We do not Understand the Computer

"Yes," you may say, "But so what, what difference does that make?" My answer is simple - if we do not understand the Computer, we do not understand our world, and how it is changing us.

We have learned how to use the computer - but not how to understand it. Two different things entirely.

We were greatly changed by the Industrial Revolution - and learned how to be part of a culture of hierarchical organizations (social machines) that were organized from the top down. This produced astonishing affluence - but a series of wars (from the middle of the 19th Century to the middle of the 20th) of unusual intensity. And atrocities, such as the Holocaust. Something had gone wrong.

Then the Television and the Computer arrived. And made our situation even more complicated. Some of us said, back in the Sixties "Stop the world, I want to get off!" But the world did not stop.

We should have decided, right then, that we had to understand what was going on. But we did not. And this was a huge mistake.

We are stuck with a world that does not work - and cannot fix itself. Because fixing it, would mean changing it, fundamentally. This is not an unusual situation - those in power, want to stay in power. But they now have ways of disguising this.

Ways that are enabled by the Computer, that can figure out how we are thinking - and change how we are thinking, without our being aware of it. This is Propaganda, something that has been done for a long time, by influencing what people read - mainly the newspapers.

But few read anymore - they watch their TVs, or their Smartphones.