Computers have saturated today's society. From elementary school classrooms to the bowels of the Space Shuttle, computers play a central role in our everyday lives. Our money exists as binary data packets in a computer somewhere. The world's news travels through computers before ever reaching print, or your television. TV shows and movies are digitally processed, becoming not film, but gigabytes of ones and zeros. If all the computers in the world were to crash at once, civilization as we know it would come to an end. This fact scares people. Many feel that if our lives become too intertwined with technology, bad things will happen. Economies will collapse because of a teenage hacker in England. Computers will follow the vision of director James Cameron (Terminator 2), become intelligent and destroy the world. Humanity will collapse. I maintain that this is not true -- far from it, in fact.

Advancement and risk go hand in hand. Almost any successful businessperson will state that to attain his or her position, they had to take many risks. Rock climbing is risky, but that doesn't stop people from continuing to climb. Risk is a natural element of being human, and a natural element of progress. To take no risks is to go nowhere. The same applies to computers. Many claim that technology is too risky; that too many lives are in the balance. They claim that the more we rely on computers and technology, the bigger a fall we're setting ourselves up for. This echoes the statements of people throughout history who were afraid of advancement -- afraid of change. The visionaries and dreamers of the world -- those who have led us to the New World; to new forms of government; to the moon -- have done so because they were able to see beyond the risks; beyond the limitations. They saw ahead, to the goal. However, the risks still exist.

Fortunately, with any risk comes a method of protection against it. A businessman buys stock in multiple companies, in case one goes under. A rock climber secures him or herself with ropes. Anti-virus programs, backup software and uninterruptable power supplies protect us from some of the risks of computing. Many other protective measures exist, as well. Entire companies exist to protect us as the computer industry expands -- and expand it will.

The Internet gained massive popularity in the early 1990s. In 1994, the World Wide Web exploded onto the scene. Humanity was exposed to a brand new form of advertising, instantaneously accessible by millions around the world. New companies appeared in every corner of the globe, to join in the grand cacophony of voices already on the Internet and the WWW. It continues to grow. In just four days, NASA's Mars Pathfinder web site recieved no less than 100 million hits. The numbers boggle the mind -- and the Internet forms only one facet of the colossal gem which is modern computing.

The vast majority of the civilized world's businesses own computers. Restaurants, pawn shops, department stores, major corporations, haberdasheries -- they all use computers. A large percentage of the population of the United States and other countries has access to computers at home, as well. The average speed of the home computer increases almost exponentially year after year, as does the amount of storage space required. I recall a magazine advertisement from 1983 for a 10 megabyte hard drive, for the low price of $3000. For the same amount of money today, one can buy 21 gigabytes of storage -- more than two thousand times that of 1983 -- with money to spare. The progress is phenomenal, and there's no end in sight. Imagine the convenience of controlling an entire house from one location -- the home computer. The house would not be dependent upon the computer, but the computer would augment the conveniences already in place. The television could be programmed to simulate occupancy during a vacation. Electricity could be monitored with software on the computer to maximize efficiency. In a pinch, an infrared alarm system could be tied in with the computer, and configured to automatically turn lights off as people leave a room.

My point is that the proliferation of computers is a natural step in the evolution of society. I feel that the risks associated with computers are acceptable, given the tremendous rewards to be reaped. This is a trend which must continue, leading us to new technologies (holographic storage, for example), and to new frontiers. Technology is the path upon which humanity must travel on its journey into the unknown -- the future.