[ThrowawayR2]

> "I love Connections but the basic thesis (there are hidden connections between disparate developments in science and technology)..."

Good grief, no. The basic thesis of Connections 1 was that humanity has become fatally dependent on technology (the "technology trap" he speaks of), that that dependence continues getting deeper and deeper, and it's hard to predict what technologies will emerge or where technology will take us, possibly utopia but just as likely a living hell, and finally that we don't even have the option to stop digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the technology trap because technological advancement can't be stopped because its emergence is unpredictable. Re-watch just the first and last episodes and they will terrify you.

Connections 2 and 3 were indeed scattershot because people liked Burke's charming mannerisms and didn't want to think about the ever more complex and ever more fragile panoply of technologies that individuals, even the technologists themselves, can neither understand nor control that is all that stands between humanity and its extinction.

[JKCalhoun]

Agree with your comments on Connections 1.

Better still, like a well-written essay, there is closure to the series. All the ends left about in the preceding episodes are drawn together neatly in the final one.

[eesmith]

I just watched the first episode. The simulated nuclear attack did terrify me.

That said, his commentary about telecommuting is spot-on. At 39:49 of https://archive.org/details/the-day-the-universe-changed-s01... .

"The point about all this technological pizazz isn't the gee-whiz high-tech stuff. It's the secondary effects of using it. Take say what this chip could do to change the pattern of work. With this you could have telecommuting, that's where you work at home from a screen and you never go into the office.

Great! No more rush hour. But what does that do to the public transportation system and the taxes it uses. Or to the car manufacturers and their workers' jobs, and the rest of the economy that depends on their output?

Or to the concept of the city itself, with its support systems and businesses. Or to the downtown properties where maybe your pension fund's invested.

Not to speak of working at home day in and day out and what that might do to a marriage. And what do you get out of work when it's only you? What would be the effect of isolating and fragmenting the community like that?

From just one application of this microchip."

[eesmith]

Wow, I messed up there!

You were talking about Connections. I watched The Day The Universe Changed.

Just realized my mistake now, and watched Connections episode 1.

Yeah, totally about technology traps.