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<body><div style="font-family:Arial;">Nick wrote:<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> "Computers are the conscripted sailors of our generation." </span></span><br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">I would say that "computer users are the conscripted sailors.</span></span><br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Computers, computing, software: all are algorithmic, creating an "algorithmic context" (Navy) within which human users (Sailors) are constrained to act.</span></span><br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">Like human sailors in the Navy, human users acting in this algorithmic context can only go wrong if they attempt to utilize their "native intelligence." <br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">Moreover, this state of affairs is pretty much intentional (albeit sometimes below the threshold of awareness). In the algorithmic world, humans are nothing except sources of error. Even those developing the software are assumed to be (the vast majority anyway) incompetent and must be constrained by rigid and detailed methodology.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">SkyNet has won and we are but its minions.<br></div>
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<div style="font-family:Arial;">davew<br></div>
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<div>On Mon, Jan 14, 2019, at 9:53 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">, I imagine, are old enough to remember this:</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"><b><i><span class="size" style="font-size:10pt">“The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.” </span></i></b><br>― <span>Herman Wouk, </span><a style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1059565">The Caine Mutiny</a></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">It seems right that the computer was invented by a democratic society after the largest successful naval campaign in the history of the universe. The navy was a giant algorithm. Computers are the conscripted sailors of our generation.</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Nick</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Nicholas S. Thompson</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt">Clark University</span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"><a style="text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(5, 99, 193);" href="http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/">http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/</a></span></span><br></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="font" style="font-family:"Calibri", sans-serif"><span class="size" style="font-size:11pt"> </span></span><br></p></div>
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