A conceptual framework for man-machine everything

This paper is not about everything between man and machine, but about man-machine everything, that is, the desirable future condition where most of our information and tasks are attractively and comprehensibly united through man-mechanisms. The breadth of possibilities is mind-boggling, but it does not seem to be clear to people yet that they are possibilities for the choosing, rather than eventualities to be engineered. The myth of technical determinism seems to hold captive both the public and the computer priesthood. Indeed, the myth is believed both by people who love, and by people who hate, computers. This myth, never questioned because never stated, holds that whatever is to come in the computer field is somehow preordained by technical necessity or some form of scientific correctness. This is cybercrud.