Globusz^® Publishing 

Imagine that I have what some people might call a “unique eye” for machine language. And through this eye, this perspective, I’ve taken a look at the evolution of the world’s computer code... and from that, I’ve been able to extrapolate that at some point in the rapidly-nearing future — although I couldn’t tell you exactly when. There will be a tremendous, devastating, world-wide system crash, much like the dire predictions of the Y2K bug, only much more deadly. And when the system crashes, every PC in the world will be destroyed, wiped, shattered. Everything will simply be gone.

Now imagine that I’ve spent my life working day and night on a ’patch’ for this system to prevent that crash. There’s no time to simply tear it down and rebuild it, and besides, even a ’clean install’ of the same system will eventually fall to the same error, because it’s not a result of the system itself directly. It’s based deep in the root code of the software, line by line.

But here’s the catch: the patch will only work if the majority of users — each individually choose to take the time and effort to install it.

And it is an effort, it requires an understanding of the code, the way it works, how they themselves perceive it.

Now imagine that I take this message to, say, the Mac users. Tell them, “I’ve seen this crash”. And they tell me that it isn’t their problem, they don’t need to worry about it. The system is mainly comprised of PCs, they tell me; even if the crash does happen, it won’t affect their personal machines.

They’ll still go on just as they always have. So why should they take the time to learn a whole new way to look at the code? It’s hard and scary and it takes time. And besides, they’re not even sure they believe that there’ll be a crash at all.

I’m not going to jump up and down, waving my arms and DEMANDING that they try and understand the patch anyway; that’s not my place. I’m not here to make their choice for them... it’s not up to me. I’m not God. If they’re already convinced that they know best, I can’t force them to see it another way... or to switch to a PC so that it is their problem. I won’t force them.

But what they don’t see, maybe, is that even if a catastrophic system failure might not wipe out their ’personal’ machines — leaving them to think that it’s no concern of theirs at all — everything that they rely on to define their lives and existences would be obliterated. Every method society uses to define and identify the individual — credit records, bank accounts, identification databases, debts and histories and “worth” — that is stored in the PC system for ’convenience’ will be decimated when that system crashes. See? Regardless of whether they witness its effects first hand, their lives will be upended just the same. The poof? It is gone. And once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. There will be no recovering that data. What’s left is all that remains.

And then there are the PC users. I’ve come to them with this code patch, and there are those who say: “Why should I re-learn my entire system? There are a million other users out there, why can’t they take the time to install the patch? Why should it be my problem to deal with? I’m comfortable with my machine the way it is now. It’s the same one, I’ve always used. And besides,” they tell me, “I don’t really believe there’ll be a system crash, anyway. More people would know about it, the people that are supposed to handle that sort of thing would have done something about it... there’d be some great big warning sign, anyway. And why should we believe you?”

...I’m not going to jump up and down and wave my arms and DEMAND that they learn and install the code anyway. That’s not my choice to make. And I can’t force them... I won’t. Sound familiar?

But what they’re missing, maybe, is that the system isn’t just some outside faceless construct; it’s not something to simply be used as it will, with “people that are supposed to handle that sort of thing” hiding in the shadows somewhere to miraculously emerge at the penultimate moment to solve everything for them without any effort or fear on their part. They are the system. The network is made up of each one of them, each individual connected machine.

If one of them crashes... they all fail. They depend on each other to share and translate that information. They say that ’someone would have seen it coming, somehow’... and yet for a long time now they themselves have run into errors, glitches in the system; things that, if everything were running smoothly together, wouldn’t have been a danger at all. Programs are shutting down. Software is being unable to run in tandem with other software canceling each other out. Things are simply running slower and slower, less and less functional, longer and longer blackouts. There are periods of total disconnection from the network. And yet they stubbornly go on and on despite these errors; believing that “if they just ignore them, they’ll go away”... even as this continuing persistence in relying on a damaged system to run at full capacity makes the danger of a burnout, an overload, more and more serious.

They can just keep going on as they always have, with that utter conviction that ’someone else will fix it; let it be someone else’s problem. I’m too busy for it to be mine’... but they’re utterly oblivious to the fatal flaw in that line of thinking. If everyone in the system keeps passing it off as ’someone else’s problem’ and never theirs, then it never becomes anyone’s problem. If no one interrupts the convenience to take that responsibility, then when no one has taken the time to learn the new code and everything they had has been destroyed, they’ll stand in the midst of the ruins, throwing their hands into the air and looking to the sky and each other, crying... but I thought you understood it!”

They can choose to refuse even the slightest possibility that a crash will happen... but even the loudest denials and the most darkened blindfolds won’t make it to be untrue. Blissfully covering their ears and singing “Everything’s FINE!” to an utterly dead and silent cable won’t make it true... and ignoring the truth won’t recover what they lost. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

There’s no recovering that data.

It doesn’t have to be everyone that codes the install for that “new patch”; not everyone would no matter what the circumstance in any case. They also don’t need to believe that I’m the Best Ever Gee-Whiz Computer Geek (TM), the One True Coder. But all I’m bringing to them is an awareness of the “root code” that all their machines have in common, that one singular loop that produces the error, Mac or PC regardless. Trying to show them a new source code that will run on all their machines, if they choose to install it, a code that doesn’t recognize or freeze base on brand names, secret user passwords, or operating systems... a “universal plug-in” that would simply help each machine recognize the others as separate integral parts of the same living network. Keep that system from choking on varied inputs, because that variety, that universality, would be the nature of the patch.

I am trying to tell them that sure, there’s always a chance that the crash won’t happen... but that they have the choice to not push the system to overload simply to see if it will. That it’s safer to know and understand their-own source.