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The first computer was a group of human beings: the large-scale division of labor, as evidenced in the English machine-tool factories and in the French government's manufacturing of logarithmic and trigonometric tables for the new decimal system in the 1790s.

Inspired by Adam Smith's praise of the division of labor, French engineer Prony organized the project in a hierarchy of tasks. At the top were a handful of first-rank mathematicians who devised the formulas; in the middle, seven or eight persons trained in analysis; and at the bottom, 70 or 80 unskilled persons who performed millions of additions and subtractions. Once it was shown that elaborate calculations could be carried out by an assemblage of unskilled workers rather than by a genius such as Gauss, each knowing very little about the larger computation, Charles Babbage was able to conceive of replacing these workers with machinery.

Babbage, an enthusiastic "factory tourist," explicitly referred to this division of mental labor as the inspiration for his mechanical computer, using terms from the textile industry, such as 'mill' and 'store' to describe its parts. Similarly, he borrowed the use of punched cards from the Jacquard loom, the programmable weaving machines that used removable cards to weave different patterns. Thus, initially there was a new social system of work, and the computer was created in its image.

Social class is an equally potent division in virtual reality as it is
in social reality. In spite of the claims that everyone is the same in
virtual worlds, access to technology and necessary skills will
effectively replicate class divisions of the rest of reality in the
virtual spaces. The socially underprivileged will be excluded not by
evil tyrants, but by the invisible hand of economics.

Language barriers are not transcended by cyberspace. Non-English
speakers are effectively excluded from much of the activity on global
networks because English is so predominant. The arguments that the
graphical nature of virtual reality, and the emergence of real time
translation will overcome language barriers are making naïve
assumptions about the power of the technologies. Language will always
be a divider, to the benefit of dominant languages.