Is This What Thinking Looks Like?

My dad spent his career working for IBM in the Federal Systems Division, much of it on computers for the space program. So IBM fed and clothed me and my three sisters throughout our young lives. 

I was a Watson Scholar (the National Merit Scholarship sponsored through my parent's employer), so IBM paid for part of my college education and Thomas Watson's name was on that money. 

Today I learned, via Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of the D.C.-based organization Civil Rights Corps, that a book came out in 2001 called IBM and the Holocaust. It was written by a journalist named Edwin Black. This is how Karakatsanis summarized it:

First, the book is a breathtaking history with the kind of rigor that is exceedingly rare. Hundreds of people across the globe contributed primary source research to it, making it one of the most meticulously rich archives of crime and conspiracy ever produced.

And, it reads like a beautiful thriller telling one of the most important stories of modern history: the role of American corporation IBM in making the Holocaust possible, and profiting from it. You will never look at IBM--or any corporate entity--the same way ever again.

IBM's tabulation technology and employees powered Nazi Germany, to the enormous profit of IBM. IBM was essential to nearly everything Hitler did to accomplish genocide, from detailed census tracking/identification of European Jewry to the timing of the trains to the gas chamber.

Second, the book is the best description I have ever read of corporate sociopathy. We learn in law school that corporations are required to be sociopaths, legally bound to pursue their own profit. But the story of how IBM made Holocaust possible sears this truth into your mind.

I have never read any account that shows, step by hideous, calculating step, how ordinary bureaucrats and corporate employees pursuing their own profit can become a part of the monstrous evils of our world, and how the entire enterprise appears not just normal, but celebrated.

Third, the fact that, after this book was written, IBM chose to name its flagship AI product Watson after the CEO who masterminded IBM's role in the genocide of millions of human beings is a horror. I don't think many people understand this historical villainy of this man.

And this is an essential lesson for today's propaganda: as Watson was helping Hitler orchestrate genocide--and receiving highest Nazi official honors--he was celebrated as perhaps the most famous American businessman. He portrayed himself as a lovable man of charity and peace.

Fourth, the book contains bombshell stories about the complicity of the U.S. government in IBM's profiteering from and architectural development of genocide.  As today, U.S. government works hand in hand to promote profits of U.S. corporations abroad, with devastating results.

Finally, this story...is vital because so many U.S. corporations are involved in similar conduct today, helping the world's authoritarian regimes accomplish monstrous atrocities.

I can't help remembering that the large red brick building that was part of the original headquarters of IBM, located in Endicott, N.Y., had the company's slogan engraved in large letters atop the front: 

THINK.

You can find the word THINK engraved in the light-colored material, up near the top of the building at both ends.

The company also gave out tens of thousands of signs to employees and named their internal house organ THINK. According to Thomas Watson's Wikipedia page, the company trademarked the motto THINK before it trademarked the company name.

Clearly, though, no one was meant to think about the morality of what the company and its employees were doing.

A 1934 punch card machine from the IBM museum in Endicott. A machine just like this could have been used by the Third Reich as it began to track German Jews.