Translated material
From Gulag to Google
Our time has not brought out secrets to the end. Harvesting discoveries are still happening, only this is what to do with them and what trail to go is far from clear. This time, the mentioned granny found in the attic a school diary (or a hundredth sheet, or a page from the old notebook with the then control work) of 1913 - a centuries -old document, and invited to admire the funny find of the NBC correspondent.
He, as befits a professional, immediately put the material into the circulation - and went with him to the fifth grade of the current nearby school. School, we must make a reservation, good, that is, located in a fairly prosperous area where high school taxes are paid, and therefore teach better. This was already seen in the faces of students who are clearly living in the city ghetto (I refrain from details, so as not to inadvertently violate any political correctness). The guys were the fifth grade. The journalist presented them with a questionnaire of a hundred years ago and asked him to answer. No one answered any question. Moreover, this was clearly stated without hesitation, with some, even if not pride, then bravado.
Arithmetic was put in a special impasse: there was really some kind of derivative of our times in our times: some pounds, ounces and something
this is still, and all this had to be translated one into another and find the general
Gulliver, who connected Gulliver, is a picture of the modern worlddenominator. But still, what would you do if such a problem should certainly be solved? The journalist asked. A girl with a smart face, as if not a loser, replied: she would look at the calculator. Of the other questions that caused not the answer, but rather bewilderment, was this: in what year and for what reason did the battle take place near Quebec? The question, of course, is really archaic: those battles have long no longer, without solving anything, for a long time the mental horizon of the present people has been busy with other problems. Nevertheless, one could guess that the French with the British conflicts, if Kvebek (one of the Canadian provinces) still speaks French.
However, all this can be spit and grind according to the methodological council of V.I. Chapaeva. Thank God, a hundred years have passed, much has been forgotten, but today's schoolchildren know such that they never dreamed of the former sages. The Quebec or what other sub-apartments are sitting and watching computers after the milking of cows.
Here another is fundamentally important. This topic has been identified from the beginning of the past, the twentieth century, especially the seer Herbert Wells set it up. The point is not that new and smart machines appeared - the fact is that people were dependent on the machines. A guy from Kansas or from the Tula region sits at the helm of the tank and thinks that it is he who controls a formidable machine at fear of the Talibans. And this tank controls them - and all the modern technique that entangled the current people by millions of invisible chains and threads.
Modern man is Gulliver associated with lilliputs. The paradox is that the liliputs are also Gulliver. Gulliver, who connected Gulliver, is a picture of the modern world. The world of the total dependence of man on technology. What is the most terrible military threat now? Not even atomic bombs, not even Assad gases. Such a threat is a cyber attack that can violate the finest network of today's control of the world.
Today's world is the one in which nothing can be done with your hands. It is clear that a smart girl from the Kansas school will take a calculator, and no less intelligent boy, for the answer about the ups and downs of Canadian history, will climb right into Google. But what will happen when the attackers violate this subtle setting of modern civilization? And now there are times when in Blackout people sit for hours stuck on some twenty-eighth floor of the elevator. And if a computer connection is divided and your plane is lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? It is clear that there are no answers to such questions. They only recently appeared, these questions. But each of these questions is worse than the previous one. And what will happen when Google refuses?
Boris Paramonov is a New York writer and publicist.
Opinions expressed under the heading "Law" may not reflect the point of view of the editors of the RS.