Thinking Inside The Box
How People have learned to be computer friendly and adopt to the requirements of software
- In the Beginning......
- The Borg Ship arrives
- The first steps in being Borged
- The Borging is Complete
- The Advance of the Borg
- Borging in Every day life
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In the Beginning......
When computers first became available to the average (or not so average) person, they were fairly simple. There was Command Line for DOS and UNIX had its own set of Commands.
You turned on the computer and it sits. It needs you to tell it what to do. Often you or your geek would (in DOS) create an Autoexec.bat file.
This file would Automatically Execute a Batch command.
Without getting into geek speak it would be like this;
"When I turn you on, after you masturbate, go to DOS and load that
puppy then go over and load my Word Processing Program, then go
jerk off in the corner."
Of course this was done in geek speak. You had to know how to talk to the computer
which either got what you were saying or "Bad Command or File Name".
The Borg Ship arrives
Bill Gates and his team, ripping off Mac (which had created kiddie computers), came up with the prechewed Windows application.
Figuring that the average person could just about turn on a computer, and entering commands way beyond their intellectual capacities, it was 'self loading' .
You turned the computer on. Billy had already created the Autoexec.bat file so it went immediately to Windows which had little pictures in case your reading ability wasn't up to par.
You didn't have to type anything, you got a nice big mouse to put your hand on and move the little arrow around and click on what you wanted.
This was called; "Making the Computer User Friendly."
Millions of people who never heard the term 'Command Line' (and would drop to the floor in hysteria if they saw a C:\ ) were now ever so Kumputa Litter rat.
The first steps in being Borged
As time went on there was a lot 'under the hood' most people didn't know about, and Must Consult Someone Else certified Eggspurts did.
Must Consult Someone Else (Microsoft Certified) Eggspurts really didn't know anything beyond the 'Help' key and if more people clicked the Help Key there would have been far less of them. But as 99% of the population was Computer illiterate and didn't know a microchip from a banana chip, did what they were told.
Users learned to become Computer Friendly.
Users learned to deal with 'defaults' because changing them was always problematic.
They learned how to reorganise their thought processes to conform to the way the
The Borging is Complete
As time passed people evolved to become more and more Computer friendly, shutting down those synapses in their brains which allowed for original thought. They began to think like a computer, creating protocols which were unquestionable.
Pre-computer the chief engineer could speak to the manager and say;
"I know I took my two weeks vacation last month, but my brother is getting married and
I have to travel abroad for the wedding. Just give me unpaid leave."
And the Manager would say, "Tell him congratulations."
Post-computer the Manager would reply; "Bad Command or File Name." since employees are only given two weeks paid vacation a year and as this employee wants
another vacation, although unpaid, that would offend the rule of two weeks paid vacation a year.
Pre-Computer the Manager would be able to say; "G.K won't be here for a week, he's going to his brother's wedding in Canada."
Post-Computer the Manager will say; "Where is G.K.? Call G.K."
The Assembly of Borg would reply; "We called G.K. but his phone goes to Voice Mail."
The Advance of the Borg
Overtime many C.E.O.s came to the realisation that it would be cheaper to buy computer software to do jobs previously done by people.
Instead of a human doing billing this would be done via a computer. Hence a data entry clerk need merely type in the amount owed and the bill would go out. If the bill was not paid by X date the disconnection crew would go out and disconnect.
It was simple.
Of course, the person getting that $56,990.00 bill for electricity would not find it easy to get a correction. He would bounce from one office to another, speaking to mind dead wet ware, the date for payment would pass, the computer would alert the disconnection crew. They would go out, cut off the utility. The customer would then go through a rigamarole to get it turned back on, have to pay a reconnection fee. He would receive no bills for six months, then be disconnected again for non-payment.
This is just a common example of how software applications execute functions.
Borging in Every day life
As more functions once performed by Wetware are now preformed by software those who have been Borged, so think like a computer know how to manipulate the system.
They can text in language a Computer understands.
Sure, the writing is crap if judged by a human who still has a fully operational brain, but it isn't a human who does the rankings. It's software.
Software likes repetition, rote, haves originality. Hence to be successful one writes in language that pleases a software application.
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To write original prose will not be acceptable to the computer.
"Once upon a Midnight Dreary" will score very low in SEO, but
"It was a dark and stormy night" scores high.
Once one gets the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) down pat, they can write thousands of articles gaining hundreds of thousands of hits and lots and lots of Adsense revenue.
It has frequently been a subject of science fiction; humans, exposed to too much technology are Borged and/or become incapable of taking care of themselves.
Their minds lose the ability to 'think outside the box'.