I wanted to post the Roger Ebert review of 2001 that I referenced in class, where he discusses the monoliths as signposts. If we think about the monolith that way, it helps to think about the themes we talked about-- violence & technology, how faith factors into the whole thing... In thinking about how something huge happened to the apes and humans after touching the monoloth, we also have to think about how Hal9000 prevented the humans on the mission to Jupiter from having the same "monolithic" moment, which was the basis for their mission. What kind of evolutionary moment wasn't realized because technology got in the way?
This is a crucial moment for us to think about how this theme relates to our own relationships with technology. If we make the analogy between Hal and Google, then it is entirely possible that Google is prevent us from experiencing an epic discovery. Is this the Google Bubble from the Ted video? Is it a big deal or is it something we just have to learn to live with? Couching this with the idea of faith is exactly what will put us into a critical thinking mode... and that's exactly where we want to be.
Thanks for a really intelligent discussion about 2001 today, y'all!!!
--tina
Also, I just discovered that tomorrow, this radio show is discussing exactly what we talked about in class today concerning Google. Tina is right in pointing out that is a crucial time for us as a society to be having this converation, and it seems that more and more people are beginning to think critically about this. For those of you intereted in listening to this program it comes on locally at noon on WAMU 88.5
ReplyDeletehttp://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2011-09-27/free-and-fair-internet