> ----------
> From: Sasha Chislenko[SMTP:sasha1@netcom.com]
> Reply To: extropians@extropy.com
> Sent: Saturday, 26 June 1999 4:35
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Windows to block unwanted messages
>
>
>
> >WINDOWS TO GET ABILITY TO BLOCK UNWELCOME GAMES
> >The next release of Microsoft's Windows operating system software will
> >include software that parents can use to block the playing of computer
> >games with unacceptable levels of violence, offensive language, or
> nudity.
> >Microsoft is currently talking with the Entertainment Software Rating
> Board
> >and the Recreational Software Advisory Council about incorporating their
> >ratings into a database on which the blocking software would rely. The
> >software will be available sometime next year, and will be available for
> >purchase as an upgrade to existing copies of Windows. (New York Times 25
> >Jun 99)
> >http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/06/biztech/articles/25game.html
>
> I keep waiting until somebody starts rating the level of stupidity,
> irrationality, lies, and other actually harmful things in messages.
>
> When there is going to be a filter that will leave Discovery channel
> with any degree of nudity, but block tele-evangelists, baseball,
> X-files, soap operas and other stuff that really wastes and corrupts
> young minds, filling them with perverse perceptions of the world and
> ridiculous values?
>
Look, I couldn't agree more. All that depravity, ridiculousness, perversion,
and just plain filth may be at best a timewaster, but at worst is eating
away at the very core of our society. This is the way the strongest of
empires has fallen, consumed from within.
I think that most people would agree that the text-based filtering which is currently used is pretty primitive - what is required is content based filtering rather than just blocking certain words and phrases.
But the technology isn't quite good enough to do this really well yet, so we are stuck with the text based system for now.
There is another way. It seems obvious that the english language is too unrestricted. You can pretty much say anything you want, and that's really not acceptable in a truly moral society.
I think we need to restrict the language ala Orwell; come up with a variant in which we just cannot express the kind of concepts which we'd otherwise need to block. Obviously we cannot have a government impose it, that wouldn't be very FreeMarket.
If we think of language as the OS of the mind, then obviously Microsoft is the company for the job. Instead of adding content filters, just restrict all communication on the net to MSpeak.
I think we'd all be MSContent(tm) if we thought in a language which restricted us to concepts which were msmoral. That wont happen for a while, but perhaps with time, as people begin to MSNeurohack, we will see MSpeak making its way into our cortexes. I'll get started now, if I can just find that wretched cranial drill...
Plainly this is also the most efficient way to go. Currently everyone just thinks their own thoughts all the time, with all the redundancy and communication problems that you'd expect from such disorganisation. I'm pushing for a market model of thought, where instead of having to waste time thinking for myself, I can pay others to think for me. Now of course the mass media has been a strong if primitive step in this direction, but I'm betting that we'll see a far more personal impersonalisation of the thought process in coming years. MSMos 1.0? I'm there!
With MSpeak we get efficiency, MSMos gives us standardisation, and the combination will provide the truly moral world of the future which is the stuff of all of our MSDreams.
Emlyn
(MSDreams II - the new installment of the popular mental screensaver, coming
soon. Features "Falling Out Of MSWindows", "Recurring Gates" and the ever
popular "Flying Orwells").