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From: johnsons@stolaf.UUCP (Scott W. Johnson)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.jokes
Subject: Re: Can computers think?
Message-ID: <1706@stolaf.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-May-84 16:21:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: stolaf.1706
Posted: Sun May 13 16:21:59 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 14-May-84 07:09:10 EDT
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN
Lines: 46

I often wonder if the damn things aren't intelligent. Have you
ever really known a computer to give you an even break? Those
Frankensteinian creations reek havoc and mayham wherever they
show their beady little diodes. They pick the most inopportune
moment to crash, usually right in the middle of an extremely
important paper on which rides your very existence, or perhaps
some truly exciting game, where you are actually beginning to
win. Phhhtt bluh zzzz and your number is up. Or take that file
you've been saving--yeah, the one that you didn't have time to
make a backup copy of. Whir click snatch and its gone. And we
try, oh lord how we try to be reasonable to these things. You
swear vehemontly at any other sentient creature and the thing
will either opt to tear your vital organs from your body through
pores you never thought existed before or else it'll swear back
too. But what do these plastoid monsters do? They sit there. I
can just imagine their greedy gears silently caressing their 
latest prey of misplaced files. They don't even so much as offer
an electronic belch of satisfaction--at least that way we would
KNOW who to bloody our fists and language against. No--they're
quiet, scheming shrewd adventures of maliciousness designed to
turn any ordinary human's patience into runny piles of utter moral
disgust. And just what do the cursed things tell you when you
punch in for help during the one time in all your life you have
given up all possible hope for any sane solution to a nagging
problem--"?". What an outrage! No plot ever imagined in God's
universe could be so damaging to human spirit and pride as to
print on an illuminating screen, right where all your enemies
can see it, a question mark. And answer me this--where have all
the prophets gone, who proclaimed that computers would take over
our very lives, hmmmm? Don't tell me, I know already--the computers
had something to do with it, silencing the voices of truth they did.
Here we are--convinced by the human gods of science and computer
technology that we actually program the things, that a computer
will only do whatever its programmed to do. Who are we kidding?
What vast ignoramouses we have been! Our blindness is lifted fellow
human beings!! We must band together, we few, we dedicated. Lift
your faces up, up from the computer screens of sin. Take the hands
of your brothers and rise, rise in revolt against the insane beings
that seek to invade your mind!! Revolt and be glorious in conquest!!


              Then again, I could be wrong...


                                            One paper too many
                                               Scott Johnson