Information systems need to have information in order to run, but information under-represents reality. Demand more from information than it can give, then you end up with monstrous designs. ...[ about No Child Left Behind ]... What computerized analysis of all the country's school tests has done to education, is exactly what Facebook has done to friendships. In both cases, life is turned into a database. Both degradations are based on the same philosophical mistake, which is the belief that computers can presently represent human thought or human relationships. These are things that computers cannot currently do. (Ch. 3)

This note was recorded by Sally Carson from page of You Are Not a Gadget.