The Bad Effects of the Computer on People

In 1980, the transistor was invented, and my career as an Electronics Engineer was over.

But something else immediately replaced it: the Computer. It took a while for us to realize this: 10 years, in fact. We knew something big was taking over the world, but we weren't sure what it was.

I had become a Tech Writer and got to see the destructive shenanigans that were going on, in company after company in Southern California.

Southern California and Arizona had been the scene of intense aircraft manufacturing during WWII, This what made Los Angeles: Aerospace. Computers were something different, but we were not sure how they were different. We just knew that whatever they were, they attracted a lot of money. And a lot of people, like me.

Aerospace had always attracted the most ruthless people, but the Computer made them even worse. The focus was on the money and nothing else.

IBM had invented the Personal Computer, and company after company busted its balls trying to improve on that. Huge amounts of money went right down the drain.

The Operating Systems of the time could not support the demands that we being made on them. And the Computer scene (and myself) moved Northward to Silicon Valley. The Nineties had arrived, and the Internet Boom took off. 

This when the Computer made things bad for People. It got so much attention (and money) that people were forgotten. In fact, they ceased to exist.

Let me repeat that: People no longer existed - the worst thing that could happen to them.

Now, thirty years later, the Computer Industry, is beginning to realize that people make computers, they do not make themselves.  And they better take care of them.

This was a difficult realization, made more difficult by the arrival of Artificial Intelligence and Cryptocurrencies.

In the middle of all this, people still cease to exist.