Millionaires and Gods

I’ve been watching Quinn’s Ideas. Specifically the episode on the role of God in the Dune novels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYDDbv9-E0U. As I watched, I opened the webcomic Three Panel Soul to the comic below.

And this got me thinking. How much progress is actually a mechanism of control? How often is novelty a mechanism wealth transfer? I commented to friends some time back, that my knowledge of computer use has a much lower half-life than other skillsets. I have had to relearn how to use a computer multiple times since I was thirteen. By contrast, my knowledge of how to start a fire has not changed much since I learned them in Boy Scouts. I have learned more methods of starting a fire, but the old methods still work.

As technology improved, it became necessary to expand the knowledge needed to use a computer. But this is not all that has been done. The shape of change with regards to computers and their user interface has demanded that we relearn basic systems and techniques over and over again. And this because the designers changed systems without purpose. The stick shift has not changed much since it was designed. The Speedometer is still functionally the same thing. And what benefit do we get from these changes?

We get to relearn constantly. We are deprived of mastery, and forced to constantly restart as a beginner yet again. The process is exhausting. And I think the exhaustion is the point. Keep us exhausted and we cannot fight back. And in our exhaustion, the millionaires become billionaires and we get a little poorer.