People Cannot Compete with Computers
The reason for this is simple – people are motivated mostly by their emotions, which are often in conflict with each other. A computer has no emotions, it is completely logical (it cannot be anything else, since it is only a machine). As a result, it can out-smart us easily.
This is not a matter of a computer acting like a human. That fantasy (the Star-Wars fantasy) is only a reflection of our grandiose feeling that everything else in the world wants to be like us. The most powerful conflict in our history been between our machines and us – between two different versions of what we are – animals with an over-active central nervous system.
In fact. we have already realized this – that we cannot compete – and have left the world (which has been taken over by computers) for another world – one we can control, since it is a fabrication of our own.
I must clarify what I mean by the Computer - which will involve the murky divide between us and our machines. Not an area we are used to thinking about. But, at this late date, we must think about.
One idea we must clarify is that of the soul. This is the belief that each person has a special, supernatural part of themselves that cannot be destroyed, and is the seat of their being (who they are, including their intelligence). It is in control of their individual life – and collectively, of their social lives. Not something else.
But anyone with half an eye can easily see that something else is in control. What is this?
It is, once again, the rich and powerful, the powers that be, that have been in control for most of our history. With the brief exceptions when Democracy (or Republicanism) was tried out – and found wanting. These guys own the people, who can program the computers, that make them all-powerful.
But once again, I must clarify what I mean by the Computer. I am referring, not just to the latest developments – computer hardware and software – and the Internet and Wireless networks. But the conglomerate of these and everything that went on before them – clear back to the Sailing Ship (that began global trade) and then the Industrial Revolution after it.
Beginning in the 19th Century, these technological advances (which fed on each other) quickly overwhelmed us. And the first thing that was overwhelmed was our control (our awareness) of ourselves and our societies.
This is where we are now – nowhere in human terms, but everywhere in the networks we are now extended into.
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