I have an Apple iPhone 4. I can’t make or receive what used to be called a phone call on it. I thought this had something to do with cell phone tower placement. When a new cell phone tower was erected by the company I have a contract with, which is the company that boasts of having the best cell phone coverage in the USA, I thought things would change. No such luck.
I know enough about technology to know that I could buy something that would allow me to make phone calls on my Apple iPhone 4. I just haven’t gotten around to looking into it yet. Having a landline keeps me lazy. At least it keeps me connected.
My land line system is pretty high tech. I pay my cable company for this service. It has a receiver connected by a chord to the phone. It also has an extension that is cordless. What an age I live in.
I am old enough to remember when the technology of a phone receiver without a chord was called a “Walkie Talkie.” You couldn’t walk and talk very far with these. I remember too, when you could send someone a message by telegraph key.
As a child, I even used a telegraph key to practice my Morse Code. I tried to get good enough at communicating with dots and dashes that I could pass my amateur radio operators license test. That didn’t happen.You might say I’ve been struggling to catch up to technology ever since.
For me, things technical were a very important part of being a man. When I grew up, girls liked cars but they liked boys that could drive one more. If a girl couldn’t get something to work right, she would typically ask a boy.
Today, programs to make it easier for girls and women to be comfortable with technology are still popular. Boys and men are still seen as taking to it easily if they so chose.
Old men, like me, are more often considered to be worthy of technical assistance than are younger men. The book Facebook For Seniors, introduced me to Facebook which introduced me to The Good Men Project which introduced me to writing stuff, such as what you are reading now.
It is easy for old men like me to feel despair because they haven’t kept up with communication technologies, social media and all of that. We might not want to bother our children or grandchildren for technical support due to them being too busy looking at their smartphones. We might want to order some other book besides one with the word, “senior” in it.
The question may be, “Do we have access to the technology you want?” Having access and ability to operate technology that others think a man should be able to utilize is a different question.
A bigger question is, “Has any technology ever really helped humanity as a whole?”
If we define technology as being the study of getting things done by equipment beyond what which we are born with, the immediate answer would seem to be, yes. If you have an attention span capable of reflecting a little bit longer on the question, you might reconsider your answer.
It can easily be argued that the use of fire and the wheel and sticks and stones by people have created much more severe problems than they have helped out with. Let’s consider these one at a time.
Fire
While great for keeping warm also great for encouraging people to live where they shouldn’t. Great for people developing a much diminished appreciation for the temperature comfort zone adaptation that people have without the use of fire.
Another problem with fire is getting it to burn only what you want it to. Throughout history, humans have never gotten this right and the future prospects of doing so don’t look good.
Fire can be great for making the night not so creepy, but have lead to less appreciation for star light, moon glow and the velvet blanket of darkness. So many people have long forgotten how to determine which way the wind is blowing let alone how to find a place to sleep at night which is downwind from hungry predators.
Light pollution and all sorts of chemicals blocking out the view of the heavens is just the price we pay for not paying attention to where fire technology was taking us.
Fire got us into trouble for eating things that don’t taste good raw. Sticking to seed bearing plants for food seems to be what we are designed for.
Seed bearing plants get transport of their seed and a dollop of fertilizer. Animals and other things people eat tend not to make out as well.
Wheel
Rolling something heavy over something round might have seemed like a good plan at first, but it took me to peddling away on a stationary bike at a gym to counter the diseases of a mostly sedentary lifestyle.
Wheels have taken people to places that were meant to be settled by people who could walk there. Wheels have taken us away from caring for the land we are on properly. Wheels have taken us to war, lengthy mind numbing commutes and too far from friends and families when they need us.
Sticks And Stones
There probably once was a time, when a human being started to invade the space of another, a simple grunt would have set things right. If that didn’t work, more and louder grunts could get the job done. When people got handy with sticks and stones that all changed.
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It is so easy to describe the downside of any form of technology that it begs the question as to whether or not any of it is worth it. How many warnings do we need? Fire bomb damage was not enough to prevent the use of atom bombs and atom bomb damage not enough to stop the on going research and development of many more.
The line in the sand holding back new technologies keeps being redrawn. Presently there are no lines left. Artificial intelligence, genetic modification, geoengineering, anything and every thing goes and goes.
Some technology is justified by arguing that it is for the good of keeping some people alive a little longer and is the only hope for everyone living forever.
The idea that every newborn baby comes equipped with a soul that needs no technology to go on living forever is difficult to prove, with the technology available. The only way to do it may be without technology.
It seems to me that only some sort of divine intervention could take us back to a time before technology. In the meantime probably having more of a sense of repentance whenever technology is used could be in order, that and prayer.
Since we are hard pressed to find ways to spend much time naked, it is good to have gratitude for how good naked can feel, without the need for any technology other than that related to some privacy.
When having choices in technology consider going naked or low tech. If nothing more you will be less disappointed in what you are going to get for gifts this holiday season.
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