Supremacy of numbers

Widespread use of computers has existed for 20-25 years now.  At first, they were a miracle  for lessening the workload of people.  A number of stages have ensued.  They removed the need for paper, but using paper was a habit hard for people to make since paper had been used abundantly in every facet of life for 200 years.  Finally, after 25 years, people learned to store information and files electronically in large volumes.  Computers also made communication instantaneous.  That too has taken 25 years for people to adjust to.  The fax machine should have disappeared at least a decade ago, but they were a habit hard to break.  Now, people finally have adjusted to receiving files through various means such as email, common forums like Google Docs, and attachments for in-person meetings such as with GoToMeeting.  Even legal documents can now have electronic signatures, so the world has been able to change some of its major habits.  But, change didn't come easy.

Computers have also opened the way to another foundation for communication. After years of working with programs like EXCEL, people are now ready for a new change that will likely take another 20 years or so because people are so entrenched in habits involving printed materials and words.  Algorithms are headed our way - not in just an area of life here and there.  That has already been happening.  Stock predictions are made based on algorithms.  Predicting events has been reduced to numbers in an algorithm.  Networks of people for marketing purposes is used regularly in an algorithm by Google to show you what you want to see.  Even words in reading and writing have been reduced to numbers in an algorithm for identifying the complexity level of conversations and writing.  And, words in testimony can be packaged in an algorithm for areas of deception in the "story" a person tells. Because of this groundwork, now people are ready to make much, much more available to algorithmic communication - numbers communication.

Apps are designed through numbers, software is a conglomeration of numbers organized to achieve particular goals, like EXCEL, even digital photography is composed and transmitted through the combination of pixel, location, and shades assigned a number.  Numbers are used in controlling the currency of a nation through statistics organized into algorithms.  Companies plan based on projections and inventory and sales - combined in an algorithm in order to accumulate wealth.  Yeah, changing to the importance of learning numbers and their organization over the importance of learning words and their organization will take a little while longer.  The footwork has taken place already.  The dinosaurs have identified themselves.  They will certainly fall and fall hard.  Algorithms will have a long life of their own because they will usher in the next age that will begin with holography and take us into space and other planetary contact.  Let me say adios... and good riddance... to those who want to strap us into the past and retard the development of the agile environment of organized  number communication that will take us to a world beyond our own.