1999 online scope

Editor of online scope, the accompanying online media channel to the conference scope 1. information vs. meaning on information technology and the future of knowledge.

Excerpt A Primer for the 21st Century

If you could be 18 in 2010, what kind of things would you try to learn?

Neil Gershenfeld: How to manipulate bits and atoms with equal agility.

Matthew Chalmers: Informatics, poststructuralist semiology, the philosophy of Wittgenstein, post-Keynesian economics, and how to be a techno DJ/producer. (I expect that by then we’ll have some kind of “post-techno” though…)

Bruce Sterling: The English language, how stock markets, venture capital, and Internet auctions work, how to travel cheaply across national boundaries, how to recognize organized crime activities in police and government, and, probably, first aid post-disaster procedures.

David Small: I’d like to learn how to paint and draw. I’d like to learn more math, especially number theory. And physics.

Mark Pesce: How to live in my imagination. How to reprogram reality so that what I imagine I can instantly create. How to live in a world where other people can do this, too.

John Thackara: How to select projects, from among the dozens that present themselves, that would teach me the most.

Mitsuhiro Takemura: Maybe, I tried to deep reach to Aby Warburg’s “Mnemosyne-Atlas” and Rudolf Steiner’s “Geheimwissenschaft”.

Brewster Kahle: Digital librarianship and genetics: mind and body for the 21st century.

Bill Buxton: The things that I struggle with learning have little to do with electronic technology. I would like to learn how to water start and power jibe on my windsurfer. I would really like to learn to ride dressage at the Grand Prix level. I would work harder on ear training and playing my instrument. And I guess that the role that technology might play in all of this is that it might buy me the time to do so.

Ralph C. Merkle: see http://nano.xerox.com/nanotech/study.html.

Paul Haeberli: I’d like to learn about molecular genetics and DNA. How to program with the ultimate instruction set.

Daniel Dögl: Storytelling with all possible means and techniques. I believe that storytelling was, is and will be the central way of conveying information.

Marco Susani: I would like to access experiences and stories from persons in other places and other ages, not mediated by what today we know as school.

Celia Pearce: The thing that I find most apalling in the world is how badly people treat each other. Teenagers in particular are cruel and their meanness to each other is unmoderated by adults. If I was an 18 year old today or any time, I would like to try to learn how to teach my peers to treat each other better. I would also want to understand how to teach people in general to treat each other better: stop killing your ethnic neighbors, stop abusing your wife, stop harassing people of different gender or race. That’s the thing I would want most to learn how to do.

Hani Rashid: Artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology, and their integration into new materials and design of objects.

Andrew Glassner: How to manage and control the information collected about me. How to grow a sustainable garden. How to play a traditional (non-electronic) musical instrument. What level of physical fitness is required for space travel. Whether there’s intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. How to find unofficial sources of information. How to get a license for my fusion-powered rocket-car.

Gudula Feichtinger: Nanotechnology, languages, cognitive science;

Tom Hewett: I would focus on learning the fundamental skills of verbal, visual and auditory communication. In addition I would focus on learning the ability to graze for and filter information.

Claudia Cavallar: To be a better person

~zen~ Nathan: The art of meticulous deconstruction of time & space… what makes ‘everything’ exist simultaneously.

Tom Webb: To recognize the value of original ideas as gifts and not toys soon discarded from lack of desire.

Bill Gaver: Some new stuff, like nanotechnology or whatever. But mainly stuff I wish I had learned when I _was_ 18: music, electronics, drawing, and the ability to shut up and listen.

Panu Korhonen: I’d like to learn how to learn. In addition, I’d like to learn to be more imaginative, improvising, and impulsive.

Sonja Bettel: To speak and write more languages, hacking, inline-skating.

Bill Schilit: By 2010 our attention will be courted by new media, new technology, and new content that we can’t begin to imagine. We’ll be surfing the web, site to site to site, grabbing a bit of information here and there. We’ll be watching 1,000 channels of digital high definition 3-D TV. One thing that kids will find hard to learn is how to PAY ATTENTION! If you have read this far congratulations. I think that is what I would try to learn: how to think deeply in an increasingly fast paced and fragmented world.