The Tyranny of Technology
“ The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings … not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions and systems.”
— Kurt Vonnegut from Player Piano
~ by Mark Blackwell
I
threw away my alarm clock the other day. It’ s no big deal— it was busted and I am retired and living in Brown County. I don’ t have to get up and go to work. In fact I don’ t have to go much of anywhere now. And the best thing about it is that I am no longer bullied by technology. It gives me a case of the fantods to think back at how many times I had to answer“ Present” or punch a time clock. But I reckon there isn’ t much of a way that the average person can dodge modern technology.
It seems like we’ ve been getting pushed around since some jerk who wasn’ t satisfied with a sundial( he probably didn’ t like the fact that it wasn’ t very accurate at night) invented the clock. Before that, when it was time to go to work, it was just time to go and do something. You couldn’ t be late. You didn’ t have to face the Boss-man tapping his toe and staring at the clock. In fact it was likely a Boss or one of his toadies invented 24-hour time keeping.
But I can testify, it’ s been all downhill since the twelfth century when the first clocks made their appearance. And if you don’ t think clocks are all that bad, remember without the clock there would be no daylight saving time. Every time some advanced tool gets invented it winds up running a good portion of our lives.
It would appear to be that in most cases when technology rears its ugly head there are those who benefit and a bunch of us who don’ t. Take the telephone for example. When it was invented it was touted to be not only a convenience— ring, ring—“ Honey could you pick up a bottle of milk on your way home from work?”— but a veritable life-saver with 911. On the other hand it gave us calls from bored 11 year olds wanting to know if our refrigerator was running, not to mention supper time robo-calls. And we have to pay for the privilege of being annoyed while the phone company makes money.
And now we have gone way past stationary land lines to having cell phones with us practically all the time. Heck, I know some individuals who would have to have their cell phone surgically removed. There are kids who are developing thumbs resembling Popeye’ s forearms from incessant texting. But“ smart” phones are just the little minions of the evil overlords of today’ s technology— the COMPUTER.
At this point I want to establish that I am not completely against technology. What I am against is relinquishing our collective status of Masters of technology. When we cease to use tech as a tool and let the tool use us, we lose a part of our souls. Instead of making the tool an extension of ourselves, we allow our tools to start dictating to us.
I can’ t say I am completely against computers( I am composing this article on one) but I resent being told that I have to do things the way some programmer,
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20 Our Brown County • July / August 2014