Reason for the Downfall of Man #1: QWERTY

If you’ve spent any amount of time on a computer, you probably know what Qwerty is. For those of you whose brain never quite connected to your spinal cord, look down at your computer keyboard, at the top row left. See how those keys spell “Qwerty”? That’s the name of the computer layout that we all use. Now, go play with a ball.

So why is the layout of our computer keyboard a reason for the downfall of man? It’s not the layout itself, it’s what it represents. To understand this, you have to know the story behind the layout.

Typewriters were introduced in 1878 (for those of you under 30, typewriters were like a mechanical computer, but all you could do was type letters on it. They made a really cool clickity-click sound and had a bell. You had to actually know how to type because when you made a mistake you were stuck with it. And it was not Bluetooth compatible), and with the typewriters was the Qwerty layout, designed by inventor C.L. Sholes.

The semi-random pattern of letters on the keyboard layout did have a purpose. Some claim that the pattern was set up to actually slow you down because otherwise the typebars would jam together and get stuck (see, kiddos, in the typewriters, each time you pressed a key, it would fling a metal bar with the letter on the end of it onto the page, and sometimes those bars would get stuck. Really slowed down a good game of Halo).

In truth, the keyboard layout was designed to keep the bars from colliding, but not by slowing you down, but by arranging the keys so that pairs of letters that occurred together frequently would lie on opposite sides of the typewriter. There was a little fudging for frequency of letter use, but that was secondary.

Long story short, the keyboard layout that you use to type all your emails was designed over 128 years ago to keep metal bars that don’t exist anymore from hitting each other. It’s not the fastest, most efficient, or most ergonomic layout. It was just mechanically necessary for the technology of the day.

So why the hell do we still use it?

It’s not for lack of alternatives. Dozens of alternative layouts have been designed and forgotten, some even have patents, some created by biomechanical experts and efficiency gurus. The most notable one is called the Dvorak keyboard, which was created in 1932 by Dr. August Dvorak. Developed through a massive study by the U.S. Navy, the idea behind this layout is that the 10 most used letters sit on the home row, so your fingers have to move far less when typing. Its fans claim that they can type many times faster and have less hand strain and carpal tunnel issues.

There are also those who claim that Dvorak is no better at all. But the Idiot says, if you can type 10x more words without moving your fingers off the home row, how the hell can it not be faster and easier on your hands?

It has to be better.

But it wasn’t first. And we are creatures of habit.

“But it would have cost tons of money to switch all the typewriters over to the new system,” you might say. Maybe, 20 years ago. But now that typewriters basically exist in museums, and almost all computers have the Dvorak layout as an option in their operating system, all you have to do is put letter stickers on the keys. It would cost about $.05 per computer.

“But it’s hard to learn a new typing system!” And typing on this layout was perfectly instinctual? After hunting and pecking for about a month, your speed would be back up and beyond what it was before. What it all comes down to is habit. If every computer manufacturer decided to go with a better keyboard layout (it doesn’t have to be Dvorak), people would groan about it, but in mere months it would all be forgotten. Carpal tunnel issues would plummet, and productivity would go up.

And forget about keyboard layouts, what about an entirely new keyboard design? Look at the mouse. In 25 years, it’s gone from a plastic brick rolling on a ball to optical laser-precise with multiple buttons, scroll wheels, and track balls. And we’ve got the exact freaking same keyboard with oddly non-functional straight and diagonal rows. Stop for a second and look at it. Look at your hands. It’s literally like making a round peg fit in a square hole. You’re going to tell me this is the best we can do?

We can split the atom. We can travel to the moon, send probes out of the solar system, transplant someone’s face, clone sheep, fly around the world on a tank of gas and take a pill to get a boner, but we just can’t create a better damn keyboard. Just can’t quite pull that one off.

We are a species that is pre-programmed to accept the world as it is, don’t question things, continuity at all costs, whatever you do… Don’t change!

That’s why the same congressmen keep getting elected time after time after time even if they have dismal approval ratings.

I take major issue with a lot of sci-fi movies that are made that depict the future as a fantastic place where everything we do now is performed differently, where computers are giant opaque screens where people interact with them through touch, hand gloves, or virtual reality. Where cars drive up walls of buildings right into people’s apartments, and crimes are stopped before they happen by prescient beings floating in giant vats of KY (in case it’s not ringing a bell, I’m talking about the ridiculous Minority Report).

The fact is, we have all that technology now (except the floating psychics crap), but human habit and economics make it unfeasible. And it will be unfeasible in 50 and 100 years, as well.

But QWERTY isn’t the only example of this, there are hundreds. Take the incandescent light bulb. It was patented in 1880 – 2 years after the typewriter. And in 126 years, its basic design has barely changed at all. A glass bulb, creating a vacuum, running electricity across a thin tungsten filament. For 126 years, people have been flipping a switch and it has come on. It works. Why change it, right?

Because it’s a ridiculously inefficient design! 90% of the energy that goes through a tungsten light bulb is emitted as heat. That light you see coming out of it is only 10% of the energy going into it. That’s like running a car at 50 miles per hour and only being able to go 5. In 126 years, this is the best we can do? At a time when energy consumption is a vital concern, even becoming a matter of national security, we have billions of light bulbs out there wasting 90% of the energy going into them because we’re using a design that was invented at the same time people were shitting in outhouses and only bathed once a week?

I have an LED headlamp that is pretty damn bright and runs off a AAA battery for up to 100 hours at a time. You want to tell me we can’t make a kick-ass LED light bulb that would never burn out and use a fraction of the energy? Hell, there are compact fluorescent bulbs out there right now that last 10 times longer than an incandescent, and produce more light for less energy. They save hundreds of dollars in energy consumption and cost of replacements, and one fluorescent bulb puts 1,000 pounds less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than incandescents per year, but they haven’t caught on. Why?

Because the color of the light is a little different than people are used to.

At a time when energy consumption and a potential global warming crisis are of critical concern, this human need to always maintain every detail and abhor change is truly going to be our downfall.

It’s happened before.

In the late 17th century Europe, a change in climate (yes, there is climate change, it’s happened before and it’s happening now) caused their staple crops of wheat and oats to fail. As people began starving, other countries - notably England and Ireland - switched to potatoes, which were less fragile due to being grown underground. But the French, unwilling to let go of their beloved breads and pastries, refused to change. Famine resulted. The king, Louis XVI, who has gone down in history as being detached from the common man’s problems, encouraged his subjects to switch to potatoes in order to stave off the famine. But the people refused. Hunger, as it often does, led to crimes and lawlessness. People blamed the king, and the revolution took hold.

The end result was a democracy over a monarchy, but not before thousands upon thousands died.

Just as we today refuse to challenge such simple things as our Qwerty keyboard layout, our adherence to continuity throughout history has proven to be one of mankind’s worst innate instincts. And it will continue to serve negatively for us in the future.

My challenge to all of you is to re-think. Whether it’s purchasing fluorescent lights, switching cars, or learning a little Dvorak, learn something new every day. Every day find a better way to do something, even as simple as washing the dishes or picking your nose. Always be challenging the way you do even the smallest things. It’s only through constant re-thinking by a large group of us that we can break the chains of unnecessary continuity and move forward as a society.

The Idiot’s goal: learning to fart a musical scale.