18 Feb
2020
18 Feb
'20
1:19 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:08 PM Toby Thain via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Is this blather on topic?
If so I need to be on a different list.
Go ahead, if you think you can enjoy ignoring the reality that exists
outside an imaginary bubble. Computing was, and is, used for all sorts of
useful purposes, including protecting people from their own negligence. We
crossed the Rubicon in the late 1980s when it comes to preventing world
hunger, because without computing and high-speed telecommunications,
production and distribution of food world-wide for a population closing in
on eight billion people would be impossible. Likewise for pretty much any
economic undertaking in any sector, anywhere, these days. Look what's
happening to the supply chains coming out of China now that 1.3 billion
people are increasingly being quarantined in response to a virus with a
speck of RNA that kills.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them,
even if subsequent stanzas may only rhyme. That includes computing
history, as it's been entwined in making all of our existences possible.