I, Borg

filed in Daily Buzz News on Aug.31, 2009

Ahhh…classes are coming back into full swing. I have tons of reading to do…and yet I find myself blogging instead of reading. Yes, things are back in the school routine.

You loyal readers may recall from my last posting (you not-so-loyal-readers or newcomers will just have to go back and read it) that I am taking a computer science class. I have never been ‘formally’ taught how to use a computer, so I was very interested in how my professor was going to go about teaching me things that I already sort of taught myself.

Well, the class is turning out to be more of a confidence boosting, you-can-do-it-because-nowadays-computers-are-made-for-morons sort of a class than a class where you learn about the intricacies of computer program, which I’m fine with because I don’t want to be the next Bill Gates. My professor spends most of the class informing us that ‘computers don’t hate you’ and that ‘they want you to use them’ (obviously he did not know my old laptop, which really did hate me and was so insistent on not being used that it eventually stopped turning on for me).

It wants to hurt you!

So, to drive home this idea that computers are friends, not foes, my professor has given lectures with the titles of ‘I, Geek’ and ‘I, Borg’. I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘I, Geek’ lecture, where my professor attempted to convert myself and my peers into computer geeks by having us imagine that we were at a ‘geek party’ and needed to learn the ‘geek lingo’ so that we could have a good time (I thought all you’d need were a couple of drinks, but what do I know?). It was a cute little lecture, well-meant if not a bit overzealous.

But when the ‘I, Borg’ lecture rolled around, I started to have some serious issues with this ‘computers=friends, not foes’ philosophy. You see, the premise of the ‘I, Borg’ lecture was that my professor wanted us to become an extension of the computer (or, on the flipside, the computer to become an extension of us). He said (and I quote!) : “I want to make you one with the computer – I want you to become the Borg – RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!”

OH NO! The Borg!

Now, you loyal listeners know that I am a bit of a Trekkie, and my instinctive reaction to the words “Resistance is futile” is “NEVER!!!” So there I was, in class, with my professor, someone whom I thought I could trust, telling me to become a Borg! Well, instantly I thought, “Hell no!”, and now I’m right back to the beginning of the class, where I am hesitant to completely befriend my computer lest it turn me into a member of a cultish race where my individualism is erased and my identity becomes merely a number amongst millions!

I feel bad for my professor, though. He tries hard, and I give him kudos for that. I just wish he was a little more careful in picking his class examples. So, its his fault if I fail the class. I will NOT become a Borg.