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From: chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Does someone REALLY belive this?
Message-ID: <6@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 12-Nov-84 10:26:54 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.6
Posted: Mon Nov 12 10:26:54 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Nov-84 08:21:38 EST
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Organization: DEC Engineering Network
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Ken Lee  ==  >
> I agree that computers are over-used (abused?) in modern American society. 
> How many times have you tried to make a transaction at your local bank/travel
> agent/motor vehicals office/etc. and have gotten the reply "I'm sorry I can't
> help you, our computer is down".  

No, this is merely that computers are now a vital bureacratic tool providing
a vital bureacratic service: time-delays.  In former times, you would have been
told 

  "You have to fill out this form in octuplicate, deliver it in person to
  our Victorville office between the hours of 10:30 and 2 on Tuesday or 
  Fridays (except in August or December).  Processing time will take about
  six weeks, at which time you might receive a notification from us to visit
  the Victorville office and arrange for an appointment (at another date) to
  discuss your application." 

Nowsadays, lower order bureacrats can no longer hold up their head and drone
out such regulations--the customer will only jeer about the lack of computer
efficiency and indicate that the custom will be better placed elsewhere.
Therefore, ta-da!  Computers! And the ideal stock answer: 

  "I'm-sorry-but-the-computer-is-down.>click<"

The effectiveness of this line is incomparable.  The customer meekly accepts
the downiness of the Computer, where in former times the customer might plead
that couldn't the bureaucrat or some one down the chain see the simple human
necessity of fixing whatever's been preventing pay checks from being issued to
the customer for six weeks now, thereby endangering the customer's supply of
food and mtv.  Computers are implacable, and can't be asked to give something
on the benefit of a doubt.

My bank's own computer was down every time I tried to find out how they were
continuing to keep my account in a confused state--for four months.  I was
*immmm-pressed*!  Now where that I've ever worked has ever managed to keep
a computer down for more than a week and a half (and that took the installation
of a beta field test version of the operation system and extra processor).
Now, a bank that can manage to have a computer down for months has really got
something going for them!  Of course, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is
even better--theirs was down for over 6 months while they were attempting to 
really really make sure I had no criminal record; this extraordinary effort is
required, though, in order to keep down the number of hand-gun permits that
will actually reach completion (it worked for me).

> The systems implemented in these organizations are so computer-dependant that
> human back-up is impractical or impossible. 

The problem is that "the computer is down" is so easy to use and practical--
removing the need for training levels of bureacratic offices.  It's utility was
probably first feared by red-tape professionals, but used as an emergency
measure during a busy flu season.  And now, it's unrecoverable.  Human backup
is just not as cost effective. 

However, many organizations use a mix of computer and human red-tape generation.
For instance, police departments are known to keep criminal records on line,
and some go the extra effort and keep track of "possible" criminals (you know,
blacks, students, and people who write letters to the editor of the newspaper,
and other fringe personalities)), but the bicycle you had licensed half a 
year ago--nah.  Paper copy only, and that's been archived.  The difference is 
that future criminals of tomorrow are important to watch (they may write more
letters), but the theft of a bicycle happens every day.  Of course, the owner
of the bicycle sees it differently being unable to objectively view the 
difference between the damage caused to society and having to walk to work that
morning, and writes a letter to the editor of the local paper, thereby adding
to the file. 

Another method is used in banks, where account officers incorrectly fill in 
the forms for you, and the computer expertly keeps track of the mistakes and
is handily down in case of a necessary reference.  Garbage In, Gospel Out.

> Also, skilled positions are being replaced by semi-skilled or unskilled jobs,
> which deteriorates the quality of life in this country.  I think too much
> weight is being placed on short term local productivity gains, without looking
> at longer-term, society wide, problems produced by mechanization. 

The problem is that nobody wants to do those jobs anyway.  They're boring, and
you have to climb a long, slow, boring ladder in order to make enough money to
own your own refrigerator.  These are the kind of jobs still depicted in comics
in, say, Parade magazine--the ones where the tired, balding, newspaper-reading
father is trying to argue with his long-haired son about the necessity of 
getting a job, and the son whines about "meaningful work" (which the father
doesn't have).(It's never the long-haired (or short-haired) daughter who's in
these vignettes, because in the stereotypical world she is supposed to want to
get married and be kept and rear dolls.  However, if she's totally unmarri-
offable (i.e., ugly or independent), these now-computer-replaced jobs would be
her only likely target.) 

The biggest problem about computers is that they are disrupting the American
Way of Life As We Know It and want to keep it.  By reducing the necessity for
people to do mindless arithmetic calculations, they are reducing the supreme
necessary difference between the boys and the girls--Math Anxiety!  This is
Terrible!!  Girls are brought up emotionally slapped not to excel past the 
boys (or else no one Manly will want to marry you), so one of the things they
drop first is often math.  Well, now boys don't have to bother with arithmetic
either.  The personal computer marketeers are disrupting Our Way of Life--I
mean, a four year old of any sex could interact meaningfully with a Mac, and
most four year olds barely count.  What's to prevent girls?  Or women?  Or your
mother? 

I only see two solutions and both of them rely on making computers undesirable
to females: either girls will have to learn not to count or press buttons, or
crts will have to be widely known as causing sterility (this could either be
manufactured into the hardware or manufactured in wordware).  The former is to
ensure that boys still excel at what little arithmetic anyone still does, and
could possibly be engineered by creating a new fad in personal appearance so 
that makeup takes a lot longer to do or master (girls still have to excell in
prettiness); the latter will make sure that any female who interacts with 
computers can be labelled as a radical feminist lesbian communist man-hating
anti-family (< - since she won't have one) scumbucket (or at least to have
something *wrong* with her -- won't get married like a decent person, or 
(eeewww yucko) past breeding age).

Obviously defective :-),
L S Chabot
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