Technology beautiful, yet scary
Merging has always been tough
for me.
When I First learned to drive, I
would drive on the shoulder of the
freeway for 10 full minutes until I
could hedge onto the road with not a
car in sight.
But that ain’t nothing compared
to merging onto the big, bad — yet
strangely beautiful — information
superhighway.
(Ah yes, another writer casting
about for tired automobile meta
phors to describe the Internet. You
just can’t get enough, can you,
America? CAN YOU!)
I broke down this semester and
got myself a free e-mail account.
Actually, I don’t know if that
counts. It hardly makes me a
cyberpunk.
Frankly, all I kjfow how to do so
far is send and receive mail. Send.
Receive. Send. Receive.
Sometimes people will interrupt
me while I’m sending and receiving
to ask me to “talk.” Usually, I just
ignore them because the whole talk
process confuses me. I’ve success
fully attempted it once. Very late at
night. With someone who wanted to
talk about Wisconsin.
And that’s the beauty of the
Internet, you see. You can sit in a
computer lab at 2 a.m. and talk to a
perfect stranger (who is in turn
sitting in another lab ALMOST A
MILE AWAY) about Wisconsin.
Someday I will frequent chat
rooms, subscribe to news groups,
maybe even check the status of a
library book, all without leaving my
terminal.
Please do not misunderstand.
(Please, I beg you, do not misunder
stand.) I am amazed, awed even, by
all that is possible on the ‘net.
Perhaps that’s the problem.
There’s almost too much, more than
my homely little head can deal with.
And the other part is this: At the
tender age of 22, in the springtime
of my womanhood, I have become
an old fogey. 1 marvel at the new
Rainbow Rowell
“Hmmmm, ” she would
say, thoughtfully
examining the clouds or
lack of them, or maybe
just spacing off in the
direction of the Chi
Omega house. “Looks
cold. ” Or “Looks warm. ”
Or occasionally, “Looks
weird. ”
and improved like that guy with the
Coke bottle in “The Gods Must Be
Crazy.”
Even lesser technology makes me
“ooooh” and “ahhhhh.” Take “The
Weather Channel,” for example.
For the first half of the semester
my roommate DeDra and I con
ducted a pathetically unsophisti
cated weather ritual.
I would wake up (usually, if I had
successfully deciphered my alarm
dark the night before) and look out
the window from my bed.
“What’s it supposed to be like
today?” I would ask DeDra.
She, too, would turn to the
window.
“Hmmmm,” she would say,
thoughtfully examining the clouds
or lack of them, or maybe just
spacing off in the direction of the
Chi Omega house. “Looks cold.” Or
“Looks warm.” Or occasionally,
“Looks weird.”
I would stare at the air, analyze
the color of the sky and take note
whether the trees were blowing.
Then, inevitably, I would agree.
And, inevitably, we would both
be wrong and inappropriately
dressed. We would whine when
forced to carry our sweaters,
complain while shivering in our T
shirts.
We would raise our fists and
curse the heavens. What must we do
to appease thee?
Then, one morning, I turned to
DeDra (as I’m wont to do) and
asked the inevitable: “What’s it
supposed to be like today?”
But rather than turn to the
window, DeDra did something
funny. She said, “You know, we
could always check ‘The Weather
Channel.’”
It was quiet for a moment as we
absorbed the comment. In awe —
for what a perfect solution this was
— and also feeling pretty stupid.
Why the heck had that not occurred
to either of us until the end of
October?
For the same reason that I ignore
that little beeping sound on my
computer rather than figure out how
to “chat” with someone. For the
same reason that I walk to the
library rather than just logging on to
the computer down the hall to check
the status of a book.
I’m not incapable—just
stubborn, and heavy with distrust.
Snappy graphics and theme music,
be damned! I prefer mine own eyes.
And I’m not the only one.
Last week, I woke up and asked
DeDra about the weather.
“Looks cold,” she said.
I took a peek out the window.
“Yup, looks cold.”
Rowell is a senior news-editorial, adver
tising and English major and Dally Nebras
kan managing editor.
Doin’ time in a universal mind
When I was a kid, around fourth
grade, I realized my teachers were
all washed up.
It was science class. We were
studying soil — specifically,
erosion.
“There are two kinds of erosion,”
Miss Johnston said, “Natural and
man-made.”
I raised my hand.
“You mean if a deer makes a
path that causes erosion it’s natural
— but if a person makes a path that
causes erosion it’s not?”
I had an analytic mind, in those
days.
Teacher agreed. “That’s correct,”
she said — and I suddenly knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that
grown-ups had no clue what’s real
and what’s not.
They still don’t. Most of them
don’t.
People are nature, nature made
people. We are part of this big old
world and we have a place in it, and
a role to play.
As George Carlin says, I think
people are here because nature
needs plastics.
Or something like that. Maybe
Carlin’s just trying to be funny, but
he’s got a point.
People are nature, but with a
catch.
People are nature personified.
Think of it this way:
Nature is alive; from a certain
point of view all creatures are part
of one very big process.
In the sea, the planet breathes —
one long breath swinging from
oxygen to carbon dioxide and back
to oxygen again. Waste products
arise and are turned into nutrients by
automatic processes that we have
only begun to understand.
Hardly anything is produced that
is not food for something else —
one man’s poison and all that.
People, scientists, like to point
out that nature is blind, purposeless,
amoral. But it just isn’t so. Maybe it
was, once, but not any more.
Because we are here.
Mark Baldridge
“People are nature, but
with a catch. People are
nature personified. ”
In my own body there are
automatic processes that are blind,
purposeless and amoral. But that
doesn’t apply to me, to what I call
myself.
I hunger and thirst — for
cheeseburgers and pop, sure, but
also after righteousness.
I eat and digest and, well, you
know the rest — all without lifting a
mental finger.
But somewhere in the gestalt that
is me, consciousness arises. From
the soup of my own body I boil up
— far-sighted, purposeful and
moral.
And I am part of nature. In me,
nature finds purpose and a moral
center. In me, in all of us.
We are the brains of this outfit
called earth.
Not all of nature is sentient, but
we are.
And, from that “certain point of
view,” it’s not just little, old you and
little, old me that’s sentient.
I suspect there might be such a
thing as a “meta-consciousness” —
a “mind” that contains all the
communications of human beings as
it’s principal ground.
A mind which is thinking what
we’re talking about — and our talk
is only part of its thinking mecha
nism.
I don’t mean anything magical
here — though I guess I’m not
exactly talking science either.
But if it’s true — if nature is a
mind whose thoughts consist of all
human discourse over time, then
nature just got a lot smarter.
Wasn’t the printing press just
invented yesterday?
And, like the neurotransmitters in
your own head, it enables that mind
which is human history to remember
and transfer information with much
greater accuracy.
In just the last few seconds,
historically speaking, communica
tions technology has rewired the
brain of the world — hooked up
different parts of that mind in new,
exciting ways.
It now thinks faster and carries
more information around than ever
before.
The next step, as I see it, will be
self awareness. The meta-mind I’m
talking about doesn’t seem to know
it exists.
Yet.
But the idea is dawning. And by
writing this down for you to read I
participate in that dawning self
awareness.
The mind that is us all, that will
outlive us as we outlive our indi
vidual neurons, is stirring on this
campus, and in many other places,
as people come to think of things
from “a certain point of view.”
From another point of view, of
course, everything I’m saying is
nonsense.
From that point of View nature is
just a whole lot of automatic
feedback loops involving complex
organizations of materials we call
“life forms” — for lack of a better
word.
It is blind and predictable in
terms of stimulus/response.
From that point of view, of
course, so are you.
Baldridge is a senior English major and
Opinion editor for the Dally Nebraskan.
guest
John Fulwider
Homeless manproves
stereotypes wrong
Lincoln’s homeless deserve a fair shake. They
deserve some friends.
A year ago yesterday, a human
being died in the south vestibule
of Nebraska Union.
Some wouldn’t think of him as
a human being. Many would have
preferred to ignore him and go
about their business.
David Ball, 47, a man of
spectacular kindness and intelli
gence, was homeless. He died
alone, huddled in the only warm
place he could find on a cold fall
morning. None of his family or
friends were present to mourn his
passing.
But I mourned his passing. An
icy fist gripped my heart when 1
picked up the Monday, Nov. 7,
1994 edition of the Daily Nebras
kan. The headline was in the
upper-left corner: “Homeless man
dies in Union.”
The outside doors to the south
vestibule (where the NBC Bank
ATM machine is) are left
unlocked all night. David
probably went there to seek
refuge from the weather. The
coroner’s report said he died of
natural causes at 4 a.m.
I’ll never forget David. I’d be
lying if I said 1 knew him well;
but I knew him well enough to
know that he deserved a lot more
than what life dealt him.
This was a man who, on a
rainy day, offered me his um
brella because I didn’t have one.
David told me he took broken
umbrellas from the trash, fixed
them, and gave them to friends.
One day just before lunch,
when I told him I was hungry, he
offered me some crackers and
peanut butter.
He was a man who deserved a
lot more than he had.
He used to sit on the north side
of the Crib, at a two-seat table
against the wall closest to the
water fountain.
He was a tall, thin man. He
had long, salt-and-pepper hair
and a goatee. His skin was
stretched taut across his promi
nent cheekbones. His chin jutted
out. And his eyes sparkled with
intelligence, and knowledge built
up from years of reading dis
carded books, magazines and
newspapers.
He always had an overstuffed
yellow Nebraska Bookstore bag
with him, along with a backpack.
And at least one of those umbrel
las he found and fixed. David
seemed always prepared for
hunger or the weather. He
probably had about 200 packs of
sal tine crackers somewhere in
that big yellow bag.
He wore layers upon layers of
clothes — he certainly had space
in those huge bags of his to store
a complete wardrobe. What he
couldn’t fit in his bags, he kept in
a coin-operated locker by
University Bookstore.
During his years sitting at his
table in the Union, David touched
other lives, as well.
In a letter to the editor on Nov.
15, 1994, Carly Cardaronella,
then a junior psychology major,
wrote about her friend:
“David Ball had been a
.
smiling face and a friend in my
life for a couple of years now. I
will never forget each time I went
to the Union to study, stressed out
over tests and papers, and David
was there with a friendly ‘How
ya’ doing?’ and a sincere interest
in what was going on in my life.
“I would share my interests
with him and he with me ... This
proud man was no beggar. He
was a man whose life was filled
with one unfortunate occurrence
after another. Because of him, I
will never pass judgment on
another homeless or less fortunate
person.”
Some less generous souls have
no qualms about passing judg
ment on the homeless. One
sophomore student wrote a
particularly venomous letter this
semester.
He sarcastically described the
Union as a place for the homeless
to go and watch television while
they do nothing all day long.
The building’s vending and
arcade machines, he wrote, were
places to scrounge for change.
And the trash cans provided three
complimentary meals a day.
That student’s letter proves he
never knew David. No one could
spite David — I certainly never
heard him utter an unkind word or
saw him raise his fist in anger.
There are some less-than
pleasant homeless people around
Lincoln; some of them even
frequent the Union. But we’re
surrounded by unpleasant people
everywnere; i ve nacl some oi
them for professors.
It may just irk some people to
death, but the homeless —
pleasant and unpleasant — have a
right to be in the Union. Our
beloved university is a land-grant
institution — open to the public.
Just as a student from Lincoln
High School can come in the
Union during its normal business
hours and play a video game, so
can any homeless person come in,
sit on a couch, and watch TV. Or
collect aluminum cans, as some
industrious people have chosen to
do.
I feel sorry for those who
weren’t around UNL during the
fall semester of 1994, and before.
They missed a chance to meet a
unique man, full of character and
overflowing with love.
David proved beyond a doubt
that stereotypes of homeless
people don’t fit. He proved that
there’s more to a person than
where they live, or what they
choose to do with their time.
Lincoln’s homeless deserve a
fair shake. They deserve some
friends.
Take a chance, step out of
your comfort zone, and strike up
a conversation with that person
you pass every day. You may be
pleasantly surprised by the human
being hidden behind your
prejudices.
And David — rest in peace. I
miss you.
Fulwlder Is a sophomore news-edito
rial major and a Daily Nebraskan senior
reporter.
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