Neil Postman, on the computer as Technopoly’s dominant metaphor: "The computer redefines humans as “information processors” and nature itself as information to be processed. The fundamental metaphorical message of the computer, in short, is that we are machines—thinking machines, to be sure, but machines nonetheless. It is for this reason that the computer is the quintessential, incomparable, near-perfect machine for Technopoly. It subordinates the claims of our nature, our biology, our emotions, our spirituality. The computer claims sovereignty over the whole range of human experience, and supports... bbowman.micro.blog

@bbowman True, but the machine-based metaphors for the human mind and (especially) body have been around since Descartes, and the latter were common in 19th-century medicine. I've been trying for several years to stop using them, but there's a lot of digging needed to uproot them!

@bbowman Maybe so, though I hate to be so optimistic as to think there isn't something more totalizing coming next. Although again—it has struck me that "artificial intelligence" largely mimics a model of human intelligence that is itself based on machines—because it must, because the people developing it have no other model to work from.

@dwalbert good (and terrifying) point. My wife tells me I need to be more optimistic, so...

@bbowman …so don’t spend too much time talking to me, then! :)