the dominance of the machine presupposes a society in the last stages of increasing entropy, where probability is negligible and where the statistical differences among individuals are nil. | wiener, the human use of human beings, 1950

... only leads to frustration. early telephone concepts played with the idea of dead microphone transmission system. didn't work out.

human versus machine behavior/prosthetic device

It is very easy to construct such dead-microphone transmission systems, and they have actually been considered by the telephone companies, only to be rejected because of the frightful sense of frustration they cause, especially the frustration of not knowing how much of one's own voice gets onto the line. people using a system of this sort are always forced to yell at the top of their voices, to be sure that they have missed no opportunity to get the message accepted by the line | norbert wiener, the human use of human beings, 1950

~30years later replace communication with "social" & study the effects.

1. communication as a market commodity, 2. communication as a springboard for eco- nomic growth and development, and 3. communication as a basic societal infra- structure. | critical connections - communication for the future, us congress, office of technology assessment, ota-cit-407, 1990.