I look at the IT industry and do you know what I see?
I see the inside of a Nazi gas chamber...
If you're not familiar with a Nazi gas chamber let me describe...
First the people are packed in there so tight none of them can
move... they are all standing... then the gas is introduced...
this causes quite a panic and a mad clawing at your neighbors in an
effort to climb literally above them and on top of everyone's
head... so that you can escape the gas... as the gas is heavy than
air.
What the Nazi's find in the end is a pile of bodies like a
pyramid... where the strongest and ruthless have climbed and clawed
to the very top to get that last gasp of fresh air and those last
few moments of life.
But you know what... they are all dead in the end... it does not
matter.
Maybe if they had all pushed in once direction at the door they may
have had a slight chance. But nobody thought of that. Nobody
thought of thinking different.
That is what I see here.
No matter how you claw or climb or position or surf or negotiate in
the end you are all staring blindly at comptuer monitors, inside
poisonous air buildings with even more poisonous corporate
cultures... etching away at your very soul... it does not matter if
you are a network guy, a webmaster, an analyst, a cobol programmer,
a database admin... in the end... your sad face stares into a video
terminal not three feet away... you would not stare at a television
that close...
Someone looking in from the outside through the window would see...
without the sound... a person staring at a box for 8 hours.
I think if anyone stares at anything for more than a couple of hours
they are probably insane, or? Why does it being a computer screen
make it any different?
I've worked in IT for 20 years... a third of my life... I live and
breath computers... I've programmed, I've networked, I've qweryed,
analysed, assessed, entrepreneured, consulted, sold, repaired,
Do you know what I want?
I want to be a Park Ranger. Or a Tour Guide. Or a Garbage Man. Or
a Meter Maid. I want to be outside, out there where there is the
world... I want to live and breathe and see nature. Computers are
death. Digital crack. Empty of life. Empty of soul.
I have been all the way to the logical end of this road and I'm here
to tell all the newbie computer enthusiasts with glitter in their
eye and a little HTML under their belt... turn back turn back... it
is a siren song...!
I want to dance in the fog. I want to sing. I want to work every
day under the stars. This is no way to live, this is no perfect
life, to live with computers.
I want to throw away all this money and say people we've got to stop
working for our own accounts and start working for what's left.
You datawarehouse miners need to stop raping our grandmothers
stricken with alzeiheimers who are the least able to defend
themselves against suggestive selling.
You programmers need to stop coding missle guidance systems that
kill people or communicate the orders to do so...
You networking guys need to stop running cable and stop playing with
your routers and talk with the world.
You telemarketers need to leave us alone and let us finish our
showers in peace.
You tech writers need to realize nobody reads manuals.
You firewall gurus need to figure out that the only thing you really
need to do to make your network secure is pull that plug.
You analysts and consultants need to do some real work like get
outside, plant a garden, and actually produce something like food
that can feed a hungry person.
Come up people with a new world order... because this is not making
any of us happy. Its addictive poison distributed by Silicon
Valley and if you haven't learned it yet you will 30 years from now
when you are old and gray and wonder where it all went.
Beyond a warm and dry place to lay our heads at night and good
nutritious food to eat, what more do we need? None of this IT work
is creating either one of these things.
Is any company here doing anything to make the world a better place
at all?
Or are they all doing what I am seeing what they are doing, raping
the planet and its people of its resources for greed and gain.
Turning enthusiastic young hard workers into jaded old pieces of the
machine.
Can you really say anyone wants any of these jobs here? Why does
work have to be so distasteful. Why can't we all be free from this
and be free to pursue our own interests and increase our capacities
of learning to the depth we desire.
Humanity has been working on this planet for 2000 years and still we
haven't done three things... we haven't gotten places to live for
everyone... we haven't gotten food to eat for everyone... we
haven't defeated death from natural causes.
Why? Because if everyone had a place to live free and food to eat
free there would be no economic slavery. We would not be forced to
do anything. We could do what we *wanted* to do. We could become
enlightened and enjoy living. You say it wouldn't work... yes
society would not collapse because of this... let work be an
option... those that want more will still do more and create the
rest. Let us work because we want to not because we have to. Let
us do what we want to do.
Stop working for these senseless goals and do something to keep
death from winning. Its going to kill your parents, then you, then
your kids, and still blind you type on oblivious... doing your
little projects, making your little incomes...
living in *your* little fantasy world.
Free the kids from schools I see their sad faces in the bus windows
and standing out in the freezing cold at 4am in the morning and I
think... they do not want that... they have no rights, no
freedom... they are being bussed to a school with metal detectors
and campus police and concertina... looks like a prison to me.
And what's with all these video cameras everywhere. All along I85,
I75, and perimiter, in every Kmart and Walmart and Mall and bank and
literally everywhere. Oh yeah. 1984 came and went. Forgot. We
are all criminals to business.
Thus spake Zathrusta
signed...
onezerozeroone
1001
I use to be be a philosopher and love life
Now I am a computer programmer and fear death
*starts humming the logical song*