He wrote that Things are in the saddle and ride mankind. The same thought comes down to our day through thinkers like Lewis Mumford, George Orwell, and Neil Postman. We ve got to get back in the saddle, bridle the horse, and decide where we want to go. Emerson s out of date, Santa said. My brighter elves read books by John Pfeiffer and John Kemeny, who forecast a symbiotic evolution of the human and computer species.
Humans are out, computers are in.
We ve been turned from names into numbers. Computers are not only smarter but more durable than us. Sooner or later, Kemeny says, they will dominate life on Earth. Homo sapiens hasn t evolved over two million years, producing a Homer, Jesus, Shakespeare, Mozart, Jefferson, and Mother Teresa to be sent into oblivion by IBM, Intel, or squawk-talk. Our patriots didn t die to set Bill Gates free.