December 8, 2008.
As I got up early this morning, I decided to send email and reflected over how computers and the Internet have changed all of our lives.
I remember how slow I was to use the fax, and how much money Don Slater et al. spent on phone bills and stamps, and how much times writing letters takes. And paper, a typewriter perhaps.
I’ve said it before, but it is frustrating to have this great tool and Slater didn’t have it. Think of how much better, his work would have been — easier, etc., if he could have just sent his good thinking out, and kept it in his email file.
Count the number of e-mails I sent this morning, I think five, but I sent each of them to dozens of people. Now perhaps they didn’t want them, but that is irrelevant: it cost me nothing, and at least they can’t say that they never heard the views expressed, often not mine but those of someone I think are worth sharing. I will send copies of this to Jim Schneider and others, as the point is valid for them too.
The Internet gets me the news, and I use the Internet to then share it, pass it along, often with my thoughts, just as Jim Kepner did in the “Tangents” column in ONE magazine. I doubt most of us would communicate as we do if we had to phone or write letters — this is so fast, and easy, even if we write shallow things, it is easy to glance at an e-mail and delete it. And in rare cases, as in looking back at some of Jim Kepner’s articles, and thoughts, we can learn from what was said in the ’50s and ’60s and remember how it was and perhaps use the information today.
Maybe even now there would not be the interest, but think about what Dorr Legg could have done with his lectures, he could do them on line —I still don’t understand it, but there are apparently several universities only on line, one sponsored by Western State Governors.
Even though our enemies can also use this resource, it is “sinful” for us and our community/movement not to use this resource (you could say God-given?).
