Too much reliance on technology
Is technology the slave of mankind, or do we allow it to be our master? There are so many applications of technology, especially of computers, that seem to try to direct their users instead of aiding them. Using a computer is not a natural act, yet society looks down upon those who are lost among the confusing interfaces and new ways of seeing information. Is it right to forget these people in the name of progress? Throwing new machines at a problem in order to increase productivity without any thought to the quality of the product or the lives touched by the machines is something that faced the Luddites and no less surrounds us today.
On the other end of the spectrum, how often do we reject ideas that would improve our lives because of an unwillingness to accept the changes? I’ve often seen with cell phones a reluctance, or even a hatred, towards them that I simply don’t understand. Shouldn’t person-to-person communication be tied to a person and not a location? To me cellular phones are a great improvement over land lines since they remove the location restriction and thus allow for a more liberated form of global communication. Sure, people are rude and obnoxious on cell phones, but they’d probably be rude and obnoxious without them, too. The only real advantage I see in land lines is reliability, and even that will eventually disappear as a cellular infrastructure is built up.
Lastly, with respect to any of this, how will it matter ten thousand years from now? I’d known about the Long Now Foundation from one of Strick’s many many yak.net Smilax wikis, but I hadn’t really thought about it much. You may have noticed that the year at the top of this entry is now five digits; this is pointless, of course, since it’s highly unlikely that this glog will be read 8000 years from now and no one living today will be effected by the deca-millennium issue, and I think by that time the Gregorian calendar will break down anyhow, but it’s nonetheless an important symbolic gesture in realizing that humanity will most likely be here for another ten thousand years. How would our use of technology change if we weren’t so short-sighted about it?