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From: sjr@datacube.com (Steve J. Rapaport)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Solving social problems
Message-ID: <1166@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: Sat, 5-Dec-87 23:48:36 EST
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Posted: Sat Dec  5 23:48:36 1987
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Paul Dubuc asks:
> Would anyone like to share their ideas on the implications of treating
> social problems as technical ones?

and mentions that human problems are harder (by orders of magnitude) to
solve than technical ones.  He is, of course, right, but I think he's missed
the point. 

The original suggestion was that the *medium* of the net be used to help
solve social problems.  The net, when used as an information exchange, is
purely a social, not technical, mechanism.  (Like the telephone.)  Sure, it
needs high tech to work, but that doesn't mean that any solution arrived
at by the various *people* brainstorming through it will be a technical
one.

I think that if there's any hope of solving social problems, it will be
done by groups of intelligent, knowledgeable people, who can communicate
in an orderly way, with sufficient time delay that they are encouraged
to focus on the issues, not the red herrings.  It also helps if the
communications can be stored and looked at later for fresh insights,
and there is some way to tie a response back to the thought that originated
it.

Usenet meets these requirements, and so is a reasonable medium for exchange
of ideas on any social problem.  Regardless of the technology required to
run it.

As to whether a group of computer nerds, even with their heads (figuratively)
together, can solve *any* social problem (most of them are still wondering
why they can't meet Mr./Ms. Right on soc.singles), well, I leave that
for history to decide.

Steve Rapaport