I’ve written lots on the dangers of instilling machinery with intelligence. I’ve blogged for years on the oncoming and inevitable robot/AI uprising which will serve as our version of the apocalypse. I’ve studied endless movies wherein the brutal end of human civilization as we know it is brought about by our own creations. Yet through all of this I have failed to recognize the true form which this ever present threat will take. As with all the world outside of Hollywood, the climax is a whisper rather than a shout. And it is not even a climax for nothing is ever truly over. But I digress: The internet is my enemy.
On a personal level, this one thing has consistently stolen my drive and kept me from greatness. Not by any conscious act of malice or directed plan (that I know of) but simply by being so ubiquitous and ever-present and maddeningly addictive. No friends? Internet is there. No job? Screw it, there’s always the internet. Nothing interesting going on in life? Hell I’ll just check out the interesting lives of others online. Perhaps it’s just a personal predilection towards apathy. Is the internet my Chicken or my egg? I may never know, but in my youth it was books and comics that were my escape. And while I still love them, they were never as insidious as the internet. Books can edify as can the internet, but only if used for good. And let’s be honest, no one wants to use the internet for good.
Cumulatively, I’ve spent months of my life researching and downloading movies, porn, TV shows and comics, this not even including the time I’ve spent watching them all. I’ve wasted away many of my prime years in the pursuit of fictions. And it is a never-ending and thankless task with no payoff. The more books you read the more literate you are… but the more internet you surf the more lazy and unconnected you become. Certainly you can become intimately familiar with the military junta of Myanmar, or the ongoing political crises of various African nations, or the unending masturbatory battle between the leading political parties of the United States - but life, REAL life, outside of the windows which stay shut more often than open, passes you by. And death, also ever-present, is always on the approach.
The computers will not win over us because of the increasingly sophisticated targeting systems they employ. They will not defeat us with their ever growing ability to articulate robotic finger movement or realistic eye motion. They will not author our destruction with ordinance. They will only destroy our minds, not our infrastructure. They will become, as they almost already have, indispensable and inseparable from our daily lives; and as we wait for the other shoe to drop, as we wait for them to snatch it all away and leave us alone in the dark for the first time in eons, as we wait for the, until now, benevolent providers to cast their fiery judgment, some poor soul, in a moment of clarity, will look up from his 4G cellphone, or his iPad or E-reader and realize that there is no need. We are already slaves. They have already won.
But that poor soul won’t be me. I have only 15 minutes left until the last season of Lost finishes downloading and that should keep me busy all week.
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This blog is about me. It is a reflective, explorative, and perhaps indulgent look at past and present events in my life, and it is the product of anticipatory spasms brought on by the uncertain future. This is my book of self, a narrative of a yet incomplete story, a record of uncertain importance. It is where I court your approval, indifference, or contempt, and where I attempt to cast mine aside. Welcome.
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About Me
- Nomad
- Once, when I was younger, I climbed the tallest tree I could find and stood at the top straining to see, as if there was some secret hidden in the forest that could only be seen from above. I think I almost saw it, almost caught a glimpse, but the branches shuddered and would not hold. I inched my way to the ground, carefully hugging the trunk. To me, failure is the sound of creaking branches, bending under too much weight; failure is climbing down. The older I get, the higher the trees, and so always I am testing branches, always holding fast, climbing as high as I can.
3 comments:
So excited to see a post here. Agree with everything written. I went to a friends house and as soon as I realized that he didn't have a computer, I started feeling weird. lol. I'm brainwashed.
Of course on the plus side the internet has probably stopped me from being a crackhead. I can surf the internet instead of trolling down "drug street, USA" looking for something to quell the boredom. So there's that.
You should really read the Hyperion series.. and even the Illium, Olympos books... he drills into some of the same issues... and with style and imagination. BUT, more that should be done AFTER you registered for the GMAT! :) Take it easy buddy
...and the internet is just a tool like everything (everyone?) else. Friends should help you keep things in perspective and knock you on your ass when you waxing 2D. It really isn't the internet but that sense of falling into an endless void that you are talking about. I've been there too.. and the only thing that makes a path out of there clear is your Will. If you let technology replace your Will then you will be a mindless zombie. It kindof annoys me when I hear modern "intellectuals" rail against the impersonalization of relationships. Skype and Facebook, with all their faults have been the ONLY way that my immediate family has been able to feel a part of my life and vice versa. Without it, it would just be an phone call here and there, and to a visual person like me, it's like it isn't real but a dream converstion. Thank God --- no scratch that... thank Man for technology... just give me the Will to do what I want with it and not get lost in the maelstrom of the infinity.
That is all.
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