fellow travelers, spies
and defectors). Now, with the edenic taste of personal computing liberation
still on our tongues, we are reminded in yet another way that the hard bits
are up to us. As I recall the political counter-argument, however, we fight
fire with fire: many little people with personal computers can, the
argument runs, successfully oppose the few with their big machines. I
wonder, is there a political science for the networked world as well as an
ethics? Should we in thinking about the curriculum of humanities computing
include aspects of political science? There are CS courses in the area of
computing and society; can we learn anything from these?
Yours,
WM
-----
Dr Willard McCarty / Senior Lecturer /
Centre for Computing in the Humanities / King's College London /
Strand / London WC2R 2LS / U.K. /
+44 (0)20 7848-2784 / ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/
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