Computers

March 4, 2008

Last Revised:  May 23, 2012 4:50 PM

Computers are wondrous machines, but they are only machines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When a person completely understands the data, how it was collected, how it is used and particularly can look at a datum and judge quickly as to whether it a true or a false datum, then computers can be of great help to that person in using that data to get very rapid and useful answers.

The central data about computers is as Mr. Hubbard expressed in several HCOPL's.

What Is A Computer, CS 1 HCOPL 14 Feb1984

Targets And Computers, CS 1 HCOPL 25 Jan 1969

Targets and Production, CS 2 HCOPL 1982R Issue I

Computers -- Danger of Relying On, CS 4, HCOP 18 Aug 1982

Computer Ethics Points, CS 5, HCOPL 28 Feb 1984

Incomm, CS 6 HCOPL 23 Nov 1985

excerpts:

INCOMM is responsible for the computer equipment used in its network. It directs what equipment is to be used and sees to its correct installation, upkeep, upgrade and repair, and ensures that users are thoroughly hatted on its use and care.

. . .

While INCOMM's authority extends to its own personnel and network, and to ensuring that its computers are fully and standardly utilized by staff and execs, the authority of INCOMM computer programs is a different matter.

INCOMM computers are programmed under the direct supervision of and monitored closely by senior management. And these programs are designed to be able to originate orders and also take steps to get them complied with. (For example, if an INCOMM computer program detects that compliance to a target assigned to a particular staff member is overdue, the computer program can nudge the the target, issue an ethic chit for noncompliance per HCO PL 1 May 65 I, Staff Member Reports, and, if compliance is still not received, order further ethics action per policy.) In organizing or following up on such orders, the computer is actually executing what its programmers have set it up to do, per OEC policy. Orders and other communications issued by an INCOMM computer program are therefore valid and stem from the authority of senior management, authorize by AVC and governed by existing policy on compliance.

Background

The power and capabilities of computers are almost unlimited. Unfortunately, the existing state of administration in society today [possibly this would include the existing state of administration within VL today?] is so poor that most computers, no matter how fancy their "circuitry," are being wasted. Computers end up being used only for counting up how much tax someone has to pay or predicting how many auto accidents will occur next year.

But I'll let you in on a little known fact. On the track, real computers (not Earth's current home or business entertainment toys) have successfully administered whole planets. They actually were able to do work. They were not merely consoles and recorded that a person punched data into so that they would spit the data back at him

The point here is that this planet's current concept of how to use a computer would make a baby laugh. It's a bit like using a nuclear reactor to boil water, which is also being done on this planet at this time.

It seems to me that Vibrant Life's computer history followed this path:

  1. Karl Loren, founder, before there were any other staff than Bonnie was personally interested in computers, saw the value of having a computer program that would keep track of customers, sales, etc.
  2. Karl was the ONLY person involved, for many years, in making decisions on what PCs to buy, what programs were needed and he was the only person who learned how to program these Computers.
  3. After, perhaps, 10 years, it became obvious to Karl that Vibrant Life needed to "modernize" its PCs and programming.
  4. Perhaps a mistake? Karl decided that he did not want to take the time to learn the more modern programming languages and spend the time creating new programs.
  5. That began a long period, very unsuccessful, while Karl tried to "hire out" the job of selecting a new programming language and "converting" the ole "Master/Entry" program, created by Karl, into a new form, new language.
  6. Initially, Karl was heavily and personally involved in supervising people who were hired to do this work. Virtually nothing useful was ever done by this method.
  7. Then Karl tried to find a person who could do the whole job without his direct supervision, counting on that new person understanding the functions performed by the Master/Entry Program and getting those same and even improved functions being performed by more modern programming languages.
  8. This phase went on for many years, also, but never with any success.
  9. Karl then perceived that the people he hired, either as employees or outside contractors, seemed to be personally capable of "doing programming," it turned out that many of Karl's (ancient) programming steps were far more modern than he thought. It then turned out that these new people, quite capable in the technology of the programming languages they knew, did NOT understand the "FUNCTIONS" being performed by the Master/Entry Program, and particularly did not see the inter-connection amongst programming steps with LRH Management Policy. These new people seemed, all to often, to not understand WHY some of Karl's program language was in the M/E program and designed their new programs in ways that omitted these vital steps. It was not that the new programming was "wrong" from the viewpoint of the "programming language or technology," but it was simply that these attempts at "modernizing" the M/E program may have "worked" as computer programs, but did "not work" in allowing the LRH Management systems to be facilitated and used.
  10. With this background we keep running into the sorry fact that the existing M/E program, done by Tim von Hollen, is not adequate, cannot be changed except by him, when he is reluctantly willing to help. It takes too much effort to count on Tim to become a helpful, even outside, technical man for us.
  11. I still think, however, that the scheme I thought should work (offering the prospective Tech person a "joint venture deal where he would develop our program as a proprietary product which, when the term of the joint venture were met, he could take off as an independent business, he owning 100% of that business, but VL recovering 100% of whatever we had paid him (salary, etc) while he was working, hopefully 40 hours+, with close supervision on what HIS program could do for us.
  12. I've continued to like this approach because:
    1. Even in today's tough employment environment, computer programmers seem to expect and perhaps get, high levels of income for their programming skills, unrelated to any knowledge of how LRH management principles can be worked into a computer program.
    2. I think it "should" be possible to find a technically competent person who is also entrepreneurial minded and would like the security of steady pay to complete a good job and a "chance" to take his work and turn it into a separate business
  13. In this case we find a person who has two attributes:
    1. He is highly skilled, proficient in some programming language (such as PHP and My SQL OR Visual Basic) and
    2. He has a strong interest in owning his own business, even willing to take the risk of working more hours, or harder than another might feel is fair for a straight salary with no future entrepreneurial opportunity.
  14. Finding and hiring this sort of person could, I believe, safely, let us exceed the total salaries in VL being over the 20% of CGI Policy Level. This would mean that we watch his work carefully and EXPECT THOSE extra hours that ANY true entreprenure would eagerly spend and he TEACHES US how his program is aligning with LRH policies. (He should be at least some-trained in LRH tech.)

Source: HCO PL 18 August 1982, Issue II, Computers -- Danger of Relying On, page 348, Mgt. Series 1.

Here is the Hubbard Management data:

 

But, when a person doesn't know the difference between an "orange" and a "monkey" he could count "them" as "the same," put them into a computer that counts things and come up with TWO.

Two what?

Having been infected with the first disease -- not knowing the difference between a monkey and an orange, there is little prediction on the progress of that disease and as to how that person might define the "two."

Also it is generally true that most people who have this disease don't know they have it. They go on happily adding oranges and monkeys to get junk they then think is valuable.

The senior executives are the ones who most need to know the definitions of the data they allow to be put into a computer.

The manager may well know the difference between a monkey and an orange and sort stuff into categories: monkeys in one basket, oranges in another basket. The manager might think he can say to the clerk: "Take the stuff in this basket, don't mix them with the stuff in the other basket, and count the items in THIS basket."

"Then, count the items in the other basket."

It might work. Managers can fool themselves into thinking that it will work, and it may work some of the time.

You might think that the clerks can just follow directions that simple and that seems to be true, but clerks who don't know the difference between monkeys and oranges are likely to mix a few Ford Trucks into the same basket with the monkeys.

The manager would see that the basket has some trucks in it that don't belong with the monkeys, but the clerk might not.

The clerk goes ahead adding trucks and monkeys and who knows what he gets.

He gets what the computer program assumed would be fed into the computer. If the program was designed to count "monkeys" then the computer would give a "total" of "monkeys" that included a false count including trucks.

This is a lesson very much to be learned by all staff at Vibrant Life. Executives, clerks, all, must study the terms, the technology and the specialized words (such as "VSD" or "particle in") so that they can use these terms and words in our work environment, and use those terms and words in connection with the computer enhancement of speedy handling of items so that we get valid results from that computer.

It is not enough to have a glib understanding of some term.

" 'VSD' means 'value of service delivered' is true enough but not complete. Here are some questions that could then be asked, looking for full understanding:

  1. How does VSD differ from "sales?"
  2. Does VSD include an open account order where the customer never pays?
  3. Does VSD include an item shipped to the wrong address?
  4. Does VSD include an item, such as 'oral chelation' to help someone's pet dog?
  5. What is the difference between 'GI' (Gross Income) and 'VSD?'

If, as you read the above questions you are not sure of some answers, please find out -- read a Company Policy or ask your supervisor.

When we expand the use of a computer to include the use of a new computer program, then there is vital need to understand the terms and technology of that new computer program. "Behind" the computer programmers are people who design new computers. They too need your understanding for full value of use.

The people who design these computers and computer programs typically invent new terms, and understand well what they mean. But as these creative programmers leap ahead, building more and more specialized terms onto their basic inventions, they often leave the ordinary mortal far behind.

We come to try to use a computer program called "Web Position Gold" and fall into a hole right away because of an incomplete understanding of the word "web" as used in that title.

If you are in a hurry to get results from a computer, and particularly from a new and fancy computer program, you could well gloss over the large number of new words, new terms, and new purposes you hadn't seen before.

You might be all the more willing to gloss over those new terms is you DID understand the useful application of the results you get from using the new program.

Beware.

You can wind up producing wonderful "results" based on the machine (computer program) forcing you to input only valid data (the computer is designed to distinguish between monkeys and oranges and won't allow you to add them together).

Don't be fooled.

As you go past these terms you don't fully understand, you build up an attitude that the program is doing all the thinking.

It is not.

The LRH datum above is vital and senior.

A computer is no better than the value of the data fed into it and the people who interpret the results.

There are frail humans on both sides of the computer -- people putting stuff into the computer and people taking the results out of the computer.

You may not think you need to understand all of the internal workings of the computer or its program, but I guarantee that the LESS you understand of all aspects of the computer and its program, the less useful the computer will be.

You can then get to a point where you rely on the computer when you should not.

Then you are in the soup.

Stay out of soup!

 

 

 

 

Quotes from L. Ron Hubbard are copyright 1994 © by the L. Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved.