Software as a metaphor for human behavior

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

I’m focusing on “sensitivity chip”. Interesting:

Jennifer Aniston is interviewed by Vanity Fair’s Leslie Bennetts. In the profile, titled The “Unsinkable Jennifer Aniston,” Aniston (crying the whole time) speaks on her marriage to Pitt, telling Bennetts, “We’re divorced, and you can see why,” referring to the aforementioned W spread.

She adds, “Brad is not mean-spirited; he would never intentionally try to rub something in my face. In hindsight, I can see him going, ‘Oh—I can see that that was inconsiderate.’ But I know Brad. Brad would say, ‘That’s art!’…There’s a sensitivity chip that’s missing.”

No one could have said that in the 1920s or 1940s or even the 1950s. That’s a metaphor that would have been impossible before the 1960s. In the 1960s, people might have spoken of a “sensitivity program”. “chips” for computers didn’t make their appearance till the 1970s (insert various qualifiers here).

Interesting how common computer metaphors have become in modern life.

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