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PARTISAN REVIEW
Ray Kurzweil :
Let me say a couple of things. First of all, sexual themes
have been a major driving force in the adoption of new communication
technologies since Gutenberg. The first book was the Bible, but the cen–
tury after that the majority of books published had prurient themes, and
sexual themes have certainly driven videotapes and movies and now the
Internet. And I do think these communication technologies have a pro–
found impact on human discourse and cultural history.
It
is a democra–
tizing force. I think it's a large part of the movement towards democracy
in the last ten years or so, because information is power, and it has
always been the case that totalitarian or even authoritarian governments
would seize the radio and TV stations. They could then control the flow
of information. That really has been broken, even in China, although
you still have a government that has a kind of split personality: tremen–
dous Internet usage and communication ultimately is transforming
China despite a rigid, or at least authoritarian, system at the top.
Cynthia Colin:
I think we've been skirting the word "politics" a great
deal here. What do you think would be the way to educate people about
the issues that we've been discussing?
If
you were to devise a curriculum
for the newly educated person, what would it include? Would you want
to have the making of the atomic bomb in the textbook? How can the
less ingenious person think about these issues?
Edward Rothstein:
I think a curriculum already does exist: read Plato,
Aristotle, Hobbes, and so forth. As David Sidorsky mentioned, no mat–
ter what the technological issues are, there's an unchangeable substra–
tum and it remains no matter what tools we invent, or how large a part
they play in our lives. So I think one of the problems is not that we are
taking these works of the past too seriously and not taking into account
enough of the technological changes-the problem is that the curricu–
lum doesn't take these works seriously at all, and instead chooses to
emphasize the present and the political. You might get a degree in Web
site design and be totally unable to make sense of who we are or how
we should act.
Ray Kurzweil:
Well, if I can just change your question a little bit. I'm
often asked how people can best prepare for, let's say, economic viability
in this emerging world; should they be taking a lot of computer courses,
and so forth. I advise people to follow their passions, because we're
entering a world where knowledge, in any of its forms, whether it's
music, art, literature, or technology, is the wealth and capital of nations,
