Why do we need computers? Do the pros of a highly technical "digital"
society outweight the cons? Are individuals better or worse off than
before the computing revolution?

Sounds like someone just paid for a term paper.

Jayboyd,

Let me add my personal thoughts to Missy's answer.

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
Pablo Picasso

You can see computers as tool -- its value being to do faster what we
did before. A medium in itself should alter efficiency, while leaving
intent intact. If you want to publish a truth, you can do so globally
and instantly. If you want to publish a lie, you can do so globally
and instantly. Better or worse? This depends on your level of optimism
viewing humanity. If you believe that information evolution undergoes
a Darwinistic process, good chance is only truth survives -- by
natural selection.

Seeing the Internet for the first time in your life, you find a vast
pool of knowledge in the virtual world. If you used the Internet for
many years, you may suddenly see the real world itself as being
inefficient (why do I have to carry around little papers to pay?),
while accepting the virtual world as normal (I log in, they handle
payment). Overall win as perceived might be little --- the only
contrast being this generation's memory of the past, but that should
fade in the future.
You could say, "Once we become unlucky again, we remember how lucky we
should have been." (This is typically caused by sudden hardware crash
or power break-down.)

But ever so often, the speed by which we can achieve new things falls
back on the meaning which is given to it. We can start to reevaluate
this "real world" as we reflect on it from the meta-level of the
virtual world:
If you receive a hand-written letter, what does it mean to you that an
email does not? Someone may have refilled the ink; someone carefully
planted words on the paper; someone took time to walk to the post
office; and all the way, that someone thought of you. This is attached
to the truly slow "snail mail", which suddenly transports emotions
attached even the best compression algorithm fails to tackle;
suddenly, the lack of perfection adds value no tool in the world
could.

Just take this online way of asking questions and receiving answers.
The satisfaction is almost guaranteed, and given instantly. It takes
real people to give answers worth reading. But most of all, it takes
longer time, and a real world, to raise questions worth asking.

Hope this helps.

Wow - this seems like a great way to get someone to write original
research papers for you. :)

Hi Gwen,

It's the wrong time of year for term papers.  

Sometimes, our customers are just looking for a different perspective.
 They do a good job of making us think, in any case.

missy-ga

Dear Jayboyd,

The answer to your original question is obviously highly subjective. 
Humans have been debating the Luddite vs Technophile argument for
hundreds of years, if not thousands. Long before computers, people
have wondered whether technology is getting us into or out of hot
water as a civilization. People on both sides of the argument are
adamant.

“In 1779, in a village somewhere in Leicestershire, one Ned Lud broke
into a house and ''in a fit of insane rage'' destroyed two machines
used for knitting hosiery. Word got around. Soon, whenever a stocking-
frame was found sabotaged … folks would respond with the catch phrase
''Lud must have been here.''”
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

Over 100 years ago Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Her story created
a divide between those who believed that her book was an illustration
of the negative effects of technology and those who believed that it
showed what can occur when people remain ignorant and refuse to accept
new technology.

I see by your 8 additional questions that you are interested in a far
deeper discussion of this topic than can be gained by posting a simple
opinion request here. I think Missy did a fine job answering your
original question as it was worded. The answer is subjective and
therefore there is no right or wrong answer. Her views are as valid as
anyone’s.

For in depth discussion on your further 8 questions, I would suggest
one or both of the following:

--- Post each of the 8 questions individually and let the Researchers
and Commenters hash it out. I’m sure you’ll get opinions that range
from one end of the spectrum to the other.

--- Read some of the recent books that have attacked this dilemma in
more depth. Two that come to mind immediately (and I’ve read both)
are:

Jihad vs. McWorld, Benjamin Barber
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345383044/qid=1024437765/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-1499013-5717568

After the Internet: Alien Intelligence, James Martin
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0895262800/qid=1024437873/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/104-1499013-5717568

And of course read Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, (a.k.a.Unabomber), who had
some pretty strong feelings on the subject:
http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm

As I said, there is no right or wrong answer. It’s all just opinion. 
--K~

Hello, Jayboyd:

This has been a long thread to read through!  I can certainly
understand and sympathise with your frustration at not getting the
information you'd wanted.  For your benefit, and for that of any other
askers who may find this thread before posting their own questions,
I'd like to offer up a couple of points for your consideration.

First, from Google's "Answer Help and Tips" (the hotlink is found at
the bottom of this page):

"Your question is more likely to be answered if it is specific,
detailed, and complete with guidelines for the researcher." (examples
deleted by me)

In this particular instance, to judge from the questions raised in
your request for clarification, you might perhaps have opted to say
something like, "I am constructing an argument to the effect that
computers have been detrimental in the following respects, (give
examples) and that overall we may have been better off without them. 
I would like examples supporting this argument to be predominant, but
with enough contrarian input to provide some balance."

This is the sort of thing the help page attempts to get at when it
says, "Define what you mean by general terms like 'best'.

Some idea of the end use of the information requested may also be
useful to the researcher.

Second point, also from the help page:

"How complex the question is...
The more complex the question, the more time it requires for a
Researcher to answer. A Researcher will only want to answer a complex
question if he or she feels adequately compensated for the time
expended. If you have a sense of how long it will take a Researcher to
find an answer, you should take that into account. For example, if you
know your question could take 3 hours to answer, you should bid more
than if your question will take 15 minutes to answer."

Your question, as originally posted, was highly subjective in nature. 
Any researcher with integrity (far and away the majority, I'm happy to
say) would want to make a significant investment in time before
posting an answer, for precisely that reason.  If you were to browse
the answers that Missy's provided for similar questions, you will find
that she has done a number of them, and generally gotten favourable
reviews for her efforts.  I mention this, not from a desire to
exonerate a fellow researcher, but to demonstrate for you the context
that she (or another researcher) would have worked from, in evaluating
your original request.

Your request for clarification, as Knowledge_seeker has pointed out,
amounts to eight or so additional questions, each of which requires a
significant amount of thought and research.  This is not precisely
what the clarification feature is intended to accomplish.  To quote
the help page once more,  "You should ask for a clarification if you
feel the answer is incorrect or incomplete, or if you simply want more
information on your subject."

For an example of this, here is a thread pointing to a question I'd
answered, and the second question which arose from it:

https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=27220
https://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=28481

In your instance, the clarifications you've posted go well beyond
making your original meaning clear, and would require a significant
degree of extra work and information.  I would suggest, here, that you
re-post your clarifications in the form of additional individual
questions.  Cite the original thread in your introductory comments,
along with a focussed explanation of your intent, as per the example
above.

If you feel that Missy's original answer does not provide you with
input that meets with your criteria, I would suggest that you request
a refund from GA, as explained on the help page. No-one will hold it
against you (honestly!), Missy least of all.  You will be credited all
but your non-refundable 50 cent listing fee.  Use your credit towards
the "smaller" questions I've suggested above.  Keep in mind the
pricing guidelines on the help page, which I won't quote here.

Generally, researchers take on a question because a) they find it
interesting in itself; or b) because they feel they can provide a
cogent answer for the listed price, within a timeframe which makes
economic sense for them.  Accordingly, you may wish to review the
information you're seeking and price some questions more highly than
others, according to the depth of research they'll require.

I hope these suggestions will be helpful to you, as well as to any
other questioners reviewing this thread.  The feedback we receive from
our work is the best way for Google to assess this new service, so on
behalf of my fellow researchers I'd like to thank you for
participating in the beta-testing phase.  We all have a stake in
helping to make Google Answers a success!

I believe jayboyd-ga has all his/her answers.  He's expecting someone
to say what's in his mind.

I am afraid I am going to have to ask for a refund, although honestly
I would not have had Chromedome not further explained Google's
position on this ("To quote the help page once more, 'You should ask
for a clarification if you feel the answer is incorrect or incomplete,
or if you simply want more information on your subject.'") I think it
is very logical for me to consider Missy's answer incomplete. My
question was, quite clearly, do the pros of computers outweigh the
cons, or vice versa. Obviously this is subjective, but equally
obviously it can't be answered by taking one position or the other and
then citing numerous sources to support just that position (pro or
con).

I am not, as Chromedome says, taking the con position and asking for
it to be refuted. I simply elaborated that position in my request for
clarification because it was *completely* ignored in Missy's research.
I sincerely believe I am doing Google a service by disputing this, as
you may as well be prepared for this type of reaction when a
researcher *chooses* to tackle what is perhaps a too subjective or too
complex question but simultanesouly chooses to ignore the nature of
the question and just give their opinion. If I had asked "which is
better, Capitalism or Socialism?" and a researcher had answered with a
long list of the failings of Socialism, that would be incomplete. This
is Google Answers, not Google Opinions. And according to your
policies, no one is forcing researchers to accept such a broad
question.

I will, however, as suggested put the original $50 into a set of
smaller questions addressing the same issue. On this note, might I ask
-- is it possible to request a partial refund? I would like to
acknowledge that Missy *did* spend a considerable amount of time
adressing part of my question and as I've stated before, the reason
for my post was to create a conversation, of which her reply is
certainly a part.

Thank you for your research comments (and no, I'm not buying a term
paper).

Jason

Hi,

I think that this question is a good example of some of the problems
that can
possibly arise from a forum like this.  Obviously, the quesion "Are
individuals
better or worse off than before the computing revolution?" is a
subjective
question - there is no real answer.  So, it should be acceptable for
the
researcher to give his or her opinion as long as it is backed up well.
 The
problem is that the researcher who attacks a question like this is, by
nature,
going to back up his or her own view very well and probably not
address the
other side as well.  Maybe, to help fix this problem, Google Answers
could
allow people to ask different types of questions.  Offer people the
chance to
have their question answered by two researchers, one taking the pro
position
and the other taking the con position.  They would each still have to
back up
their positions, but it might be less subjective that way.  

To get back to this topic, though, I think that Missy's answer
probably wasn't
quite what Jayboyd asked.  Missy seemed to read the question as asking
about
the good and bad USES of computers.  When I read it, I took it as, "Do
computers themselves, ignoring the specific uses of them, have a
positive or
negative effect on society?"  After reading Jayboyd's request for 
clarification, I do think that that was more what he was looking for. 
This goes to show what others have pointed out already: Ask specific
and clear questions because ambiguous questions can be answered in
many ways.

Jayboyd, there are literally hundreds of books that you could read on
this subject.  Here are a couple that I have found informative:

"Being Digital" by Nicholas Negroponte 
"Technopoly" by Neil Postman -- not exclusively about computers but
includes a chapter or two on computer technology

I think that another option for you would be to take a Philosophy of
Technology class at a local university.  It would most likely spend a
lot of time on computers, but it would also give you a good background
of other technologies, too.  This is such a large subject matter that
you could spend at least a semester talking about it.

Also, I am pretty sure that if you ask for a refund, Missy will not
lose the $50, Google Answers takes the loss.  I know I read it
somewhere, but I couldn't find exactly where it was at.

analogkid-ga

I, like Missy, have no idea why the formatting of my last post looks like that.

Sorry,
analogkid-ga

analogkid and missy,

Your answers look like that because the text in this form is
soft-wrapped, and you must have inserted some hard returns in it in
your word processor.

Regarding missy's answer, I believe that this is a research question,
and as such, it should be answered in a scholarly manner, covering a
range of opinions, including but not limited to your own.

[fingers crossed for proper formatting!]
> On this note, might I ask
> -- is it possible to request a partial refund? I would like to
> acknowledge that Missy *did* spend a considerable amount of time
> adressing part of my question and as I've stated before, the reason
> for my post was to create a conversation, of which her reply is
> certainly a part.

Jason, maybe you could re-ask a new question for say $25, that only
Missy can answer.

For example,  
Q:  "Are you the real Missy?"
A:  "Yes"

Correct!! :^)

Sorry, I know its silly, but I wonder about how to extend google
answers into some kind of weird amorphous money-transfer system!

Watch out for those dumb, but accepted, answers for $100!

Q:  "How do I transfer $100 from one person to another?"
A:  "This way"

Q:  "What can you do with $100?"
A:  "Give it to me"

Rediculous, and yet...

B^)