Humanity is the Error Between the Chair and the Keyboard

No matter what we do or how we do it, humanity is the drunk at the wheel of the planet

PEBCAK Defined

There’s a term in IT: PEBCAK.

It means “A Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard”.

IT people use this as shorthand amongst themselves that when someone calls up for tech support about a ‘problem’ with their computer, the computer actually turns out to be fine, but the person using the computer (and usually the person who called) is a total numpkin and has screwed up or doesn’t know what they’re doing.

In short: the person operating the computer is the actual problem, the one sitting between the keyboard and the chair.

Thus, PEBCAK.

The Human Race: The Evolutionary Bug in the Machine

This seems to be the basic situation with humanity. We are the PEBCAK. Everything we touch, we mess up. We’re the evolutionary bug in nature’s operating system, eternally messing up the planet and each other at every turn. We’ve always been pretty awful at doing things, and we still are awful just with a lot more technology now to be awful so much more. For every decent thing we manage to…