[pddpro]

People decry the energy wastage brought about by the Crypto Mining, rampant invasion of privacy & trust by mega corporations, ubiquitous presence of misinformation and vitriol in social media, mismanagement of e-waste, global climate change and the impending doom upon the entire human civilization, and a thousand things more, and yet find this article condescending.

This is not to say that I agree entirely with it either but, I find myself empathizing with the author at some level. If nothing more, it's a fun mental exercise to imagine what life today would be like had there been no personal computing.

[totetsu]

Our understanding of climate through global climate modelling would be nowhere without computing also.

[pddpro]

True, but notice how I said personal computing and not computing in general. There's no denying that much of the scientific advances today would be impossible without computers in research facilities and/or universities.