In the last few months I have been on a medical journey which taught me
many things, among them, the value of being able to breath. If you're
breathing, everything else is negotiable. I am glad to be back on my feet
and able to peruse my emails. I found that we seemed to focus lately on
morality, values and technology. Most recently, Ben wrote " The Internet
is made up of so many diverse beliefs that, if you wanted to you could:
- - Learn how to build a bomb and blow up a building (similar to the Oklahoma
City bombing);
- - Access child pornography
- - Learn how to create a subversive political group such as right-wing
militias
- - Learn how to illegally tap phone lines"
This makes me think of the word accountability, and where do we draw the line.
When we dropped the bomb in Hiroshima, who was ultimately responsible for
that activity? The Pilot who flew the B29? The president who singed the
order? or the scientist who discovered the Atom? Our culture believes
that parents are responsible for their children' actions. Couple hundred
years ago, if you committ a crime, your family (mainly your parents) must
pay the price. This belief makes the family tie much stronger, and
encourages parents to spend time with their children, to pass along
family's values. As a result, when a child starts school, the foundation
for behavior has already been formed. (i read somewhere that at age
seven, children are hardwired with fundamental beliefs). In this
environment, everything is being traced back to the root. Nature does not
change very fast, and human is a part of nature. Technology is not.
Technology is a by product of need and desire. We judge nature by what we
understood of nature, and very often, our understanding of nature is very
limited, resulting in poor judgement. Someone on this list wrote about
how slow technology is being picked up in underdeveloped countries(?). In
my experience, being poor and lack of resources is only a small part of
the reason. The rest has to do with moving in the pace that allows us to
evaluate other things and understand the impact that change will have in
our lives, and our children' lives.
Being born and raised in this environment, I can tell you what it does for
me: it makes me think about people around me before i make a decision
(that may or may not involve them). It makes me constantly think about my
surrounding, and value the impact to my surrounding as much as to myself.
It somehow reduces the greed in me, the greed to gain for myself at the
expense of others. If I am thinking about doing something bad, first
thought would be "how will this impact my mom, my dad, my grand parents,
my sibblings?" Even though my dad and my grand parents are dead, i still
think about what people would think of them if i did this or that? that i
may ruin their reputation they worked so hard to create and maintain? The
desire to protect something greater than myself also drives me to improve
myself so that i can contribute to that "something greater" and be a part
of it. I think the same way about LOs. I don't fear technology, i work in
this field. I fear what technology will do to our foundation as human
beings. I think that we have a "mismatch" here between the growth of
technology and the growth of human race. Who knows what this will lead us
to?
Since this is the last day of 1996, I wish you all a very productive and
happy 1997. In Viet Name, we say "CHUC MUNG NAM MOI"
phuoc-chau nguyen
(chau@corp.sgi.com)
-- chau@rhonin.corp.sgi.com (Chau Nguyen)Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>