Americans now have more computer
power in their smart phones than did the Pentagon in all its computer banks
just 30 years ago. We board a sophisticated jet and assume that the flight is
no more dangerous than crossing the street.
The downside of this complete
reliance on computer gadgetry is a fundamental ignorance of what technology is.
Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver the water of knowledge -- not
knowledge itself.
What does it matter that millions
of American students can communicate across thousands of miles instantly with
their iPads and iPhones if a poorly educated generation increasingly has little
to say?
The latest fad of near-insolvent
universities is to offer free iPads to students so that they can access
information more easily. But what if most undergraduates still have not been
taught to read well, think inductively or have some notion of history? Speeding
up their ignorance is not the same as imparting wisdom. Requiring a freshman
Latin course would be a far cheaper and wiser investment in mastering language,
composition and inductive reasoning than handing out free electronics.
Technology also confuses us about
the vast power and force of nature that remains more formidable than Yahoo or
Google. Computer models assured us that the Earth would be now be getting
really hot. But over the last 17 years, when carbon emissions reached historic
levels, temperatures mysteriously have stayed the same or cooled. Nature
remains fickle, complex and unfathomable, and can defy even computer-enhanced
theorizing.
When wind-chill temperatures fell
to 40 degrees below zero in the frigid Midwest this winter and there were
occasional storm-related power outages, was it better to have a
computer-controlled central heating system or an ax, some wood and a cast-iron
stove?
The politicos who peddled the
Affordable Care Act did so not just on the impossible logistics of giving more
coverage to more people at less cost. They also hyped their new user-friendly
website that would make getting health care no different from buying shoes on
Amazon.
Yet behind the cheery web pages on
our laptops lie millions of hours of complex computer programming -- as arcane
a task as deciphering Byzantine Greek manuscripts. Technological failure has
all but sidetracked Obamacare. And the resulting shock is not surprising, given
how something so difficult to do was sold to us as if it were already done.
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