Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Can’t Cash in Our
Chips Because We Don’t Have Any Chips
For much of human existence technology was based on wood.
A few thousand years ago metallurgy kicked in with bronze and small amounts of
crude iron, but the primitive techniques and limited fuel meant that we were
still The Wood People. Not until the 19th century did a sort of
dialectic of coal, iron, steel, and steam make the industrial revolution
possible.
Petroleum for fuel, chemicals, fertilizers, and a
catalogue of plastics later enhanced industry and thus civilization. When I
consider the debris on my old wooden desk I see books in a row made from wood
and glue and chemicals, pens made from plastic and chemicals, scissors of steel
and plastic, screwdrivers of wood and plastic, and a lamp made from steel,
plastic, glass, and a bulb combining electricity and odd metals. The computer
on which I type is made mostly of plastic with some few metal parts and
microchips.
I don’t understand microchips at all, but without them we
would not have computers, MePhones, clever little watches, thermostats, radios,
Orwellian telescreens, credit cards, and hundreds of other devices as we know
them now.
Without microchips we would have no military defense, no
radar, no air travel, no electricity, no cars, no industry, no medical care, no
economy, and no food, and so of course this nation has surrendered almost all
the manufacturing of microchips to countries who don’t like us.
In the past few weeks numerous news articles have discussed
the recycling and even theft of microchips from older devices so that we can
have newer devices because we don’t make chips ourselves and can’t buy them.
Apparently most microchips can be programmed and
reprogrammed for all sorts of purposes, and thus – I read it on the InterGossip
so it must be true – some car manufacturers are buying new and used household
appliances in order to recover the microchips for making their cars go.
If your car has developed a shimmy and a shake don’t
worry; it’s the rinse cycle.
That burglar on your security camera (which also needs
microchips) might be the president of General Motors whose dead-on-the-line
Cadillacs need some Whirlpool microchips to make them varoom, varoom.
Shady characters on street corners whisper, “Hey, buddy,
wanna buy a thermostat? Like new, I promise.”
We can truthfully say that in the past we didn’t need
microchips. This nation ran railroads and drilled oil wells and built
interstates and generated electricity and designed jet planes and dug coal with
slide rules, pencils, paper, thoughts, machine tools, and skilled, muscled
hands. That might have been a better way of doing things – after all, no North
Korean or Chinese Communist could lurk behind a little glowing screen on the
other side of the planet and program a Baldwin steam locomotive to
self-destruct.
I don’t know about microchips, but I do know that
Communist China is quietly but busily colonizing Africa (they call it their
Belt-and-Road Initiative, which sounds ever so much nicer than imperialism) and
expanding its newer-than-new Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to the
Solomon Islands. Australia is next.
Chanting “Learn. To. Code.” and arguing about rainbow
flags in Disney World won’t help.
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