Ick I've Stepped in Some More Ethos
Throughout the early
stages of "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", Bill Joy makes it perfectly
clear that he thinks he is qualified to pass judgement on technology.
Everyone he got his information is famous in their field, including himself,
which makes all of his arguments more credible. The essay starts
with introducing Ray Kurweil and John Searle, an inventor and philosopher
respectively, at a Telecosm conference. Their giving speeches at
the conference reinforces that they are near the top of their fields.
Joy gives this reason for believing Kurweil: "...given Ray's proven
ability to imagine and create the future." (238) Then he quotes the
Unabomber from Kurzweil's book The Age of Spiritual Machines, adding yet
another well known source. Kaczynski is an extremem luddite. Next,
he talks about Hans Moravec, the "founder of the world's largest robotics
research program, at Carnegie Mellon University". This makes him
more than qualified to talk about robotics. Danny Hillis, who he
"respects (his) knowledge of the information and physical sciences more
than that of any single person (he) knows." (240) is also the founder
of Thinking Machines Corporation, which also gives him the qualifications
to be an expert on robotics.
Joy then goes on
to tell that he is a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and worked on such internet
languages as Jini and Java. Nearly all of his arguments are cited
out of books he read by respected authors which support his arguments.
With all of these scientists and published works supporting him, the reader
naturally believes what he is saying, taking it in as fact, much in the
same way we accept the technologies he is discussing, without judging them
or at least investigating them.
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