My life inside computers
I live inside computers. Everyday morning, I get myself up and carry myself to my workplace. Next 8 hours or so, I stare at two medium sized monitors and frantically type things. When I am not in front of those monitors, I keep staring at my phone. When I am not doing either of these, I stare at the monitor in my home computer, or when out, at my laptop screen. Although my body exists in the air and land of this earth, my mind dwells inside the abstract interiors of computers.
Over the years I have taught myself how to talk to them. I can make them do things. If you look around, you notice that in today's world, making computers do things has real world consequences— sometimes profound ones. That's because a lot of people are also living inside computers, or taking orders from them, most of the times without even realizing it. That gives someone like me a surprising amount of power.
Take social media apps like Facebook and Instagram, for example. People like me told computers to behave in certain ways— e.g to allow users to upload photos and then show those photos to their friends. Now, people can't stop. They keep posting, watching and reacting because behind the scenes, computers are very sneakily and extremely effectively manipulating them to keep doing it. They are tricking them into buying things they do not need, visiting places they don't want to go to and eating things that are not good for them. People have no idea of course— they think that they are the ones making these choices. First degree trickery really.
But not all who can talk to computers can do this. I am in that group. I can talk to them, but I don't know how to make them manipulate others for me, nor I want that. To be honest, most of the time I can't even tell them what to do accurately. I spend my time figuring that out— how to tell them what I really want— in a way that they'll understand. (In computer talk, it's called bug fixing.)
I got interested in computers because when I was young, they felt mysterious to me. Then I realized I could build things inside them without ever needing any sort of raw material. All I needed is to know how to. It was fascinating. I could build and break, and there were no real-world consequences. In real world, if I built a chair and it turned out poorly, that meant some money was wasted. But inside, no amount of experimentation required any money. And that kept me drawing back to them.
Nowadays though, I don't get to play with them. I don't get to build what I want, instead I build what other people want. Yesterday I was watching a rickshaw puller and thinking stuff, which is well outside computer world. But I couldn't stay in that thought for long, though I wanted to. Because I had to get back inside computer world to tell them what my client wanted them to do.
Let me explain how it feels. Imagine you love diving deep into ocean to spend time with your marine buddies. Let's say you enjoy gliding swiftly through water and twisting and turning beside them and talking about life's inner meaning with sharks and jelly fishes. But now, you’re forced to dive down there to drill for oil. And you have to do this every day, for years. It must feel awful, right? That’s kind of how it feels for me.