2 Sources

When reading the two sources obtained from Nye's Technology Matters, it seems that he was able to use them in proper context. I feel that Nye properly used the text in a way that he is able to explain his examples from another perspective. He uses the idea of cultural uniformity and diversity with a passage from Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counter Culture. But before we go into Nye and the sources, I will talk about the sources and how they make their arguments.

The first source that Nye used and I decided to look up and research was a journal article called How Computers Change the Way We Think. Written by Sherry Turkle, it basically brings up the fact that as technology gets more complex we aren't willing to pay attention how to fix things. She points out the fact that as personal computers came into play, people in the beginning were willing to figure out the problem, but as the complexity grew the less and less people wanted to know how to fix them. They became to complex to understand, so in reality, who would want to fix them all by ones self? This is a great example, and I believe that it definitely relates to society and how it works. We buy all of these gadgets and want them to work, but when they break down on us, we usually don’t bother to fix them ourselves. Instead we send them away to the ‘technicians.’ And instead of saving money by learning to fix it ourselves we spend the money to get it fixed or even more to replace it. Programs are made complex, but at the center they are very easy to use. Children at the Elementary level start to use Word processor and Microsoft Excel. This just shows the facts that we are not challenged as much to think about how to organize and put words together. With the technology we have in programs, most of the time it will show us the correct way to figure everything out.

The other source that I used was The Making of a Counter Culture by Theodore Roszak. In this piece I read about the ‘Technocracy of our Children.’ In this part Roszak explains that we are part of society ran by ‘experts.’ We saw this in Kim Vicente’s The Human Factor. Experts are meant to manage and maintain society to keep it running at its best. This is the reason for having professionals do their job. We do not have simple folks who have no idea about surgery take over a surgeon’s job. Instead they have to go to school to understand the concepts on how to perform a surgery and know what they have to do in order to have a successful surgery. This is what technocracy seems to be. The ideals that certain people are meant for certain jobs. Without this the ‘technological world’ cannot be advanced without people understanding their jobs and what their contribution to the world is.

I believe that Nye uses these two contexts well. He is able to explain what he feels, but also gives facts by using the other sources to make sure his point is heard. With not only these two but many others, his ability to make his book well written gives him the opportunity to make us think not only what he believe but also for ourselves.