Postman book blog 2

Postman Blog 2
The second half of Neil Postman’s book continues to exam the dangers of living with an abundance of readily accessible technologies. One such harmful side effect of living in the Technopoly age is the loss of responsibility. A similar issue was discussed on our second day of class during a current events presentation. Access to the Internet makes cheating, in school or life, that much easier and while making taking or placing blame harder. Modern societies, as Postman argues, see technology, the computer in particular, as thinking machines. However, a computer’s lack of full cogitative abilities makes it less than human; the computer is allowed to have thoughts and think, but the thoughts do not belong to anyone or anything. People are now able to blame a poor idea on a thinking machine rather than take responsibility for the consequences. The merging of social sciences with technologies helps to fuel this problem. Postman argues it is possible to find a study which will verify anything and allow people behave as they wish and blame some static as to why they partook in some action. Technology is everywhere from modern medicine to politics, it is not simply availability of technology, but the absolute belief in the validity of the information provided which encourages people to continue using technologies. Postman describes this new age phenomenon when he writes how he is “constantly amazed at how obediently people accept explanations that begin with ‘The computer shows.. .’ or ‘the computer has determined’… it is Technopoly’s equivalent to it is G-d’s will!” (Page 115). Such statements lead to the growth of a culture which feels void of any real responsibility. Being an adult human means being able to understand actions have consequences, it should not be possible to remove people from the responsibility of knowledge.
This morning I experienced a real life example about questioning information being presented. My friend showed me a YouTube video about childhood obesity which compared feeding fast food to a child to giving the child heroine. This was one episode in a series warning about the dangers of unhealthy eating habits. However, after a while it becomes apparent the ads are attacking the fast food industry, McDonalds in particular, and paid for by a vegan foods campaign. Being a vegan and fan of nutrition, I automatically supported what I was being told by the all mighty computer, however it began to bother me that the advertisement had its own agenda. Rather than a message about nutrition, the video was concerned with issues of eating meats, especially from fast food restaurants. Taking a step back and questioning who was really telling me what information, made me have a different take on what I was seeing. Noticing how ready I was to embrace the complacent attitude Postman warms against brought the significance of his words to reality.