aphor's Journal: Looking back at the W32.SLAMMER

I feel bad for Microsoft. There are a lot of real people working for that company who have been led to believe that what they are doing is good for people. More and more they will recieve disheartening news that something they were involved in caused massive problems.

Any way you look at it the facts are depressing. A lot of people will have to resort to their psychological defense mechanisms. They will deny the truth. They will project the problem onto others to dissociate themselves. They will sublimate it by burying themselves in other work. They will probably intellectualize it the most.

All of this prevents people from being happy, and these are the forgotten victims: the perpetrators themselves! I suppose there may be a few truly evil people at Microsoft. Those people are manipulating hundreds if not thousands of employees and other workers against hundreds of thousands if not millions of other people. All of the money in the world will not satisfy the tragic thirst of these businessmen. The apple pulls away from them as the lumbering mob of employees falls down on the job.

No, Microsoft will not take over the world. They do not have the power. They aren't good enough. They also aren't good enough to set us free. What use are they? We use their toys for the sole purpose of amusing a few very-very overpaid sickos who *wish* either that they could rule the world or that they could make some lasting and benevolent mark on the world.

What in the hell do we need them for? Don't we have our own lives? Machiavelli says we serve their interests because we believe that serving them serves our own interests. They make the paychecks don't they? They also supply everything we buy to live! It's like the old manorial system, but on a global scale with corporations instead of manorial lords controlling the economy and the vassals' lives.

Looking at the W32.SLAMMER, you KNOW we can do better. The problem is: Can we BUY better? If not, then we should MAKE better. For all the dot-com boom the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, and the upper-middle racheted up to a slightly better but still vulnerable position. WTF happened to "growing the pie?" Isn't the increased economic output supposed to pay for things like the integrity of the economy itself? If Microsoft software is such an enabling force, why can't it hold itself up?

I hope some of them can see the truth: It's crap. It's no way to live your life. Wake up in the morning and say "I'm going to do something RIGHT today." Leave Microsoft and start your own software company! Do it because YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WORKING FOR THE BAD GUY. It's not your fault. You can take the first step. Dream of living for your own moral satisfaction. Give up the stock options. They are a pyramid scheme and you are NOT on the top. Cut your losses and stand on your own two feet.

Nobody deserves to suffer that way.