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