Sidling into a Technological Future

Things continue to develop at the bleeding edge of brethren technological advancement. What is particularly interesting to observe is the way that the thin end of various wedges are starting to work further into the previously impenetrable cracks in what was unbroken luddism not too long ago.

I think I've mentioned before about mobiles. Initially, they were strictly attached to cars, and nobody but a very select few was allowed to know the number of any of them. They were for emergency contact and outgoing calls. Those restrictions loosened with time, and I wasn't too surprised to see that. It always seems that once something is allowed at all, it loses the aura of evil that the management spent so much trouble building up. And it wasn't too long before genuine mobiles became available (sorry, they aren't mobiles, they're "portables"), as long as they were the neutered ones provided from the central distributor. How successful they can be in holding back the tide of further loosening ... well, I reserve judgement and will watch with interest.

From my point of view, it has been fascinating watching the computer situation, too.

There was a big initial effort to present the official machines as simply a glorified (literally!) mix of typewriter and calculator. Partly this was necessary to overcome the average brethren-member's suspicion, and hold on to some vestige of the old technophobia, but the computers themselves were set up with the assumption that use would be quite restricted. They are low-powered, with small hard drives and slow processors and loud fans. What's more, they are complete pigs to administer. Any problem of any kind requires the personal presence of the one person for miles around who has the necessary passwords to sort anything out. A corrupted mouse driver, for example, will probably render a machine unusable until that person has time to visit. And an intrusive blocking mechanism randomly shuts down all sorts of things in case they might be an attempt to install something. Depending on the particular computer, opening a document with "install" in the title (such as instructions in PDF form) can do it, working on VBA code can do it, and attempting page setup in Acrobat Reader will do it. And the only functions that have any internet access are automatic updates and email.

Now new computers, with a new model number, are starting to appear. And it seems that even the slow brains behind the technological rollout are realising that things could be done more sensibly. They are more powerful, and quieter, for a start. And - glory be! - they can be administered remotely, and even a little bit of administration can be done by the user. Web access is functional, with a whitelist as a control. That allows access to the central distributor's own website, with permitted programs available for download. It also allows a few other websites deemed innocent enough. The user can also contact the distributor with a request for an unlock code for new software, after which they can install it themselves.

Like the mobile phone situation, this begs the question of how far this will go, and how much the drift to normality can be controlled. The thing is that everything just works so much easier when technology is treated as normal instead of hampered at every turn, and the brethren do worship efficiency in their current version. But where will the line eventually be drawn? I don't really dare make a guess at this stage, but I look forward to finding out.