A Good Thing or a Bad Thing

My father, naturally of a different time, didn't much like computers. He constantly complained about new engineering graduates (civil engineering) not being able to do their job without a computer. His complaint was really about engineers that didn't know their trade, but relied on some unknown programming to know it for them. He believed that if you couldn't do it with a slide rule, then you really couldn't do it. That was maybe 20 years ago.

He was surprised when I told him that I used a computer all the time, to save time. He thought I was a poor engineer until I told him that most of the time I was using logic that I wrote, so I understand the theory and practice. I also am behind times in that I went through the engineering program using a slide rule. I started school with a slide rule like all the others, but unlike them I also finished with a slide rule. I must have been the only senior engineering student that didn't have one of those new pocket calculators. I couldn't afford the $400 price tag at that time when I only made $125 a week to support the Boss and our first son.

I don't know if my father had a problem with the new graduates or with the teaching. Today I sometimes wonder the same thing. Several years ago I had the opportunity to work with a fresh graduate that had something like a 3.8 grade point average. He did very well when confronted with issues like he saw in a text book, but seemed to lack basic math and concept knowledge. Maybe his problem was an inability to reason and think for himself. In any case I was extremely disappointed.

Today our whole society is so extremely reliant on computers that it's a little scary. If some rogue nation set off a few electromagnetic pulses over the US our whole country would come to a stand still. Our electricity, water supply, everything that we rely on daily would disappear in an instant. Everything is reliant on computers. If this should happen I worry that we no longer have the people that understand the basics of applied science that can pull us back. Would we be stuck bach in the 18th century for another 100 years?

I also worry that most of the population would simply not be able to survive. There seems to be a larger percentage of young people that have no idea that their food comes from some place other than the grocery store. How many of us could grow our own crops or harvest our own meat? How many of us have the tools and willpower to protect ourselves from the mobs?

These mental gymnastics started as a result of a conversation between 2 engineering c0-0p students where I now work. Their conversation centered around the possibility that personal interaction may become a thing of the past. Their premise is that e-mail, internet conferencing, and especially texting is becoming so ingrained that talking is becoming obsolete.

I sometimes wonder if technology is a good thing or a bad thing.