When tools were tools

Random pointless thought about algorithms and such.

A tool is supposed to be a servant, not a master. It’s supposed to be an extension of your muscles and senses, not a battering ram to club you into submission. Before 2010 most of our tools were servants. The most basic tools like clothing and houses adapted to our shapes and habits. More complex tools like washing machines and typewriters could be controlled to suit our needs. We could set the washer’s timer, and we could write what we chose on paper.

When the desktop computer arrived in 1975, it was a fancy typewriter and a fancy adding machine and a fancy drafting board. The more you knew about how to vary its controls, the more power it gave you over letters and numbers and images.

Things started to change when software started to move away from your computer into the servers. Now the social media algorithms are hammers in the hands of the psychopathic masters. When we attempt to shape the algorithm to our needs and desires, it fights back and hammers us even harder with the Official Message.

Peasant, you don’t know who’s boss here. I’ll show you who’s boss! Take that, you Negative Externality!