Tech wars

There are no self-replicating fractal nano-robots dissolving metals to fashion more of themselves. Computer viruses are no more sentient than they are actually contagious, their delivery system far more directed and intentional and only through human folly do they happen to spread further.  Why must it be then, that we insist upon misappropriating the Darwinian word ecosystem in order to describe computer hardware and software?  It is a system yes.

Eco- is a prefix of ecology which is the study of plants and animals in an environment. A system can be any simple or complex interconnected group of things, but since there is technology could there not also be TechnoSystem or Teknosystem?  We seem far too quick to coin new buzzwords and catch phrases.

Apple muddied the waters with its choice to use 'ping' for one of its tools, while its former meaning in computer terms had been much the same as for a submarine, except to seek a response through a network from another connected computer.  Microsoft did no better with its 'I'm a PC' campaign, that sought to name any Windows user as 'PC' or equate a person with their tool, both being much greater (though non-Windows users might scoff at that).  That also-ran search seems to have wanted a comic book action word but must have found them all taken.  We can coin a word and it can be given a common-sense meaning, or we can hijack a word and cause confusion and irritation.

Spend 2.5 seconds on the explore tab of Google+ and you will know that there remains a shouting match between two mobile devices, and two manufacturers.  One has prestige and price. The other seeks to surpass it and probably would if it were entirely open source which is a line its competitor won't cross.  The vocal folks on either side would point to their struggle as important while ignoring any argument of semantics and meaning, yet are these the same people who help to reinforce such hideous words as fashionable?

We can use network interchangeably for a group of connected computers, or for the roots of a grove of trees, or for communication in general.  The difference is that it is a generic and unrefined word. System is a very non-distinct word that has no ties to any certain anything: it is a group or combination of things that fit together as an entity. Even that word virus by its spelling is not specifically limited to any certain type. Now is the present that meaning does still matter, perhaps in the future we will have paved over all grass and chopped down all trees, so that only the improperly used and despicable ecosystem must supplant technosystem or teknosystem (or teqnosystem?). I hope that time is distant and before then people quit abusing words just because it is fashionable. Eco- is plants and animals, dammit! Are we going to see Eco-friendly computer software in the sense that things play nice together and not that it has any other 'green' ecological (plant or animal) effect? How far is the farce going to go?