RE: [Slightly OT] Philosophy (was Re: Replacement for Abiword: Ly X? Openoffice?)
On Tue, 21 Oct 2003, Ron Johnson wrote:
> Anyone with a decent education, and who has the capacity to be
> taught to type, cook, and drive can be taught to use computers.
>
> Those of us who are curious, or interested in technology/science
> (yes, there were even people like that before 1976) will be drawn
> to "a deeper understanding of" computers no matter how old we are.
Given they find time to do so! All of those guys who did not happen
to have Computers integrated in their lives will have difficulties
learning it later. I mean it. They talk their lives as being nice
without Computers. But it's often just talking.
My spouse always had been grinning at me, hacking the machine. She
did a great job without much using the machine ... if at all. Finally
she became pregnant and decided to later to change jobs. But - hey -
she weren't used to computers. Ok, so she went through a training.
First thing she said AFTER that training was, to NEED a computer.
Then she kept laughing at me for using email ... guess who feels lost
without emails?
My aunt felt sick after hearing so often: "More news on that you fill
find on our website ..." Then she went to an internet cafe for
seniors. Oh, and all of a sudden she felt it wasn't so difficult AND
she could use emails to keep in contact with her family. So she
bought a PC and uses it often. She is 76 years old!
Both my spouse and my aunt DID have time AND money to learn.
Thousands or even millions don't. Given people grow up naturaly with
Computers THEN they have CHOICE to use it or not. Especially with
Debian GNU Linux they aren't forced to have the newest of the most hip
Computers and able to find something quite usefull without having to
pay so much. Not being used with computers leads to waste too much time
or just playing around, instead of using the machine to accomplish
tasks. This to me seems to be a waste of time. And having the kids
growing up naturaly with computers will prevent them later to just
loose time or stare at stupid machines like "we" did, when we were
kids and held in hands the first Texas Instruments electronic
calculator :-)
I think none of us is talking about FORCING the kids to use the PC.
And, of course, there are always pros and cons ... for everything. To
me it seems to be a question of balancing ... well, but this is
another topic.
ray
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