Between a Computer and Melody Maker

[Woj <woiccare@clutx.clarkson.edu>]

At one point in the discussion that Kate had with the Melody Maker, She
says, "the idea was that the verses were the person and the choruses were
the computer talking to the person." I think this pretty much eliminates
any possibility that the computer "hates to leave" Kate.

I posted earlier a little spiel on this song, but it got eaten (it was
real weird, but somehow it got sent to our sysadmin who *might* have
forwarded it to |>oug - maybe..).

Anyways, I see the song "Deeper Understanding" as a conflict between 
humanity and technology. "When the people her grow colder/ I turn to my
computer." This is Real Scary because it implies (to me anyways) a few 
things:

- The advent of technology is having adverse effects on humanity. This
  is not explicitly stated in the song, but I get the feeling that comp-
  uters, etc. could very well be the reason for humanity to grow colder.
  My mother summed this up nicely when she said, "All you students going
  to technological schools are taught incredible things, but you never 
  learn to communicate, to feel or to love!" Harsh and a bit stereotypical,
  but in some cases very true.

- Technology is getting to the point where it could be feasible for it
  to replace humanity, as it did in this song (go read alt.cyberpunk for
  an update). I find this incredibly frightening - how could anything
  a machine replace the warmth, love and being of another human? However,
  it did happen here...this was sorta addressed in last night Star Trek
  ("Booby Trap"), where Giordi more or less falls in love with a holodeck
  construct that he was using to help solve an engineering problem.

Lastly, how to interpret the "I hate to leave you" lines. As I might have
said before, I see it as Kate, who is *still* addicted to the computer,
saying to the computer that she hates to leave it. As I stated, it can not
be the computer since it is Kate singing those lines, but I don't believe
that she has realized her addiction and is removing herself, even though
she hates to do so. An addiction or emotional crutch, in most cases, is
so blinding that one does not see what is happening. I highly doubt that
someone who has developed an addiction to her personal conputer to the point
where she "is lonely [and] lost without her little black box" would realize
such.

Note: most of this coalesed before I read the _Melody_Maker_ interview.
After reading it, we see that Kate states that computers could provide
another source of information about ourselves, "because they could come    
in from outside all this." She goes on to talk about the mechanical nature
of Nature and how a computer might be able to help us to go "through all
that science..to something very spiritual but very earthy."

I'm not really sure where she is going with this, and in fact, Kate states
that she's not really sure what she's saying, but I imagine it *might*
lead somewhere (maybe we should refer *Kate* to alt.cyberpunk!). Anybody
care to take this farther?

woj --- woiccare@clutx.clarkson.edu