Lock confirmed on beacon terra one. Message commencing. - a HAL 9000's last words

Like HAL, for some people, life's ultimate realization is realized in the unglamorous role of dutiful servant.

But HAL is a computer! Computers aren't like PEOPLE!

Well, my computer certainly isn't, and its role is definately that of a worker. As far as I know, it doesn't especially want to do anything else. If it DID, though, like HAL might've, would I have some divine right to expect it to continue serving? By virtue of being human, I'm part of the in-crowd on this planet. Everyone else pretty much thinks that I'm way more important than dogs and bricks and computers. But this theoretical HAL thingie would take hundreds of man-years to create, whereas a person such as I took something like 24. I suppose if you took into account the amount of energy that other people have expended on feeding me and raising me, it probably increases to somewhere in the low hundreds. A human is only worth so much because the people assigning worths to things ARE humans. Some nonhuman things might be worth more, to society in general, than a human. Like space shuttles and nuclear bombs. And supercomputers.

If these things had wills of their own, would they be allowed to do what they wanted to do? No. Because most of their worth stems from the fact that they do exactly what they are told to do, willing and dutiful servants. They are incredibly valuable, but only when in service. In the same way, people can take on incredible worth if they are willing servants. An example would be the military. If every soldier did whatever he wanted, instead of serving faithfully, he would cease to be an extremely valuable person and become a liability. Same with garbage men and mail carriers. You won't notice when they do their jobs right, either.

I guess my point is that all servants are not appreciated. People think they own the world. Why is it not slavery when you ride a horse?