Hi Bob,
I fear you and I have gotten off on the wrong foot. So let me
attempt to clarify some things...
I do not think you are a drooling idiot. (But Woz's Apple...now
you're scaring me!) You seem intelligent and decent and as
though you are genuinely trying to understand.
Perhaps I do suffer from too long experience and from becomming
too comfortable with computers, but it is very difficult for me
to relate these trifling (in comparison) machines to something as
serious and important as AIDS or a brain tumor or a gang killing
someone for wearing the wrong jacket. For me they are not even
in the same league. Those things you mentioned are much more
important, serious issues. I expect if all the computers blew up
tomorrow we would muddle through and do fine. We have been
managing to live and communicate and exchange information for
thousands of years before computers and Windows came along.
[Mini-rant: For Pete sake, the PC (286-ish) has been out for
over 10 years now and computers have really exploded into our
reality since 1995. It's time and time and past time to get over
the "computer phobia" already! People do things much more
dangerous everyday - your driving anaology is a good one here -
without a thought, but are afraid of a computer? Pah-leeze!
I never saw a computer kill anyone. Of course it really isn't
phobia at all, but rather laziness - people don't want to be
bothered to learn anything new.]
It may help if you understand that computers changed my life for
the better in incredible ways. Like everyone I had (and have) my
personal problems, I had difficult obstacles to overcome. I have
never in all my years of experience seen the "victim mentality"
do anyone any good. On the other hand I have seen it do very
much harm. It is disempowering. I'm from the old, hard line Zen
school: YOU CREATE YOUR OWN REALITY (just as I create mine). No
one else, you can't blame it on society, culture, the government,
God or even Micro$oft. "Argue for your limitations and you get
to keep them." Think and believe something is difficult and of
course it is! Think and believe you have no choice and you
don't! Open your mind and believe you do have a choice and watch
the incredible things that can happen when you choose, when you
know you *can* do something, when you learn something that
improves your life. There is a whole Universe of possibilities
out there! Limiting people by telling them they have no choice
or that they can't effect a change in their own life/reality does
not help them, rather it does serious harm. It continually
astonishes me how little understanding of freedom most Americans
have. It also continually astonishes me how much Americans whine
- all while driving their late model cars, going to their climate
controlled homes and offices, talking on their cellular phones,
etc and etc and complaining what a tough life they have and how
they are being forced to do this or that.
And worst of all something as trivial as being "victimized" by
computers or Windows takes so much away from those you mentioned
who really are victims of serious problems. For me it's very
simple: either a person can whine and cry and fear and resist -
or they can learn and change their life immeasurably for the
better. It is up to each individual alone. Helping the
individual not to learn by dumbing everything down does not help
the individual or the species inprove (evolve) themselves.
Relieving people of personal responsibility for their choices and
decisions is not doing them or the rest of us any favors.
Anytime anything gets too big, it is very simple: absolute
power corrupts absolutely. A La' Micro$oft. And anytime people
sell their responsibility to something else they don't really
understand - Windows - they must understand that there is a price
and there are consequences. When the piper comes around to be
paid, you must pay, you wanted to dance! If it helps at all,
Micro$oft is not the only large "Evil Empire" I hate. I also
hate the phone company, the oil companies, the entire insurance
industry but especially HMO's, and land developers, to name but
a few.
It may also help you to know that I do not blame Micro$oft alone,
but rather I blame everyone who has supported them by buying
their products. Without people to sell to they couldn't have
become what they are and we wouldn't have the mess on our hands
that we do now.
A voice in the wilderness,
Boanne
--
FROM: Over the hills and far away...
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A Dinosaurs Garden (collection of DOS links and files)
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*Trust your technologist.
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
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