Americans now have more computer power in their smart phones than did the Pentagon in all its computer banks just 30 years ago. We board a sophisticated jet and assume that the flight is no more dangerous than crossing the street.

The downside of this complete reliance on computer gadgetry is a fundamental ignorance of what technology is. Smart machines are simply the pumps that deliver knowledge, not knowledge itself.

What does it matter that millions of American students can communicate across thousands of miles instantly with their iPads and iPhones if a poorly educated generation increasingly has little to say?

The latest fad of near-insolvent universities is to offer free iPads to students so they can access information more easily. But what if most undergraduates still can’t read well, think inductively or have some notion of history? Speeding up ignorance is not the same as imparting wisdom. Requiring a freshman Latin course would be a far cheaper investment in mastering language, composition and inductive reasoning than handing out free electronics.

Technology confuses us about the vast power and force of nature that remains more formidable than Yahoo or Google. Computer models assured us that the Earth would now be getting really hot. But over the past 17 years, when carbon emissions temperatures mysteriously have stayed the same or cooled. Nature remains fickle, complex and can defy even computer-enhanced theorizing.

When windchill temperatures fell to 40 degrees below zero in the frigid Midwest this winter and there were occasional storm-related power outages, was it better to have a computer-controlled central heating system or an ax, some wood and a cast-iron stove?

The politicos who peddled the Affordable Care Act did so not just on the impossible logistics of giving more coverage to more people at less cost. They also hyped their new user-friendly website that would make getting health care no different from buying shoes on Amazon. Yet behind the web pages on our laptops lie millions of hours of complex computer programming. Technological failure has all but sidetracked Obamacare. And the resulting shock is not surprising, given how something so difficult to do was sold to us as if it were already done.

Jets have all sorts of transponders, navigation computers and sophisticated tracking systems. So how could we for days lose track of a 250-ton Malaysian jetliner that recently disappeared from radar screens as if it were some lost clipper ship of the 1840s? The answer is easy: The oceans are still big, and the night remains dark. Jets, in comparison, are quite small. For all our computerized sophistication, we can lose a jet in a big and wild world inhabited by millions who have not quite mastered technology, or who use technology to thwart technology.

The problem is not just that high technology is human-produced and thus often crashes in the same way imperfect humans often fail. Sophisticated electronics also often disguise the brutal premodern world with a thin veneer of postmodern egotism.

Our billionaire Lords of High Tech are not necessarily any different from entrepreneurs such as Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller or Leland Stanford of the late 19th century. A fortune made in social networking is hardly any more noble than one made from monopolizing the railroad business, gobbling up steel companies or setting up tax-avoiding trusts.

To paraphrase Shane of Western movie fame: A laptop is only as bad or as good as the person using it.

Victor Davis Hanson is a syndicated columnist.