There is not a flower or bird in sight, only a small screen on which lines are moving, while the child sits almost motionless, pushing at the keyboard with one finger. As a learning environment, it may be mentally rich, but it is perceptually extremely impoverished. No smells or tastes, no wind or bird song (unless the computer is programmed to produce electronic tweets), no connection with soil, water, sunlight, warmth, the actual learning environment is almost autistic in quality, impoverished sensually, emotionally, and socially.
|
By and large students are taught that it is ethically acceptable to perpetrate, in the name of science, what from the point of view of the animals would certainly qualify as torturethe time [the students] arrive in the labs they have been programmed to accept the suffering around them.
|
If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen, or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, then we may fall victim to anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized, or easily referenced.
|
'We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
|
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
|