The more things change

October 27, 2013

I never cease to be amazed with the changes in opportunities, in technology, in transportation, and all the other man-made devices. In 1985, I went up to Ogden, Utah’s Weber State University and spent a wonderful year in the Business Education Technology Department. Personal computers had become the rage and everyone was frantically trying to understand the need for them; the potential opportunities and activities they might generate, and how to use them. We had two 5 ¼ disks, with one going in the A drive as the operating system and the other going in the B drive as storage. Somewhere in the mix the application was used. I seem to recall that after the system was booted up, a word processing application was inserted in place of the operating system disk. For all intents and purposes the personal computer was a high-grade word processor. The computer was fabulous because you didn’t have to keep doing the same thing over and over again. You simply wrote what you wished to convey, saved it, printed it, and left the original on the disk for future use and modification.

The need for rapid, accurate typing, carbon copies, redundant keying of well used phrases, and eventually shorthand, transcription machines, and many paper files simply went away. We all thought the problems associated with communication had disappeared. We thought that there would no longer be endless arguments over what this phrase meant, or that word implied. Time passed rapidly and we saw even more fantastic changes. Moore’s law saw reality as computer potential rose exponentially and computer cost dipped accordingly. We didn’t have to understand, or even know how to spell, complete understandable sentences using correct grammar, or take care of other minor editing problems that simply showed up as underlined, or otherwise noted hot-points in the written document.

Now, almost thirty years down the road to computer perfection since 1995, we feel the impact of these marvelous beasts everywhere. In phones, coffee makers, printers, cars, medical fields, military operations and virtually anything else one might care to mention. Communications have been the broad field most terrifyingly impacted for good and bad. We now communicate using email, which in my belief has been the last nail in the United States Postal Service as we know it. Privacy has become something of a relic that simply has no real potential for reality, and we find ourselves tethered to every potential activity in the world. We know in an instant when a country has denounced another, when countries like Greece, Spain, and the United States are in the bowls of an economic melt-down. We know if our Aunt Erica in West Virginia is having a good birthday, or is having problems with her left foot pinky. In other words we know, or have the opportunity to know everything about anything. I am told that the definition of expert is knowing more and more about less and less to the point where one knows everything about nothing.

In recent weeks the fray about the National Security Administration has boiled to the temperature of molten steel. Snowden has become a household word associated with Chancellor Merkel of Germany, the opening of secret stashes of goodies about just about anyone including you and me. It occurs to me that we are back to the stage in world communications where nothing is sacred, nothing is secret, nothing is beyond the prying eyes, and nasty dispositions of those who wish to control us and the rest of the world. Recently, an answer on Jeopardy was, The year 1984, the book was published. The answer, the contestant got wrong, was 1948, or “84” in reverses. “Big Brother” and all the ramifications of modern day communication ability and action are clearly spelled out in this book, now more than sixty years old. Could it actually be that, the more things change, the more they remain the same? The answer is a resounding YES! Our lives, our country, our world are based on clearly delineated principles of consideration, love, and appreciation for the other person. The success or failure of the United States of America as a free, independent, and honorable country based on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence rests on the shoulders of those who stand up for freedom; who stand up for the principles declared in these great documents. This war will be fought with computers, but its ultimate conclusion will be based on free men standing firm in the trust given to us as a free people to be counted on the side of those who will are willing to put their life, liberty, and sacred honor on the line.

God bless the United States of America. God bless each of you in your efforts to live lives of honor and freedom.

Duane Jacobs, Grandfather, father, brother, uncle, cousin, and friend.