Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 783.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 06:53:52 +0100
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli@indiana.edu>
Subject: RSN and Future Orientation
Willard,
To explore broader implications of the "Real Soon Now" principle you
mentioned in connection to positivism in HC. Sorry if it's inappropriate
and takes away anyone's "precious free time":
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/R/Real-Soon-Now.html
To exacerbate a dichotomy, while the stereotypical humanist is thought to
be a Luddite "living in the past," our passion for technology often
translates into a tendency to only "live in the future" with the possible
effect of waiting for great things to happen instead of focusing on the
task at hand. This extreme formulation is meant to emphasize values, not
incompatibilities as, we all know, computer-savvy humanists easily navigate
between those extreme.
Still, the orientation to the future relates to other aspects of HC. A
common thread both in historical and current comments is the capacity, on
the part of some people, to imagine what could be done. Some scholars, and
Joe Raben's history mentioned several of them, are really good at
envisioning possibilities and may ask technologists to develop specific
products to fit these possibilities. Of course, this capacity relates to
innovation and "outside-the box" thinking but as this ability is highly
valued, some of us may constantly wait for the next big thing. It might be
a personal thing but dreaming of "what could be" sometimes makes it hard
to "live in the now."
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