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[♪ futuristic, synthesized ♪]
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And when you get to where we are now,
in the last quarter of the 20th century
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how do you begin to get involved with this,
the computer?
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There's nothing to see!
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Well I suppose in one sense there is -
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Here:
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But so I tell you that these disks
contain one hundred million characters.
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Where does that get you?
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Oh sure, at one level we all understand computers
don't we? they send us bills and statements.
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And even this awe-inspiring lot here;
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the British Airways computer,
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one of the biggest and fastest in the world,
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will do some very endearing things for you.
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I mean, you can book your old granny onto any flight,
from anywhere to anywhere, with all the trimmings,
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like this:
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That's her and her flights and hotels,
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and this is her, and her personal details:
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Look she speaks only Italian she's flying for the 1st time
she doesn't like carrots she wants help when she gets there
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she wants to sit near the toilet, not see the film,
she's got excess baggage, and a lot more.
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And this friendly monster will do that for you for a flight
anytime up to a year in the future and prepare your bill
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within 50th of a second.
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Great.
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That's the kind of assistance computers give us
that help the world go 'round.
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And you get involved:
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☺You pay☺
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But that's not the side of the computer I'm talking about.
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If part one of the specialization of knowledge
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happened in the 15th century when Johannes Gutenberg
came up with the printing press,
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and helped scientists to talk their own kind of gibberish
to each other on the printed page
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easier than they'd ever done it before,
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then this is part two.
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Only this is no book you can leaf through
and get a rough idea what it's talking about.
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This is *the future*
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because if you tell a computer
everything you know about something,
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it will juggle the mix and come up with a prediction.
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• Do this and you'll get that
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And if you have information, and a computer,
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you too can look into the future.
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And that is power.
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• Commercial power
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• Political power
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• Power to change things
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You want some of that power?
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Easy, go get yourself a PhD.
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Otherwise?
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The way things have become: Forget it.
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And there's no point in coming in here and say:
"show me, show me", look:
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So what?
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☺Me too!☺
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But never mind the machinery.
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What about the stuff this lot uses?
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The *raw material* that will change our futures
like you will never believe:
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Information.
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Not the facts, it's too late for that:
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What you do with the facts.
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Because there, you're into probability theory;
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choosing one of the alternate futures
and actually making it happen.
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And how does the man on the street
get involved in that game?
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He doesn't.
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So when the next major change comes out of the computers,
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double-checked and pre-packaged,
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it looks increasingly like you've only got
two options open to you:
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1. Do nothing, stick your thumb in your mouth and
switch your mind in neutral.
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2. Do what people have done for centuries
when machines did things they didn't want:
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Overreact.
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Strike out.
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Sabotage the machine for good.
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You want that?
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[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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But once you start can you stop?
[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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Is our technology so interconnected
[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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that when you destroy one machine
[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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you automatically trigger total destruction
[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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of the entire life support system!
[♫ ♫ ↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ♫ ↑↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ♫ ↑↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ♫ ↑↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ♫ (climaxes)]
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[♫ ♫ ♫ ↑↑↑↑]
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[♫ ♫ ...]
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Well, that's no better a solution
than any of the others is it?
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So, in the end, have we learned anything
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from this look at
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why the world turned out the way it did
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that's of any use to us in our future?
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Something, I think.
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That... *the key* to why things change,
is the key to everything
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• How easy is it *for knowledge* to spread?
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And that, in the past
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the people who made change happen were
the people who had that knowledge,
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whether they were craftsmen or kings.
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Today, the people who make things change,
the people who have that knowledge,
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are the scientists and the technologists
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who are the true driving force of humanity.
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And before you say:
"What about the Beethovens and the Michaelangelos?"
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Let me suggest something with which
you may disagree violently:
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That *at best* the products of human emotion;
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Art - philosophy - politics - music - literature,
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are interpretations of the world.
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They tell you more about the guy who's talking
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than about the world he's talking about.
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Second-hand views of the world
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made third-hand by your interpretation of them.
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Things like that:
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As opposed to
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this:
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Know what it is?
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It's a bunch of amino acids.
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The stuff that goes to build a up a ...
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a worm,
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or a geranium,
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or you.
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This stuff's easier to take isn't it?
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Understandable; got people in it.
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This: scientific knowledge,
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is hard to take
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because it removes the reassuring crutches of
opinion - ideology
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and leaves only what is demonstrably true
about the world.
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And the reason why so many people may be
thinking about throwing away those crutches
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is because, thanks to science and technology,
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they have begun to know
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that they don't know *so much*
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and that if they're to have
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more say in what happens to their lives;
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more freedom to develop their abilities to the full,
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they have to be helped towards that knowledge
that they know exists
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and that they don't possess.
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And by "helped towards that knowledge", I don't mean
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uh... give everybody a computer and say "help yourself".
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Where would you even start?
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No, I mean...
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trying to find ways to translate the knowledge;
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to *teach us* to ask the right questions.
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See, we're on the edge [►1978◄]
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of a revolution in communications technology that is
going to make that more possible than ever before.
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Or, if that's not done,
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to cause an explosion of knowledge
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that will leave those of us who don't have access to it
as powerless as if we were *deaf, dumb and blind*.
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And I don't think most people want that.
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So what do we do about it?
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I don't know.
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But maybe a good start
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would be to recognize. within yourself, the ability to
understand anything
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because that ability's there,
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as long as it's explained clearly enough.
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And then go and ask for explanations.
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And if you're thinking right now "what do I ask for"?
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ask yourself
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if there's anything in your life that you want changed.
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That's where to start.
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Closed Captions by JBW and mossa13
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Timings produced with the help of SubTimer™
Copyright © 2009 JBWCaptionsTubeTeam, LLC
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