The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976)
Technology... Doomsday For Individualism?
PESSIMIST: Everyone today feels almost drowned in a sea of bigger and bigger
government and business. They operate as if no one personally existed -- we're
just voters, citizens, and consumers en masse.
OPTIMIST: Government and business look more powerful than ever, but they're more
afraid of us than ever,because we're better educated and demand more. Look how
they rely on polls, and have had to go to advertising to make people like them.
We can get to them more easily than before.
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11.UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10.STATE OF MINNESOTA
9.METROPOLIATIAN MOSQUITO CONTROL DISTRICT
8.MINNEAPOLIS ST.PAUL METROPOLITIAN AIRPORTS COMMISSION
7.ANOKA COUNTY
6.SOW CONSERVATION DISTRICT
5.NORTH SUBURBAN HOSPITAL DISTRICT
4.MINNEAPOLIS ST.PAUL SANITARY DISTRICT
3.NORTH SUBURBAN SANITARY SEWER DISTRICT
2.14 INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICTS
1.CITY OF FRIDLEY POPULATION 15,173
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SANTA CRUZ ADULT SCHOOL
350 Taylor Street
Santa Cruz, Ca. 95060
CLASSES FOR ADULTS
Begin September 11, 1973
OPTIMIST: Today the government tries to provide everyone with education, health
care, cultural development,housing, keeping the economy on track, and promoting,
technological advances. This frees people from worries they used to have.
PESSIMIST: But the price is that experts and faceless bureaucrats run these
things, and act as if they know everything and are doing us a favor. We're less
free than ever before.
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TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS IS SAID TO RESEMBLE A FLIGHT OF STARIS
PESSIMIST: Before all this technology advance, people were free of experts,
bureaucrats, big government, and big business. And they had privacy; they could
do anything.
OPTIMIST: They sure did -- nobody cared if they were ignorant,starved, got sick,
or died -- in privacy. Education, social care, and health need information to be
efficient -- and it is an invasion of that old-fashioned privacy to get
extensive and accurate information.
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD
WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR CARD
* SIGN YOUR NAME on both cards
* REMOVE THE TOP CARD and carry it in your wallet or purse, or keep it where it
will be handy
* LEAVE THE BOTTOM STUB attached to this holder and keep it with your other
important papers such as birth certificate, insurance policies, etc.
OPTIMIST: I don't have to worry about my old age or getting sick. I'm free to
develop in my own way.
PESSIMIST: I'm a number, a statistic. That's the way the government treats you.
And they use all my salary and job information to manipulate me.
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