Being Part of a Group, Or Being an Individual

Any society is composed of these two types of people - and the relationship between the two is crucial to how it operates.

Only individuals can understand how a group is operating. And in group-dominated societies, these can be severely discriminated against (even burned at the stake) - and their observations ignored.

When I was part of the Computer Industry, in California, in the Eighties and Nineties - I could not help but notice how group-orientated those societies were.

Previous to this, I had been an Electronic Engineer, a position of some status, where I was expected to operate as an individual. That career ended with the invention of the transistor. I decided to become a Technical Writer - where I was still well-paid, but had no individual status.

I thought I would be explaining products to the people who would be using them.- but instead, found myself part of Marketing, making the company look good, when it usually was not. I got to see an amazing amount of incompetence - in one company after another. And also got to see, how how no one was noticing this. Amazing!

Gradually, however, something else made its appearance - Software. That created its own kind of person, its own objectives - and even its own economy!

Two societies were operating at the same time - Hardware and Software. Where the Hardware was only dimly aware of the Software. But the Software was aware of the Hardware - because it had to be. The Computer hardware was the environment, in which they worked. And their work evolved as it evolved - from the PC, to the Desktop, to the Laptop.

And to the its networks - the Internet and the Cellular. And to the Phone, a computer you could hold in your hand!

All this happened rapidly - in less than fifty years! Most of the people were left behind, somewhere in Hardware - when Software was where it was at. 

What we have now, is intense confusion (even self-destruction) - that authoritarian leaders are benefiting from.