Kalashnikovs can kill People – Computers can destroy Societies?

AK-47 [a killer]

As we have seen in Tunisia the weekend before this, an evil drugged-up religiously brainwashed Islamic suicide gunman armed with a single Kalashnikov can easily murder dozens of defenceless innocent sunbathing holiday makers. No doubt he had been trained somewhere else and was supported by local accomplices, who hopefully will be identified and brought to justice (well that is not actually possible these days as murders aren’t hung – and in Tunisia the last execution was a quarter of a century ago).

The killer knew he was going to die of course, and was happy to do so (paradise called you see), but the shameful armed Police took their time didn’t they? The man of real courage though was the guy who filmed the massacre on his mobile phone and indeed verbally challenged the jihadist militant perpetrator about why he was killing tourists, don’t you think?

Oh yes, the murderer had a powerful Kalashnikov automatic assault rifle or machine gun and it’s made these days in tens of countries. It is a favoured killing weapon of the terrorist of course – the AK, elegant, reliable, powerful, and childlike simple. It provides a commanding means of spreading terror of course. But how effective is it in achievement of the ultimate aim of the fanatic, you might wonder? You can kill dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of men, women, and children with such an effective gun and enough morons – but will that change the world? Of course NOT; no, it just creates a pile of corpses doesn’t it?

The big danger all our civilised societies face is not from the gun, nor indeed the bomb, as is these days apparently totally and cheaply readily available to the mindless revolutionary, is it? Our Achilles heel is in fact the bloody computer. This simple electronic device in a mere fifty years has taken over, if not destroyed, all our lives. What started out as an unfathomable, extremely expensive, heavy, relatively slow, unreliable, excessively large, power consuming monster, with limited application has amorphized into an easily used, very cheap, light, unbelievably fast, dependable, unbelievable small, electrical frugal pussycat, with unlimited function. It has transformed our world of human endeavour, control, and influence into an era of out of kilter technology, hasn’t it? People no longer live the simple life, depending on their wits, skills, and personal efforts to survive, do they? Oh no, the physical activity of work essential to maintain a healthy body has been replaced by the multi-gym and a personal trainer. The daily mile long walk to the shops for fresh grub has been switched for junk food ordered online and delivered to home. The enjoyable mind stimulating family games are out the window now, and substituted by moronic game shows on flat screen televisions. Our children no longer know how to play-out with others, amuse themselves, or develop any interest – electronic devices have taken over their lives, and any two year old will be an expert, won’t they? All these lifestyle changes have been driven of course by the all powerful silicon chip computer.

The computer is now everywhere from factory robots building cars to automatically landing aeroplanes, controlling tube trains, generating energy supply, being imbedded in kids’ toys, launching space rockets, marshalling warehouse goods, running sweet production, energising mobile phones, providing water supply, running smart TVs, issuing bills, recycling waste, distributing food, delivering hole-in-the-wall cash, ordering goods and services, enabling satnavs, controlling a lottery, and all else, but not least surely delivering intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles, eh?

Mankind has lost control of the computer. The computer is now in control of mankind.

It will be the computer that the terrorists will turn to next – the AK47s will surely be ditched? Extremists you see can nevertheless be bright individuals and certainly will be able to infiltrate the legitimate computer community, as well as hack their way in. We have enough evidence already that our developed societies are incapable in the past four decades of protecting, particularly from criminals, even the most major of computer networks or indeed data.

[Twenty years ago millions of dollars were stolen by a Russian crime group from Citibank; around the same time a youth hacked NASA; the New York Times records got hacked; a young Scot got into US military computers a decade ago but has got away with it; cyber criminals stole a hundred million US credit card details; Sony got hacked in the past five years, possibly by North Korea; investigators looking into the MH370 plane disappearance last year was attacked with malware; there is the well known Icelandic WikiLeak release of secret and classified information; again here in the UK we have had a few years ago a hacking and malicious release of university scientific information on climate change; the US domestic infrastructure systems have been penetrated numerous times in the past few years; and there are numerous other examples to bring fear to our mind].

The determined anarchists using computers will be able to cause mayhem and chaos – who for goodness sake will stop them, eh?

[If you think we can now stop computers taking over the world and destroying us all – dream on]

fits on a coin edge