Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by Neil Postman

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

By Neil Postman

 The book in my opinoin held both valuable information and a assortment of rubish. I agree with many current worl opinon the author has, such as the situation where we "reward those who produce, cheaply and well the goods people want" (41). It does seem to be a current reflection on our world, how we are outsourcing jobs to other countries in order to get the same things done in a cheaper way, at an adequate quality. I also agree with the opinions in such things that people often feel the need to be up to date on things even if they never heard of it before, such as saying "you know I've heard something like that" (57) as a response to unknown fact or theory.  I also agree with his opinion about standardize testing and the inaccuracy and unfairness it possesses towards those who take it. I do not believe they rightfully represent people correctly.

There are many critisisms he makes about the causes and effects of technology, many of which I believe are not well supported and do not make any sense. One such example is his opinion that universities, such as a university of engineering, do not recongnize the importance of other fields. I would disagree becase I believe its more that they are focusing on a specific part, to strengthen people more in that one field, while others are being strengthened in other fields. Even a hard core engineering school often requires hummanities courses because as the ones i have visited said, they acknoledge the importance of being able to have skills in other fields as well. It is not that universities are close minded at all in my opinion.  He also used the example of timezones as a information type gone wrong, in that a timezone does not give you the true time, but a generalized innaccurate time. I would agree that the time is not 100% accurate, but I believe most people know that, and they know that the far east zone of a timezone's true time will be later in the day than the far west of a timezone. I do not think most people are that uneducated to not be able to figure that out if they tried to think about it. I also disagree wtih the notion that we are what he describes as "information processors" (111) and nature is the "information" beacuse if that was true than that means we are not part of nature unless processors are part of nature as well, however that would not make as much sense. He seems to claim truth to his own opinions while denying others it by saying it's "unevident" (112), while he uses "plane facts" (112) as his support, which of course are not well represented, if at all. There are many arguements he makes about computer technology and the rediculousness and uselessness of it, specifically talking about virtual realities. I, however, see many positive implications to virtual realities, such as the medial theropy vetrans with emotional issues from war are recieving to help them sort out the situations they went through and cure them from the issues that they prossessed. I just don't think its fair to generalize so much saying "all" of this or that is bad which is something he does many times in the book.