the world of the computer nerd?

The world of the computer nerd?
(c) Melina Magdalena 2007

Book review
Anne McCaffrey (1977)
Get off the Unicorn
Corgi Books

I discovered Anne McCaffrey in 1984, when we had just returned to Adelaide after several years of traipsing around the eastern states of Australia. I was an alienated, lonely and frustrated adolescent. The first book I read was Dragonsong (1976), and I was hooked. Sensing a glimmer of hope on the horizon of my teenage angst, my mother lovingly sought out second-hand copies of every McCaffrey novel she could possibly lay her hands on, and my treasure trove gradually expanded. Some of my original copies have been read so many times they have fallen to pieces. I return to them year by year, because reading them leaves me feeling comforted, protected, uplifted and inspired.

I am in awe of many people’s abilities to produce art that enables me to transcend the mundane nature of my everyday life. Songwriters, painters, sculptors and writers are such a special breed of human being. I find McCaffrey one of the best, for transporting me to worlds that feed my imagination.

I like happy endings, and I like stories of people who feel they could be real. I like to take journeys alongside characters who are stepping out of the comfort zones and embracing the possible, despite threats to their identities and their worlds. I like the idea that one person, or a small group of people can make choices that change their world for the better.

I’ve never seriously tried my hand at writing science fiction or fantasy, though it is one of my favourite genres to read. Navigating the everyday realities is challenge enough for me. I for one do not scoff at the ‘science’ component of science fiction, and am endlessly fascinated by the manifestations of scientific possibilities as they are presented by writers of this genre.

Since starting a blog last year, I have occasional moments of feeling naked, having exposed such intimate details of my small life to the whole wide world. I ask myself often whether the idea that someone else might take an interest in what I have to say is what impels me to continue with the blog, or whether it’s inherently satisfying for me to see my words in print no matter who my audience might be.

My musings along this line brought me back to a 1973 short story by McCaffrey “Dull Drums” (found in Get off the Unicorn, 1977). Not being of a scientific bent, I have not researched the research that McCaffrey undoubtedly did, in order to write this story. 1973 seems a long time ago for someone to be writing about a worldwide system of computers that allocated personal space for all of its citizens. Or does that make me naive?

The crux of this story seems to me to be a conflict between computer programmers who are perhaps less socially apt than their counterparts, whose interests lie within the realm of interpersonal relationships. The protagonist, Nora Fenn, has opted to study “CompSci” in order to fulfil her father’s plans for her, rather than choosing “socio-psych dynamics”, which would better suit her.
Nora’s aptitude for understanding other people is exposed when she inadvertently reveals the underlying purpose of the special course in which she has enrolled. She shows up her peers as being shallow, malicious adolescents who take pleasure in ridiculing the private worries and preoccupations of people now long-dead, as these were recorded in their private computer files.

McCaffrey’s point in this story is that people had learned to trust the sanctity of their privacy within an online world. The very fact that they ‘told’ their secrets to their computers proved their trust that they would neither be betrayed by the technology itself, nor by those who control this technology.

I am delighted by McCaffrey’s idea of a conflict between those who are technologically apt and the rest of us. I’ve witnessed many times, the confusion people face when attempting to get assistance from computer technicians who speak a completely different language that reflects their completely different world view, in which the needs and assumptions held as natural by those who require the assistance of computer technicians to make their dreams possible are not recognised or validated by those computer technicians.

Attempts to communicate across these diametrically opposing worldviews can be truly hilarious. This morning I spoke with a friend of mine who told of her grandson’s request for a ‘password’ in order to be able to climb a tree!

It is fascinating to consider why some human beings are able to navigate effortlessly within a realm that can seem so anti-human! Are their brains truly wired differently? Are they born that way? Why is there a group of people so easily designated both within the group and from the outside, as computer nerds?

It is also reassuring to realise that just lately, the term nerd has been transformed from overwhelmingly negative to one that carries just a little bit more respect for the abilities of those so-called. I suppose this speaks of our growing dependence on computers for our social needs and habits.

And in considering myself as a non-nerd who tries to embrace the technology that promises me so much even without demanding that I understand how it works, I wonder why my interactions with the internet have not taken the path posited by McCaffrey. Was it not reasonable to assume that we would fear the openness of the world wide web, and seek to control and limit our exposure by it? If we did view computer nerds as power-monger big-brother types of people to be feared, rather than as brilliant and harmless little boys whose capabilities we can’t quite bring ourselves to admire openly, maybe we would flee the world wide web with screams of terror?

My naivety makes me laugh out loud quite often. I’ll post something without due consideration of consequence, and dangerously assume there will be none. Maybe one day my candour will come back and bite me. I do hope that’s not a prediction though, because blogging is such a lot of fun.