[306] in Information Retrieval
Re: DISCUSSION: World Wide Web: Threat or Menace?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Grant A Young)
Tue Apr 30 12:13:59 1996
To: Tom Owens <owens@MIT.EDU>
Cc: elibdev@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 30 Apr 1996 10:14:04 EDT."
<9604301414.AA12222@davis.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 12:10:52 EDT
From: Grant A Young <gyoung@MIT.EDU>
How about a real-time birth on the Web? I'm kind of glad that there's
no video record of my birth being pirated around these days. Would that
change the equation?
I think there's a question of privacy. Timothy Leary's always been a
kind of a media creation and he's adapted his life to exploit that in
exploring the electronic frontier and its impact on the human psyche.
Obviously he's playing it right out to the end. I won't be watching.
I'm neutral about the impact of the Web. Obviously, things will be done
differently. Socially, we're still human beings with pretty much the
same motivations. Computers are just tools that expand our reach. My
concern is that they don't expand the reach of those who want to control
us and that we preserve our privacy and dignity as individuals from
external attack.
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Grant Young, MIT Libraries Systems Office
