Technology

I recently "upgraded" my operating system from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. I began using computers in the 1980's when we worked on a black screen with type in databases. This was before easy email. It was before the Web. Back then, IBM technology ruled. It was the Iron Age of computing, I suppose. 

Windows 8.1 has exceeded my wary expectations. It is a mess. It has disabled a perfectly good all-in-one wireless printer by a major brand, but I understand it is capable of 3D printing a facsimile of Rodin's "Thinker". It has made the simplest tasks of computer maintenance more difficult. It is a disaster. 

And what is the general tone of geeks at Microsoft when consumers complain? "Oh, you must be stupid." about sums it up. They are not alone in this attitude. I mentioned the printer issue at a local computer superstore recently. The salesman, a man educated in computer science, said, "Ah...that's nothing...probably just a dot where there should have been a comma in the code. They'll work out a patch eventually. No biggie." His dead expression belied the compassion of a hungry spider.

There is a myth in the developed world among the wealthy that technology will save humanity and the planet. Yet one of the major operating systems for computers, which lie at the heart of that myth, is dysfunctional and its Doctors Frankenstein seem not to care. Does this strike a rational person as supportive of the myth of technological salvation? I think not.