I currently work in the IT support field, but my work career did not start off this way. My first full time job with benefits was at a package manufacturing company. In the early days, everything was done on paper and kept in big, clunky, metal filing cabinets. That was back in the days when there was no such thing as police cars with wifi and laptop computers. Police, EMS and Fire Fighters used radios and recorded everything on forms on clipboards. All that seems so archaic now.
When I first started working on the previously mentioned job, if the word “computer” ever came up in a conversation, (which was extremely rare), my mind went back to a field trip in elementary school. One of my classmate’s father worked at IBM. I have no idea what he did. But the class took a field trip to IBM to see the computers. Most of them were the size of a small house! I had no idea what they were used for. It was a mystery I did not pretend to understand. The highlight of the field trip was at the end, when my friend’s dad did something on one of the behemoths, and then it printed out a long, black and white picture of Santa Claus, composed of strategically arranged 1s and 0s on long paper with holes on the edge to pull the paper through the printer and be torn off once the image was printed. Some older readers may know what I am talking about. To younger readers, this sounds like something out of the stone age. Just a hint: Dot Matrix has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves saving the human race from becoming batteries! This was somewhere in the late 1960s or early 1970s. I don’t remember what grade I was in when we took the field trip.
The first of what we commonly refer to as PC’s or Personal Computers, began to appear in the mid 1970’s with the invention of the micro-processor, which made the building of much smaller computers possible, as opposed to the enormous mainframes, which had been the mainstay of computing up until that time. Most of these smaller computers were sold in kits that required the purchaser to assemble.
My career as a computer programmer started and ended somewhere in the timeframe of 1980 through 1982, in the community college where I obtained an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration. I was required to take a class in computer programming, which, I somehow, miraculously managed to pass. The one and only computer program I ever “wrote” consisted of punching holes in a card that was fed into some kind of machine that made the screen read “Hello World!”
Several years later, in this same general time frame, my first wife bought what is referred to as a “bag phone”. These were the first portable phones that did not require line access, but could be used anywhere there was a signal, which back then was limited to certain geographical areas. The phone was approximately the size of a cinder block, and weighed about the same, very different from these small devices everyone carries around in their pockets today. The phones were expensive, and the service was expensive, and all they were used for was making phone calls.
Somewhere in the time frame of the early 1990s, computers started showing up in the factory where I worked. I started thinking to myself, “I better learn about computers because soon it will be a necessity.” I started reading books about DOS, and then later Windows, which in its infancy was much different than it is now. It actually started to make sense to me, although I never had any formal computer training, aside from the aforementioned hole punching scenario. I bought a used DOS based computer from the hospital where my current, real wife worked and started playing around with it. Soon after that, a year or so later I bought my first Windows computer, and felt that I had entered the big league. It had a whopping 128KB of memory, and a 120 MB of storage space to the best of my recollection. It had a modem that dialed into the internet making an awful noise! I got my first America Online Account, and anxiously awaited the magical “You’ve got mail” notification.
I became fascinated with the possibilities that computers held. It almost seemed magical in the early days. The biggest advantage I saw was twofold: first, the ability to store massive amounts of data in an exchangeable format that did not require data being stored in big, clunky, metal filing cabinets, and easily accessible to many users. The second thing was being able to communicate with people via email, and search for things on the internet. I did experiment with gaming a little bit in the early days, but soon grew bored with it. Gaming has never held much interest for me, although I did “crush” “Putt Putt Goes to the Moon” with our kids! I liked the ability to manipulate graphic images and create video. I did learn HTML, and built websites for people as a side gig, but that became obsolete as a lot of the web hosting companies began to provide their customers with web templates where they could basically point and click and create their own websites.
I got my first job involving computers in 1996. My youngest brother had a friend, who’s sister was a manager at IBM. She managed an internal service desk for IBM. In other words, it was a helpdesk for IBM employees. I somehow managed to convince her that I knew enough about computers to get hired. IBM had its own operating system back then called OS2, and that is what we used. IBM eventually abandoned OS2 and started using Microsoft Windows.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, the .com boom began, and a lot of companies started putting their business online. This was the early days of eCommerce, when the ability to purchase things online started. It was also along this same time that cell(ular) phones started to appear, a much smaller and convenient version of the aforementioned “bag-phone”. I don’t recall exactly when I got my first cell phone. Like the bag-phone, initially these smaller phones were primarily used for making phone calls, not accessing the internet and doing all the things we now use cell phones for. Most of them did have a few simplistic games included.
At IBM, as the .com boom started, a group of young men working for IBM in Tampa Florida started what was called eBusiness Operations. They set up webservers and database servers on IBM networks to provide the place for businesses to come online. In 1999, IBM decided to move the operation from Tampa to Research Triangle Park, NC. That is where I was working for IBM. My co-workers and I were moved from the IBM internal helpdesk to what they called eBusiness Operations. We were trained to service the eCommerce accounts. I can proudly say that I was involved in helping the IBM web-hosting clients navigate through the dreaded non-event that we refer to as the Y2K crisis, the day the world was supposed to melt, and didn’t.
In many ways, the advent of the personal computer age, and subsequently the arrival of the smart phone, have changed our lives for the better. In other ways, it seems to have turned them into a hellish nightmare. It seems that human beings have a propensity to take anything good, corrupt it, and turn it into a thing of evil. Computers and smartphones are not, in and of themselves, good or evil. They are just things. It is what we do with them that is the issue. Without meaning to sound like one who is given to conspiracy theories, I am of the opinion that smart phones and tablets, as they are currently being used by a large segment of the population, have been turned into a mechanism for mind control by sinister forces of government and the media. That does not mean they are always used that way. They certainly are not. But think for a moment; this is the first time in recorded history that people have voluntarily walked around with a device that is capable of tracking their whereabouts and have information, (most of which is lies and propaganda), fed into their minds all of the time. We constantly feed personal information about ourselves into social media and allow people from all over the world that we know nothing about, to profile us for all kinds of different reasons. When you have Location enabled on your smart phone, your GPS antenna basically becomes a tracking device. You are monitored just like a prisoner on leave with an ankle bracelet for tracking purposes.
Walk up and down any sidewalk in a moderately congested area, and all you will see is 95 percent of the people, walking in a zombie like state with their faces plastered to their smart phones. Go to dinner at your favorite restaurant. Look around the room at the other patrons, and you will witness the same thing. People will be busily thumbing away on their phones, snapping pictures of their baked potato to post on Snap Chat, and virtually ignoring the person sitting across the table from them, who is also probably doing the same thing. People stay engrossed in “Social Media” that distracts them from engaging in actual socializing with real people around them.
”Virtual life” seems to have a greater attraction for many people than real life. When a friend posts on social media, or sends you a text message, indicating that a loved one is in the hospital for (fill in the blank), and they need prayer, it is much easier to just click on a praying hands icon than stop what you are doing and actually pray for that person. When a friend is lonely or depressed, no need to take time out of your busy schedule to actually go see them and have an encouraging chat over a cup of coffee or lunch when you can just type up a quick message with emojis and acronyms to let them know how much you care. As for acronyms, you don’t even have to take the time to use actual words when such a rich plethora of acronyms is readily supplied to you by your smart phone. You don’t even have to bother to take the time to type the acronym, the phone will suggest it for you and do all the work. Smart phones produce dumb people! I am starting a new chapter of the SPCA in my local area. (Society for the Prevention of the Creation of Acronyms!)
Visit any of your neighbors who have school age children during the afternoon when school is over. It is very unlikely that you will witness any of the children climbing the trees in the yard (one of my favorite past times as a child.) They will not be riding their bicycles up and down the street or building small ramps to propel those unused bicycles through the air in an Evel Knievel fashion (another joy of my youth.) What you will likely find is one of the kids parked in front of the family desktop playing online games, another child sprawled out on the couch, tablet in hand, updating her Facebook or Snapchat, etc. You get the point.
The helicopter parents, both of whom (if there are two), probably also have their faces glued to their phones. They are perfectly fine with this arrangement, because they don’t have to worry about little Billy skinning his knee while playing in the yard, or some other such horrendous medical emergency such as getting a splinter in his finger. (A more likely scenario would be thumb strain!)
We live in a society that has become mind slaves to little 6”X3” devices in our pockets. We voluntarily submit our minds and souls to sinister forces that feed us a pre-packaged narrative that shapes our world view and beliefs to suit their agenda of eventual world domination and subjugation of the masses. We are controlled by fear as we are perpetually spoon (phone) fed news of impending doom, the catastrophe of the week. Like going into Baskin Robbins to select your favorite flavor of ice cream, you simply need to Google some current news or political item and you will be provided with a multitude of articles pre-selected by the people controlling the algorithms that provides you with the slant that they want you to partake of. You think you are drawing your own conclusions. The conclusions have already been drawn for you. You are just feeding your mind on them and thinking they are yours.
We are living in an era when all news is slanted in one direction or other. There is no such thing as unbiased journalism anymore. Liberals slant the news to suit their agenda, and Conservatives slant the news to suit their agenda. It seems everyone has an ulterior motive. We are swimming in a sea of lies.
Now, as of early spring 2020, as a result of the Corona, or COVID 19 virus, we are forced to socially isolate and again plaster our faces in front of our screens, (as if we didn’t do that enough already,) and “ZOOM” each other. Don’t take that new baby to see “Grandma”, just ZOOM her! Maybe she can give the baby a virtual kiss. (Tell her to click on the lips icon.) Shut up, go back to your cave, and grab that screen like a good dog.
I am not making light of COVID 19. We need to be careful, practice good hygiene, and use common sense in keeping each other from getting sick. When this whole thing first started, we did not know what we were dealing with, so naturally we wanted to be careful. Better safe than sorry, as the old saying goes. But let’s look at some facts that we now know, and start acting like people that have some common sense, instead of continuing to operate in a state of hysteria, panic and fear, and subjugating ourselves to sinister political powers that ultimately do not have our long term interest in mind, but more a perpetuation of their own power over us.
We were initially told that COVID 19 could be spread by touching things. Now, we are being told that that is probably not as much of an issue as we originally thought, so you don’t need to constantly sterilize everything you touch in public, (like the keypads on credit/debit card readers, gasoline pump handles, etc.) We all need to practice good hygiene and keep our hands washed anyway; COVID or no COVID. That is just common sense.
We have been told that COVID primarily affects the elderly and those who are immuno-compromised. That applies to all illnesses, and we should seek to protect those two classes of people. Those two categories of people should take precaution themselves against all illnesses, not just COVID. Normal, healthy people will not be affected severely by COVID, but, as with any other illness, such as a severe cold or flu, if you are sick, stay at home. Don’t go to work and make your whole department sick. That is just common courtesy, and common sense. I tell the people I manage, if you are sick, don’t try to play the hero and come to work. Then I will just have more sick people to deal with, and I do not want to get sick myself. Stay at home!
We have been told that COVID is primarily spread through the respiratory system. If someone who has COVID coughs or sneezes on you, their spit or mucus could enter your respiratory system and infect you. In order to prevent this from happening, we have been told to wear face masks in public. If you are a human being who makes a practice of sneezing or coughing on other people, you need to stay out of the public. Wash your hands, don’t sneeze or cough on others! Again, that is just common courtesy and common sense. But the same thing applies to the flu. Even in flu season, people, in mass, have not been mandated to wear masks in public. If you have COVID, or the flu, don’t go around other people unless it is an emergency, and if you must go out, then, by all means, wear a mask out of decency to others. If you are elderly or immune-compromised, and it is flu season, or some other illness is going around that you are aware of, then, again, by all means wear a mask if you feel it is in your best interest to do so.
Now, you are asking yourself, “What does all this have to do with the origin of the PC, cellphones, and the advent of the internet?’ Several things. First, the advent of the internet has made news spread at the speed of light now. Something can happen on the other side of the world, and you can find out about it in five minutes. What used to take days and weeks to become public knowledge can now happen in a matter of minutes. This means public reaction to anything is almost instantaneous. There is no time for contemplation and fact gathering. There is no time for the comparison of the varying opinions of subject matter experts. News about anything hits, and immediately all of social media is under a deluge of bickering back and forth, polarizing around different takes on the same issue, and in many cases, the deliberate distortion of facts for the sake of creating orchestrated chaos and controversy.
It seems like we are constantly being bombarded with some new crisis. Being “connected” all the time, via smart phones, laptops, tablets, etc., just keeps us in an intentionally orchestrated panic. Sinister, self-seeking world leaders know that the best method of controlling people is fear and panic.
I am not advocating that we all disconnect and move to remote cabins in the mountains and ignore the world around us. (I will admit, however, that idea has appealed to me personally from time to time. I do not plan to do that.) God does not desire for us to become disengaged from the world around us. He desires for us to be engaged, but in a life-giving way, not subject to the fear and hysteria that controls much of society. In the world, but not of it.
What I am suggesting is that most of us could stand a lot LESS screen time, and a lot more personal involvement in the lives of those around us. We could all stand a lot more fresh air and sunshine, and a lot less Facebook, Insta-gram, SnapChat, and ZOOM.
We could all stand a lot more time for contemplation, prayer, meditation, exercise, and life-giving fellowship with one another.
We live in a time when cooler heads need to prevail, and we need to shepherd this mass of hysteria driven sheep out of reactionary mode, and into a place where well thought out answers to the world’s problems can be considered, and we can break out of our bondage to this digital prison! Turn your phone off for a little while. Leave it in the house, and go out for a nice long walk and let the warm breeze caress your face, and find a better place.
Danny's Stump 