Cult of Information

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Title Cult of Information
Publication Type Book
Pub Year 1986
Authors Roszak, T.
Publisher Pantheon
Keywords machine, organizational totalitarianism
Notes machine"The result [in Vonnegut's book Player Piano1] is a technocratic despotism wholly controlled by information technicians and corporate managers. The book raises the issue whether technology should be allowed to do all that it can do, especially when its powers extend to the crafts and skills which give purpose to people's lives. The machines are slaves, Vonnegut's rebellious engineer-hero insists. True, they make life easier in many ways; but they also compete with people. And 'anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave.' As Vonnegut observes, 'Norbert Weiner, a mathematician, said all that way back in the nineteen-forties.'" (p. 11)
URL http://books.google.com/books?id=dOm7AAAAIAAJ