How Does Programming Help Us in the Rest of Our Lives?

It convinces us, once again, that we can use our minds to solve our problems - and we have plenty of those!

All we have to do, is decide to use our minds. Usually, we prefer to use our emotions instead. And they can be very stupid.

This conflict, between thinking and feeling - is probably the most basic one we have. And we should be keenly aware of this.

When we first got started, maybe a million years ago - this was not a problem. We just assessed the world around us - including food supplies, and predators - moved in, and took over - from those who were not so intellectually endowed.

We lived in small bands, with a maximum of one hundred, closely related individuals - living off the land. It was an easy life. But it did not last.

We became civilized, and lived in much larger groups. And life became much more complicated. We could no longer think very well about what was going on. One group, the Greeks - did have its thinkers - but there was too much going on, for them to understand it very well.

They preferred to fight each other instead - and were conquered by the Romans. Who ruled much of the Western world for hundreds of years. Eventually, the Roman Empire fell - and we entered the Middle Ages. And then entered the Modern world - where we still live.

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I started out, by talking about our present problems - but I had to do a historical review to explain them! Most people do not want to do this - they do not want to think about their problems - they want to feel about them - and do whatever their feelings tell them to do.

We are ruled by our emotions, not by our minds - and this has gotten us into plenty of trouble.

We don't have to be this way - we can think very well, as we do when we are programming, so very well.