Give up all hopes of escape!
If you have no computer, you are nobody. If you have no Internet connection, you might as well commit suicide.
Harsh sentiments, you say? May be. Let us look at ourselves in a bit more depth.
It was forecast, so the word is, by none other than the accredited father of modern computers - John von Neumann - that a dozen computers would be sufficient to meet the computing needs of the world. That was in the 1940's.
At the time, a computer would have occupied a warehouse. Computing power? A few hundred instructions a second (I may be out by a magnitude here, but not by many). Who would have thought a personal computer would sit on your lap, doing several orders of magnitude of work in a second? And achieve that capability within half a century?
Such is the spread of computers in the world that you will agree with my first sentiment?
There was a time one went to a bank to draw and deposit money. One turns up at a counter and a smiling/morose teller would handle your transaction. You could ask questions, and receive verbal corrections (=???) when you make the odd mistake.
What now? Under the well-known euphemism "rationalisation", gone are those personal contacts. One now does banking via Internet , i.e. via your computer. You get your cash from a hole in a wall. Yes, Internet opens so many possibilities - good and bad.
Why are all these "facilities" offered to the society? . If you remember the sales talk, you might recollect terms like "cashless society", "put you in control", "24x7 availability". That is all I can recollect at the moment.
So, if one is not computer literate, and technology aware, one might be forced to starve. So, my second sentiment.
OK. Computers are now so indispensable. We write letters on them, communicate via them, do our accounting, administration,… It is indeed a long list. In fact the servant has become the master: society has been enslaved.
Who is responsible for the mistakes attributable to computers, i.e. the software that runs on computers? From the day they came into contact with society, even for the human mistakes on the operations side, computers got the blame. I am sure you would have had to listen to excuses like "Sorry, it is the computer," coming from people at counters.
The "bugs" in software bugs everyone and the developers get away with murder! Who pays for the damage done to your lost intellectual property when a computer program crashes? When a car crashes and someone gets injured due to a fault attributable to the car, the manufacturers are held to account. Far more damage is done in the world as a result of faulty software. No one is accountable!
Loss of information is one thing. Because of poorly designed and tested software, loopholes are left for hackers to get in and steal your money in the banks. Who are responsible for these security breaches? Who compensates you?
The current fashion is to collect information, whether needed or not, about the citizens and store them in computer databases. The same information, most of the time, are requested and collected by different agencies. Your details lie, practically, all over the world, thanks to globalisation and out-sourcing. Given the trustworthiness of the current computer software, the low security available, who can guarantee that the information will only be available to legitimate users? Are your personal details safe?
Innocent it may look like, when you send an e-mail or visit a Web site. Are you aware of the multitude of "eyes" prying into what you are doing?
It is more than 1984 now. In fact 1984 has been here for some time, only people were not taking it seriously, and were not looking for the tell-tale signs. Yes, it is not stopping there, when some idiots in the name of science inject themselves with chips that would allow external monitors to track their movements! Crazy is not the word. Who will you be as a person in the future?
You wait - more horror stories are coming . Watch out for the smooth marketing pitches. Yes, they all do it for your benefit. Of course!
The campaign to make your life effortless does not end there. There is a branch of research which is bent on making computers more intelligent than humans. Coping with fallibilities of humans is bad enough, you would say, but to cope with machines built by humans is certainly going to make your life comfortable. A couple of decades ago, the field was so hot that it was as if the intelligent machines were just around the corner. The clamour seems to have died down since. But, it had not stopped the manufacturers come up with "intelligent washing powders" though!
Is this a campaign to banish computers? Certainly not. I am also dependent on it - to bring my message to you. But we must be awake to the jargon and commercial interests that try to highjack you to fulfil their agendas and pockets, and be in a position to ask: do I really need this bit of kit or that software packet or embrace that chunk of technology.
It is you who will carry the can!
Remember that!!