A Person Who Does Not Think

How can I end the beginning of this sentence? A person who does not think is not much of a person? Is a normal person? Cannot succeed in the Computer Ecosystem? All are correct.

But I want to start with the first two - how Industrialization produced the non-thinking person. This has been remarked on many times, but it bears repeating - a culture of machines, made people like machines themselves. They were expected to perform their job, but not think about what they were doing. But this analysis requires some fine-tuning.

My father's father, worked for the Santa Fe Railroad, early in the 20th Century. His job could be described as a Safety Inspector, but usually he was called a Wheel Knocker. He had a hammer with a long handle, and walked down each side of a train - tapping each wheel to see if it was cracked, and checking for hot boxes - the journal bearings, in use at the time, could freeze up, get hot, and catch on fire.

Defective machinery was common, and his job was to detect it before it became a problem. The main requirement for his job was simple - he had to show up, on time, and do his job. In other words, he had to stay sober - no problem for him, because drinking was against his religion.

But slightly later, the Sheaffer Pen Company became established on the east side of his town, Ft. Madison, Iowa. It employed a different kind of worker - who did piece-work, where each worker performed the same job, over and over. But was paid for how many times they did their job. This made them think about their job - how they could do it faster!

Grandfather Smith did not have to think about his job, but his daughter, for worked for Sheaffer Pen, did. Things had changed - this kind of thinking, made companies more profitable. And all over the Industrial Midwest, American companies started making most of the world's machinery.

When WWII started, these same companies produced war material, in large quantities - won the War, and became the most powerful country in history!

Allow me to summarize here. The application of machine logic, to make more products, more efficiently - produced Affluence  A chicken in every pot, and a car in every garage. But a concentration on making more things, at the expensive of meeting people's needs.

In fact - and this is an important point - things had become more important than people. But the people did not notice this.

When the Computer showed up, another big shift happened. Computer people had to think - and think about all parts of their jobs! This will be the subject of future postings.