Discourse@Networks.2000; Jaron Lanier speaks 5/14

[Paul Carufel]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 10:40:20 -0700
From: Alan Bush <bush at team-prometheus.com>
To: bush at team-prometheus.com
Subject: Discourse at Networks.2000; Jaron Lanier speaks 5/14

DISCOURSE at NETWORKS.2000

a Stanford Humanities Center Research Workshop
on the Epistemology of Information Technology

is proud to announce our next speaker:

JARON LANIER

Virtual Reality pioneer

speaking on 

"Software engineering and the unintended objectification of culture"

Wednesday, May 14th,
5PM, Stanford Humanities Center Annex, 
on the corner of Alvarado Way
and East Campus Dr. (see below for directions)


*************************

TALK ABSTRACT

Mitch Kapor came up with the marvelously compact slogan "Architecture is
Politics." ("Architecture"  in this case signifies the technical
structure of a computer network.)

We would be fortunate, in a way, if the significance of architecture
could be limited to what we think of as politics. Architecture, alas, is
so much more than politics, that it is almost impossible to capture its
importance. Architecture will also be a foundation for the language,
society, and culture of the future. At first, the design of the network
will seem less important than the content that is moved over it. This
will be true only for the first generation or two of users. After that
it will become apparent that the network's design is like genetic
material out of which our culture unfolds, an intimate and pervasive
presence, a thing, like the structure of our spoken language, whose
influence is too great to be isolated or measured.

The influence of network architecture will re-cast every human endeavor
that involves communication across distance or time. We are about to
create the material with which our civilization will be largely woven
for
generations to come. The design of the information infrastructure will
form the weave and the flow of its contents, which will be most of what
we what we create together and pass on as a legacy.

Unlike the conduct of government, the structural elements of the network
will be facts, not laws subject to interpretation and refinement. Most
importantly, however, the choices we make will largely be irreversible.

There are principles that must be built into the network resources that
are created in the next ten years that are not likely to change for
generations, if ever. One reason for this is that it would be hard for
us
to agree on how to change a network, just as it is hard to agree on how
to change a law. The main reason, however, is a technical problem:
Software and network architectures are built in a lock-step, puzzle-like
way on foundation assumptions that are almost impossible to undo once a
system has become large.


******************

See our web site for more information on the series:
http://shc.stanford.edu/shc/disnet2k.html

to find Stanford use this URL:
http://www.stanford.edu/home/visitors/vicinity.html

to find the Stanford Humanities Center Annex (SHC Annex), use this URL:
http://www-tour.stanford.edu:1081/cgi-bin/locate.prl/90.0/jmlt
and then expand the map "Okay, where's this" to see it in context.

Contact: Alan Bush (bush at team-prometheus.com) with any questions.