Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
PC vs. Cars - John Galt venerates Bill Gates The popular internet email entitled 'PC VS CARS!!!!' is like Haley's Comet, in that it 'revolves' back into view every now and then -- except it's in cyberspace rather than outerspace. John Galt demolishes this email once and for all.by Nick Flint
(Libertarian)
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The popular internet email entitled 'PC VS CARS!!!!' is like Haley's Comet, in that it 'revolves' back into view every now and then -- except it's in cyberspace rather than outerspace.I, John Galt, will demolish this email once and for all, revealing the the pip-squeak attitudes that make such worthless and deadly drivel possible. For all of those who do not harbor childish hatred and envy of the good, I ask you to reconsider laughing and repeating such blathering tripe as this attack against Bill Gates. Mr. Gates' original comments regarding cars revealed an important point that until very recently in man's history nobody on earth had known or understood. Until this time in history, a proper defense of the morality of genuine business heroes could not be made2. Put aside any rightful indignation you may feel toward non-business types such as those who ran Enron into the ground, and reflect for a moment on the lights running in your house. Think of how they are the product of truly great creators such as Thomas Edison. And then compare and contrast my rational/benevolent The-Point arguments to the envious, malevolent A-Point attacks by do-nothing smear artists.
If you agree with my veneration, then I invite you to forward it to your friends. By circulating this veneration email throughout cyberspace, honesty will finally compete for the hearts and minds of innocent victims of envy everywhere.
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
1. Both the time-saving PC and the labor-saving car are the products of the efforts of many individuals.
Since man is not omniscient nor infallible, it is possible that a part within each of these time / labor-saving devices will fail. But this is are.
Most of the time – in the case of using either a PC or a car – a crash is due to operator abuse, negligence, or error.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
2. Because the PC is a time saving device, businesses as well as individuals desire more computing power at their desks.
What's the solution? A hardware innovation must be made to continually push PCs to higher realms of performance.
And then what happens when the PC changes? The software that runs the PC must be modified, repackaged, and sold as well.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason.
You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.
For some reason you would simply accept this.
3. Actually no rational person would act like the dumb-monkey mockery of man being portrayed here.
The fact is, when a PC or a computer fails, a person would either fix it themselves, or simply call or pay someone who can fix the problem.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
4. Since PCs can be destroyed by malicious software, it is unfortunate that people must have to erase their hard drive and re-install the operating system.
You can blame the malicious pip-squeaks who write such virus programs, but not Bill Gates or Microsoft.
Those virus writers, in fact, are soul-mates of the pip-squeak authors of that attack article.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
5. It's not possible to make a useful automobile powered by the sun, no matter how many creative geniuses work at Apple.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed an Illegal Operation" warning light.
6. Each author of software is responsible for writing it to handle expected error conditions, and to report errors with a helpful message to PC user when it encounters an exceptional condition it cannot compute.
When the author fails on these responsibilities, the PC user should contact the producer of the software first, and not complain mindlessly about Bill Gates and his team of high-effort geniuses.
7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
7. Unfortunately, political intrusion into the automotive industry has manifested itself to the degree where car designers are micro-managed by non-experts and non-scientific studies.
For example, air bags should be optional on cars, since driver mislocation can cause an airbag to kill a driver rather than save them.
Such dubious safety qualities of the airbag in automobiles however does not relieve the owner's responsibility to read their car manuals.es a user clicks the wrong button that may result in loss of data, and in that case the message "Are you sure?" can certainly be useful, and it has never killed anyone.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
8. I'll repeat that program lockups are the result of either user error, or poorly authored software. See mention of crashing and failures, above (#1, and #6).
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
9. This might be true in the rebel / communist world of build-your-own Linux, but with regard to Bill Gates' Windows, it isn't. Changes to Windows occur because product developers think of new ways to get things done.
But sometimes a person simply doesn't want their PC to change, and if that's the case, they are free to continue running their home or business with 15-to-20 year old PCs.
10. You would have to push the start button to stop the car's engine.
10. The Start button is a lovely concept. So simple and elegant.
People now always know where to "Start" looking for things on their PC! It is rather odd, however, that the Window's team did not put a stop button or menu on the opposite corner, for example.
There they could've had a single place to also not only shutdown the PC, but also terminate any locked-up programs. This would be a lot more useful than the antiquated "three-finger salute" of [CTRL]-[ALT]-[DELETE].
Conclusion
Bill Gates' point was entirely valid. Indeed, in 2007 the average person could purchase for $4000 a PC as powerful than a computer costing $40,000,000 in 1991 (REF: June 2007 Technical Overview of Microsoft Windows HPC Server 2008).
One problem at GM and the other domestic automakers is that government regulations strangle their abilities to ruthlessly cut laziness out of their working ranks.
2In the last twenty years, a globally renowned and successful man, Frank R. Wallace, formed a company with the sole purpose of ending envious attitudes in individuals, the likes of which are on naked display in this article.
1"Who is John Galt?" I am the man that can stop the motor of the world. Without me and men like me, civilization cannot exist. To see clearly the upside-down world in which you live, and who are the heroes and who are the villains in 'modern' societies, read about me and my struggle in Atlas Shrugged.
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2008 Nick Flint, all rights reserved.
Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008
Last modified: Saturday, May 17, 2008
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I agree with several of your points. But you carry an awful lot of water for Bill, and you've chosen to pick other fights as well.
I kicked him out of my house over five years ago now. That was when I discovered that I could spend $300 on an operating system I would have to futz with for a couple hours to get basics like internet connections working, or $0 on an operating system where everything worked the first time.
There are options in a relatively free operating system marketplace. I choose the one that offers me the most value, and coincidentally also happens to work. That's the free market in action.
You've called non-MS teat-suckers rebels and communists. One can make an argument that open source is communist in nature, but what authority does Microsoft have against which we are rebelling? Who set up Microsoft as that authority?
And you've insinuated that Bill is a business hero. Please follow up and explain how this fits in with the extreme difficulty of buying an assembled computer without also buying a copy of Windows. What part of the free market dictates that in most cases I should spend an extra $100 on an item I don't need, don't want, and won't use?
Certainly there have been astronomical improvements in computer technology in the last 20 or 30 years. That's a success story unmatched by anything in human history. But I think you're being a bit hard on the auto industry. Most of the innovation in the industry came many years ago. Compare today's car with Henry Ford's first.
You no longer need a crank to start it.
You get an enclosed body today.
And a heater.
You get air bags and seatbelts. (BTW the R&D needed to make those work properly is a huge cost and one that PC makers don't have to worry about.)
You get automatic transmissions or CVTs now.
You get emission control equipment. Something else the PC makers don't have to contend with.
You get windshield wipers and washers.
You get 4 wheel hydraulic brakes which are extremely reliable. plus disc brakes and ABS if you want it.
You get a computer controlled ignition and fuel injection system which is far more reliable than the old system.
Your new car comes with a stereo system that is probably better than the one in your home.
It has air conditioning too if you want.
You get very comfortable seats with power adjustments if you want and even heated seats if you like.
The steel belted radial tires are far superior to the tires on early cars.
You can get a navigation system that will tell you exactly how to get to your destination.
OK I'm not knocking Bill Gates. I'm just saying the auto industry hasn't been stagnant either.
BTW it was Tesla and not Edison who was responsible for the A/C electricity in your house and for the flourescent lights too.
BTW2 It may well have been Tesla who was the inspiration behind Ayn Rand's character John Galt.
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2008 Nick Flint, all rights reserved.