Notes on further discussion of humanity and technology

Amanda's call-in response to a discussion of the human element in sports calls and bringing technology into refereeing on 6/13's Talk of the Nation—

I know that there's technology everywhere, in fact I'm sitting here on my laptop while I'm listening...I don't think that just because technology's available in any particular venue, that we have to use it simply because it's available.  Aren't there some things that are pleasant just because they're human, and their us.  Going to the ballpark, I remember the first time I went time I went into a stadium, it was Busch Stadium in St. Louis and I'd never seen anything like it, it was magical, and I can't, you know I think I was 10, so there wasn't an inundation of technology like there is today.  But I think there's an interruption in our lives, and maybe even a little distancing from our humanity, when we include these things we've created, these tools in everything we do, I don't we have to have—I mean who cares if the ball was 2 seconds...who cares?  The human eye is part—I mean, we are human beings.   If a judge makes a call in a boxing match, who cares? It's sports.... I don't want to see Futurama acted out in real life where there are robot umpires, and robot baseball players, and robot boxers, and robot everywhere.  We are human beings and we still have a contribution to make to human things outside of computers and technology.

From D.T. Suzuki's introduction to Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, found 6/12 at the St. Vincent de Paul, "a story which splendidly illustrates Chuang-tze's philosophy of work, of a farmer who refused to use the shadoof to raise water from his well"—

A farmer dug a well and was using the water for irrigating his farm.  He used an ordinary bucket to draw water from the well, as most primitive people do.  A passerby, seeing this, asked him why he did not use a shadoof for the purpose; it is a labor-saving device and can do more work than the primitive method.  The farmer said, "I know it is labor-saving and it is for this very reason that I do not use the device.  What I am afraid of is this. That the use of such a contrivance makes one machine-minded.  Machine-mindedness leads one to the habit of indolence and laziness."

Appropriately, I just painstakingly re-listened to that phone call on the computer and typed out Amanda's thoughts before realizing NPR had already typed out the transcript.

Notes for essays on Terminators 1 and 2.

facebook goes public (May 18, 2012) / I watch Terminators 1 & 2 ( May 25-26, 2012)

facebook is the advancement that leads to the decline of humanity and the rise of the machines; Mark Zuckerburg is the black guy from T2 who creates the great historical advancement.

Arnold S is the catalyst that leads me to get a facebook (April 22) and to destroy it (undetermined)

Sarah Conner is Alexandra (I watched the movies with her, she chose them instead of other fine VHS selections I had at my house) who got me on facebook inadvertently.

John Conner is my facebook account.

I am the guy from T1 who impregnates SC.  I am also JC, and AS (Andrew Shaw-zen-Kitch)

OR

facebook is NOT the advancement that leads to the decline of humanity and the rise of the machines;

the stock immediately faltered, big shots were given refunds.

the movies are not good, visionary; it is a zeitgeist imaginative re-filtering of extinct cinema cliche.