THE MIND OF BABEL.

(With apologies to Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 to 9. Following the modern convention of writing scriptures, helpful editorial additions (redactions) are enclosed in square brackets.)

And the whole earth had one platform and a single operating system.

And it came to pass, as they invaded the East they confronted the growing industrial might of China, and they made trade agreements and developed lucrative trades and industries.

And they said to one another, "Let us build a superior computer industry." So they built VLSI clean rooms to develop ever bigger and faster computer chips and their programmers extended the WWW beyond all expectations.

And they said, "Let's do more, so that we can freely communicate and share ideas. Then with such close communication we can do away with all wars and harmful competition. Future generations will know us for our developments and in time our medical science will enable us to live forever. Sexual reproduction will become unnecessary."

[To the despair of the "heavenly host" even intelligent adults seemed to believe that the SPIRIT spoke to them exclusively through television, computer or i-thingy screens. This was particularly valuable for predators that enjoyed moving anonymously into the intimate centers of family life.]

And the LORD looked down to see these people and their computers.

And the LORD said, "Behold these people have gone too far with their vain cooperation; to say nothing about the false witness of advertising. Their web is saturated with porn and sex has become a degraded entertainment. At this rate they will stop breeding, but still keep dieing and soon they will be no more; there will not be any future generations."

"Let us go down and confound them."

So the Lord inspired 10,000 geeks to develop separate, but vaguely compatible operating systems and each geek was backed by a team of MBAs who ensured that the system they supported was popular and sold well.

And confusion reigned in the lands of Babel, the Web collapsed because the WiFis could not handle the data load for upgrading. Soon the computers and i-thingys all became worn and obsolete and the people were confounded. They wandered off to scour the old libraries for something to read.

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