Aihnss.748
net.jokes
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!mhtsa!eagle!ihnss!karn
Mon Dec 14 12:36:57 1981
How many computer engineers . . .
One to redesign your house wiring.
One to suggest improvements to the design.
One programmer to scoff because light bulbs will be free in the near future.
I appreciate the tone of the conversation. We are all tech workers, or at least fans or fellow geeks. We get glassy eyed and dreamy picturing a utopian world of computers in every home so where can all share knowledge and advancement to the lowest common demoninator.
However, history shows that this is not going to happen. We are not going to buck the inevitable truth of humanity. If humanity was a triangle the top tip would be the high or "upper-class", a slice below made of the middle or "middle-class", and the majority of the triangle would be the low or "lower-class".
We are always going to need a large "support" staff. What you and I consider leading edge right now is going to be commonplace in twenty years. Everyone will know how to do it, and the learning curve will continue to rise. There will always be people pushing the edge of possibilites. They are your "knowledge workers".
The printing press, and the rise of literacy, did not end the endanger any monopoly of the intellictuals. (at least not in any bad way:) ) What it did do is make every worker more efficent, more valuable to their employer. They could be placed in charge of more complicated, and more efficent, machinary. (Granted this was not an overnight event. I might say the transition is still going on...)
The people who can learn the fastest and implement their ideas are always going to do the best. The technology they perfect is going to allow the sub genius continue to be useful.
Actually the NSA "Agent" you are refering to was a cyptological -linquist-. They are interpeters basically. And he was in the Air Force. He simply received his orders from the NSA.
I happen to know, because I was a linquist in the Air Force also.
Slashdot Mirror
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I appreciate the tone of the conversation. We are all tech workers, or at least fans or fellow geeks. We get glassy eyed and dreamy picturing a utopian world of computers in every home so where can all share knowledge and advancement to the lowest common demoninator.
:) ) What it did do is make every worker more efficent, more valuable to their employer. They could be placed in charge of more complicated, and more efficent, machinary. (Granted this was not an overnight event. I might say the transition is still going on...)
However, history shows that this is not going to happen. We are not going to buck the inevitable truth of humanity. If humanity was a triangle the top tip would be the high or "upper-class", a slice below made of the middle or "middle-class", and the majority of the triangle would be the low or "lower-class".
We are always going to need a large "support" staff. What you and I consider leading edge right now is going to be commonplace in twenty years. Everyone will know how to do it, and the learning curve will continue to rise. There will always be people pushing the edge of possibilites. They are your "knowledge workers".
The printing press, and the rise of literacy, did not end the endanger any monopoly of the intellictuals. (at least not in any bad way
The people who can learn the fastest and implement their ideas are always going to do the best. The technology they perfect is going to allow the sub genius continue to be useful.
Lets not get too cocky.
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Save the whale hunters.
Actually the NSA "Agent" you are refering to was a cyptological -linquist-. They are interpeters basically. And he was in the Air Force. He simply received his orders from the NSA.
I happen to know, because I was a linquist in the Air Force also.
-caleb