> Carl Remick wrote:
>
> >My dim opinion of the LIRR notwithstanding, I agree with you here.
> >And to get really nostalgic about it (at the risk of giving J.
> >Heartfield apoplexy), I have to say I consider steam locomotives the
> >only really beautiful machines ever created.
>
> C'mon Carl. The iMac is beautiful, just to take an example of
> something I've got 6 feet away from me.
And why? Because it just works.
In the newspaper (yesterday's Independent) reports of a 1997 train crash in the UK, they go on and on about a train driver who sat with his feet up on the dashboard in his train. The reason this is a bad thing is that train drives are meant to drive their trains with their foot *continuously* on the 'dead man's pedal' - if they remove the foot, the train stops. This is not a new thing - train drivers were complaining about this in France in 1968. There's nothing in the nature of the machine which forces trains to be designed this way - it all emerges from the social relations of production of train-transport-miles.
Similarly, computers. I really like quite a lot about the Sun Unix workstation I work on. Unix is (to me) a creative working environment, the screen is big, and I've got a cool Pink Floyd background on my screen. However, if I work continously, my RSI really starts plaguing me. If people can recall, one of the important facts in the landmark court case which established RSI as a real occupational hazard in the UK was the fact that workers had been forced to speed up production on keyboards - the result being strain injuries. Again, the relation was not one between person and machine - it was the relation of production (the boss's demand for speed-ups) which led to RSI.
The 1950s Johnson-Forrest Tendency people were very good at documenting the continual struggle over the organisation of production in the workplace. Such a documentation plays a useful role in placing technology in its place - the tyrany that a worker feels emanating from the machine is merely the tyrany of the relations between the worker and the owner of the machine (or the owners of urban geography - in the case of the car).
Arguing about 'too many cars' or 'cars make us free' is really meaningless unless you get down to the relations which inform how we use cars, and why.
Peter P.S. Here's New Model Army in a pessimistic mood, just for fun:
227
She stares at the screen
At the little words of green
Tries to remember what to do next
There's a trace of frustration
That crosses her face
Searching for the keys she should press
And I would help her
If I only know how
But these things are a mystery to me too
And it seems that the corporate
Eyes they are watching
She fears for her job
And the moments are passing
I stare at her nametag
And think to myself
Both you and I, we never asked
For any of this
So let's take a walk
Up past the chemical works
Where the sky turns green at night
And we'll talk about
Bout getting away from here
Some difference kind of life
But even in the freshest mountain air
While the jet fighters practice overhead
And they're drilling these hills
For uranium deposits
And they'll bury the waste
For our children to inherit
And though this is all done
For our own benefit, I swear
We never asked for any of this
Well this golden age of communication
Means everyone talks at the same time
And liberty just means
Some freedom to exploit
Any weakness that you can find
Well turn off the TV just for a while
Let us whisper to each other instead
And we'll hope that the corporate ears
Do not listen
Unless we find ourselves committing
Some kind of treason
And filed in the tapes
Without rhyme, without reason
While they tell us that it's all
For our own protection, I swear
We never asked for any of this... -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower. - Karl Marx