Who Profits from Change the Most?

Killingsworth seems to view technology more as a hostile takeover and less as empowerment (Killingsworth 172). It is ironic that he seems to point to how much we lose ("The development of new technologies and techniques follows the sad but ever-binding law of compensation. In every new communication intiative, something is lost along with what is gained.") yet he supports the testing of ideas. Testing of new ideas leads to change but he seems to be warning of change.


If Killingsworth is right, and technology benefits big business more than the people, then are we headed for a future controlled by Apple, Facebook and AT&T? Perhaps we have always been controlled by corporate greed. I don't want to become a deer-in-the-headlights consumer of iWhatevers.

Sources

Killingsworth, M. Jimmie. Technical communication in the 21st century: Where are we going? Technical Communication Quarterly. 8.2 (2000): 165-174.

We Can't Predict the Future

This post refers to articles from Technical Communication Quarterly, Technical communication from 1950-1998: Where are we now? (Staples, Katherine) and Technical communication in the 21st century: where are we going? (Killingsworth, M. Jimmie). Interestingly, Both authors refer to a time in history when people were surprised at an outcome. Staples talks about the G.I. Bill that was supposed to support the jobless after WWII and prevent what happened after WWI. People used it to go to college in droves - like normal people, lower income people, for the first time. Killingsworth said in 1999 that people believed the "Modern Language Association's prediction that based on projected population increases among people of college age by the late 1990s, we would experience great growth in English faculties to accommodate increased enrollments; the job crisis would be over." But in 2000 it wasn't over. The same thing is happening today. The federal interest rate is at a record low and still jobs are not rebounding the way the experts expected. All this means that we don't really know what will happen. We can't predict the future, and according to Killingsworth, we shouldn't. I'm not sure if this means we should be supportive, that predictions are costly and dangerous, or that we should be more careful when we make predictions.