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All men contain several men inside them, and most of us bounce from one self to another without ever knowing who we are. - Paul Auster

Style

While a machine greatly aids the operator in such tasks, it also disciplines its operator. As the machine might be considered the extended arms and legs of the worker, the worker might be considered an extension of the machine. All machines, and especially very complicated machines, require operators to place themselves in a provided location and to perform functions mechanically adapted to the functions of the machine. To use the machine for control is to be controlled by the machine.

To operate a machine one must operate like a machine. Using a machine to do what we cannot do, we find we must do what the machine does.

Machines do not, of course, make us into machines when we operate them; we make ourselves into machinery in order to operate them. Machinery does not steal our spontaneity from us; we set it aside ourselves, we deny our originality. There is no style in operating a machine. The more efficient the machine, the more it either limits or absorbs our uniqueness into its operation.

Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse

Consider some of this next time you are operating machinery like a computer. Consider how computers discipline their operators and what that entails for the world at large.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. - Lao Tzu