Society and the Computer

We now have two kinds of machines - Mechanical and Digital. And they have produced two kinds of people.

The Mechanical produced people who could not get along with each other - this is 99 percent of the present population. The Digital is producing people who have to get along together. - this is 1 percent of the population.

Neither population is very aware of the other - and doesn't want to be. Understanding the other would be too much work, that no one would thank them for. People seem satisfied now with two worlds, who do not understand each other. This, they think - is the best they can do, under the circumstances.

They are probably right - but it seems to me, we could do a little bit better. And this effort would have to be from the vast majority - who would have to try to understand the Computer. Something they now resist, like the appearance of the Black Plague. Something, they are sure - that is out to destroy them.

To understand this, we have to get inside their heads. And understand their unconscious mental processing - as a Mechanical culture.

This produced vast wealth, but also workers - people who understood little, They just did their job - without thinking about it. And this is the one demand they make of their world "Don't make me think!"

Precisely the apposite of what the Digital world demands - that they think!