The irony is that it was Socrates who said it, and lived by it -- and Plato who wrote Socrates' sayings down.

To be fair, there is a strong contingent of academics/intellectuals who believe "Socrates" is essentially an invention of Plato. That, yes, there was an historic Socrates, and he was forced to drink hemlock as punishment for his philosophical teachigns, but that most of what Plato wrote actually represents Plato's own thoughts, put into the mouth of someone else so that Plato doesn't suffer the same fate.

There are arguments for an against this premise (perhaps the strongest being the similarity between the Socrates represented in Plato's dialogues and the Socrates represented in the writings of others), but for Rossmeier to make this point is not the complete inaccuracy you suggest.

Havrilseky's column has always had this subtext. How did you miss it? Having kids has nothing to do with it.

It's fine if you don't want to accept 2001 as a dystopia. I think you are reading the movie differently than Kubrick intended, but that's your option. I don't think that if the world he dipicted was just fine there'd be much of a point in his making the movie. I certainly don't think his goal was to show the effects of a malfunctioning computer in an otherwise well-adjusted world. And if the people are fine, the sudden jump in spiritual development as a result of shutting down HAL doesn't make much sense.

(I was working so hard to express clarify my ideas, I didn't proofread my sentences as well as I should.)

2001 was a dystopian view because the future presented a dehumanized human race, mere extensions of their technology. The scene where the astronauts go about their isolated routines (keeping their ship or their bodies in tip-top condition), or the scene where a birthday greeting from a child seems to have no emotional impact on the father receiving it, demonstrate how empty everyone's emotional life has become.

Critics who hated the movie often liked to point out that HAL was more human than the humans, as if this was a failure on Kubrick's point. On the contrary, that was precisely his message. As was the idea that technological advances had only lead to more complicated acts of domination/dehumanization (the apes not only use their first tool for bloodshed, but to devour meat; a two-fold thirst for blood is born) rather than creating a nobler/more pacificist, more human species (we'd lost that before we'd even stopped being apes).

That's why destroying the most advanced computer, and relying on human/pacifist skills (to the extent that though a computer is "killed," human beings are no longer being attacked by man-made tools, and preserving rather than dominating life has become the goal) leads to the spiritual awakening and rebirth of humanity shown in the final sequence.

It just encourages antagonistic personalities to fight with each other, rather than share information to understand one another better. While it doesn't "have" to be that way, it is. And nearly every thread on this site (and most sites with letters pages) devolves into a few aggressive people pummeling each other in print. To what end? Who "wins"? Who's wiser for the experience? And much of the time, the fights are only tangential to whatever the initial discussion was. The real draw is personalities in conflict. Is this a step forward?

2001 was a dystopia because the future presented a dehumanized human race, mere extensions of their technology. Critics who hated the movie often liked to point out that HAL was more human than the humans, as if this was a failure on Kubrick's point. On the other hand, that was precisely his message. As was the idea that technology only lead to more complicated acts of aggression/dehumanization (the apes not only use their first tool for bloodshed, but to devour meat, a two-fold thirst for blood is born)rather than creating a nobler/more pacificist species.

That's why destroying the most advanced computer, and relying on human/pacifist skills (to the extent that though a computer is "killed," human beings are no longer being attacked by man-created tools, and preserving life is the goal) leads to the spiritual awakening and rebirth of humanity in the final sequence.

The invention of the codex, and it's replacing the scroll, had a major impact on civilization. It may be the single most important advancement we have made. The codex made it possible to flip back and forth easily through a document and re-check pieces of information. This may or may not prove Plato was right about our losing our ability to memorize, but the impact on various aspects on both the arts and sciences is huge.

The computer returns us to the scroll, most particularly with writing (the Word document is essentially a scroll) but to a large extent with the way web pages are designed, too. It's hard to check one document against each other because you only have one screen, and even if you open up several windows, there is not the easy back and forth one has with several books layed out in front one. And nothing like the easy ability to flip back through pages.

And I expect this does have a negative impact on the way we process information. I'm thinking of this particularly with my beloved Kindle. I really enjoy the Kindle for a number of reasons, and I'm glad to own one. But when I suddenly wonder about a piece of information, it's hard to check back. There are no pages, and it's harder to determing how far back to click. And of course you must go one page at a time.

I'm not an either/or person, and I'm not prophesying the world's or civilization's end. But it does seem a backward rather than a forward step.