Over-reliance on computers could result in some very tough times

"It's not for man to interfere in the ways of God."

Most of you have never seen that 1957 kitsch classic, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," one in a long series of mad scientist films from the Atomic Era.

It's a movie that would have all but vanished from view if not for its star. Michael Landon played the hapless juvenile delinquent who came under the influence of the mad doctor.

The decade from 1950-60 may have been the peak period of American hubris. It was the period when our ability to do things outstripped our understanding of the consequences.

Indeed, in the 1957 film "The Story of Mankind," man is put on trial in Heaven for discovering the Super H-Bomb 50 years earlier than expected.

Actually, the last 60-70 years have given us a long list of things we have learned to do but probably shouldn't. Chemical and biological warfare, cloning, test-tube babies, genetic manipulation of the food supply ...

And many more.

Some of the more frightening advances have nothing to do with food or health. Take voting machines, for instance. More and more states are using computers instead of paper ballots, which means the results are tabulated more quickly but there's no proof that the totals are accurate.

The 2004 presidential election in Ohio was a classic example. Just as the election had come down to Florida in 2000, it came down to Ohio four years later.

Exit polls had John Kerry winning the state by 4 percent, while the official totals later had George W.
Bush winning Ohio by 2.5 percent.

Twelve years later, it's hardly worth arguing for the result. But if you look at the statistical anomalies, the chances Kerry's percentage of the vote would differ as much as it did were about one in 1,000.

There have been numerous examples of tests on voting machines in which votes for one candidate added to the total of his opponent. There really isn't any better way to destroy people's faith in elections than making them worry about whether their vote was recorded accurately.

Of course it's a lot more than just politics. Most of our medical records are on computers now, as are just about all our financial records. Of course you've heard the old expression, "Garbage in, garbage out," which tells us that a computer is no better than its programming, but how many times in your life have you had someone tell you they can't get the information you need because the computer is down?

That's just an inconvenience, but what happens when there aren't really any paper files anymore? What happens when everything is somewhere in what we now know as "the cloud?" Then we have to rely on the security of the cloud. We have to believe the folks can't penetrate the cloud and wipe out our retirement accounts.

What happens when the guy trying to trick you into giving him your personal information in return for the millions he's got trapped in Nigeria no longer needs to contact you?

What happens when he just raids your accounts and the next time you hit the ATM to finance an evening of drinking, there's no money there?

And let's say you try to opt out completely. Your cash goes into your mattress, and extra money goes to buying gold and silver. The system crashes, trillions of dollars of wealth disappear into the ether and you're just fine.

Not so fast. You may have money, but what will you buy with it?

Most businesses, whether they're locally owned or Walmart, don't have a large amount of inventory these days. The idea these days is that having a large warehouse full of things you don't need right away is a huge waste of money.

In a perfect system, an item a customer came to the store to purchase would have arrived the previous day, been put on the shelf that night and sold the next day.

Just in time inventory. Highly efficient and totally dependent on computers.

So what happens if the computers crash? Shelves empty rapidly and before too much time passes, we're living in a modified law of the jungle. Especially in cities where supermarkets and restaurants are getting deliveries every day, hunger hits sooner rather than later.

No matter where you live, though, the shelves will be bare within a few days.

It isn't just computers. When you look at the number of people there are, we're living on the verge of a Malthusian nightmare. A country that less than 100 years ago had just 106 million residents now has three times that many.

In 1920, fewer than a million people lived in Florida and just 3.4 million lived in California. More than half of the population lived in small towns and rural areas. It may not have been exciting, but a lot of those people had pantries and cellars filled with foods they canned and preserved. If the grocery stores vanished, those folks would be just fine for quite some time.

Not anymore.

I don't feel like painting the picture of the post-computer world. I think the best thing is just to say that not all progress makes sense.

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it.

We need fewer cities and more communities.