“Blue Screens of Death”:
Result of Drive for Profit

Jul 22, 2024

On July 19, many motor vehicle administrations were closed across the country, people couldn’t get needed medicine or hip replacement surgery or other elective surgeries, thousands of flights were canceled or delayed. Some banks were impacted, meaning people didn’t have access to their money; and on and on. In other words, a computer-generated nightmare for millions of people around the world.

Apparently, countless computers relying on the Microsoft 365 app suite were suddenly taken offline because of an antiviral update. This led to a critical operating system crash, or the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death.”

CrowdStrike, the company that provides these updates for Microsoft Windows, like all companies and corporations, is in this for the money. And, just like other corporations, they don’t hire nearly enough people, and the people they do have work long, tedious hours.

And like most industries, CrowdStrike pushes production, forcing workers to send out patches before they have been tested sufficiently. All this increases their profit margins, but at the same time can unleash these horrendous catastrophes on the population.

It is clear these computers and the software they use are part of the infrastructure, like roads, bridges and water and sewage systems, that allows this society and its economy to function. When they don’t function, all hell breaks loose.

This economy is based on the capitalists continually making ever increasing profits at all costs. This has led to what appears to ordinary people as really crazy decisions. Things that cut into profits, like back-up systems, are not even considered.

What is to stop this from happening tomorrow? All the bosses across the board have been dealing with the global economic crisis in similar ways, like cutting their workforce to bare bones. So long as the economy is based on making ever-increasing profits for the bosses, these sorts of disasters will continue.