Pro ~ Round 1

Computers an essential part in our everyday lives, and most people would not be able to perform their daily tasks or complete their job requirements without the assistance of a computer

Con ~ Round 1

The wheel is an essential part of our everyday lives, and most people would not be able to perform their daily tasks or complete their job requirements without the assistance of anywhere between 2 to 20 wheels.

The wheel has been around for many hundreds of years. Has it taken over the world?

If not then I fail to see how the computer, fulfilling the same requirements as the wheel, is.

Pro ~ Round 2

Yes but the wheel is not an as advanced machine as the personal computers, as they have more capabilities in the future and at present, and the new age is an age of dependence upon the technology that we have created.

Con ~ Round 2

And yet the same is still true of the wheel.

As time progresses the wheel has advanced. What started as a rough roundish stone tablet has transitioned into all sorts of advanced alloys and compounds. What could at one point only move a vehicle 5 mph can now move vehicles in excess of 500 mph.

Yet this is by no means all the wheel has done. Let's take a look at modern day engineering, gears are nothing but adaptations of the wheel. Ball bearings?

This current age, never mind the new age, is an age of dependence on the technology we have built. We would not do well without the wheel, without super markets, without electricity, without clothing, without heating. Yet these things by no means have taken over the world or are in the process of doing so.

The same is indubitably true of computers. While they are helpful and we are becoming increasingly dependent on them, they are not taking over the world.

Pro ~ Round 3

You are simply enforcing that our dependence on computers is growing steadily.
How would the human race survive if suddenly we had no electricity and no computers, doesn't it seem that the very bases of our civilization would crumble because the very thing that depend on to regulate our lives in hospitals, and to keep our food fresh, would be gone and we would be lost.
I think that this is the definition of control over our civilization, that if we were to lose computers then we would not be able to cope or survive.

Good fight, Mogget

Con ~ Round 3

Who wants to guess what my opening statement will be? ><

And yet the same is still true of the wheel.

If the wheel was suddenly to vanish from our society most trade would break down. Everything that required cars, bicycles, trains, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes (yeah they have wheels too) etc... to ship would no longer occur. We would be back in an age where our only means of shipment was that of boat.

And of course, transportation would literally break down also. No one would be able to get anywhere. The loss of the wheel would have a huge impact on our society, and the most likely consequence would be mass deaths of many people because food was not shipped to their remote cities.

But the fact is, much like the computer scenario, some of us would survive, our race would not go extinct. We would live to fight another day, and we would rebuild. Therefor it is rather obvious that neither the wheel nor computers are taking over the world. Even under Nado's definition which goes something along the lines of, "being responsible for our existence", computers are not taking over the world. Under the normal definition of taking over, "gaining control" they are quite definitely not.

I rest my case.