23.8.08

On the reason why computer science research makes people more stupid

I think few people would object that the brains of someone natives of some rain forest, or desert, have more active brains than the average citizen of some western city. Moreover, the availability of more and more advanced computing capabilities makes people of western countries even less brain-active. If only few years ago reaching some information would have required some clever solution, now typing some keywords in Google is almost always enough, and if not, the topic is probably discarded and replaced with something else - that is more easy to search.
Those things would be impossible if computers were not so powerful. The Moore Law (wrongly interpreted) states that the power of a computer double every 18 months. This Law is meaningless for a mortal, but essential to the companies that produce computers. They based their entire development cycle on this Law.
If there was no need for further computing power, there would be non need for new more powerful computers, and hence the computer production would become another of those low profile (and low profit) economic activities, like producing resistors, handlers, toilet paper, etc. So it's essential (for them) that computers increase their power as the Law predicts. So, every 18 months the computing power has to double! And when the power increases, then new applications become possible, and the necessity of people using that applications to think then decreases.
Nowadays, faster computers are really hard to make. Their nominal power continues to grow, but the ability to use that power is far more less. So almost all the research in computer science now is aiming at exploiting that power that otherwise will be not used, and then not bought. Would you buy a computer 16 times more powerful than yours if you can use 1/16 of its power? I doubt your brain is than much inactive. So, almost all the research in computer science is making you, my dear Reader, less smart.
And I'm part of this.
People will become less and less active; the time will be spent in even more useless activities than today; we will be stressed by even more stupid stuff, while few lucky people will roam in some forest seeking for food without ever experiencing the thrill of an heart attack. Think about this the next time you go to your assurance dealer.