Thinking in binary

Jul 8, 2019

To the Editor: 

I just realized how computers are being used by robots to take over the world.

With computers, there is a right answer, and a wrong answer. There is no maybe answer, unless the computer provides a maybe option, in which case you can answer maybe, but you can't answer "perhaps" or "sometimes."
 
The real world sometimes presents us with a yes option or a no option, but there are countless situations where there is not a yes answer or a no answer. 
We are in an increasingly "polarized" situation, politically.  This could be described as a situation where there are trigger words that suggest whole identities. Computers are increasingly conditioning us, and especially young people who have no experience of a pre-computer environment, to see the world in terms of yes or no, where the use of trigger word "X" is associated with one universe, and the trigger word "y" is associated with a different universe.
 
The overlap of these universes is continually shrinking. As it shrinks, we get closer and closer to complete social breakdown.
 
Can we do anything to stop this? It isn't anyone's fault; it is built in to the way computers operate. From the earliest stages of schooling, kids are encouraged to adapt to the computer reality. This essentially involves learning how to translate the entire natural world into the plusses and minuses of "code". The code world will never accurately duplicate the natural world, but this transformation to code is becoming more and more lifelike and fascinating. 
 
I am not a robot.
I am a Robert (Sanderson, code 508-789-1132 beep) I don't answer calls from unknown callers because, as you are aware, its those pesky robots. Please leave a massage, sorry we did not understand what you said (beep)
 
Robert Sanderson
Marion