Crude Powers

This morning I trawled through several threads on an internet forum I frequent, and searched for pro-level camcorders on amazon.com. In the afternoon I read blog posts and checked emails. And I've just come back from a friends house where he showed me a burgeoning site dedicated to cartoons that respond to viewers feedback. Now I'm blogging. Is technology taking over my life? Well, at the heart, no. But I do admit that I spend far more time at my computer than in the back yard. I regret that, and while I'm not going to make any rash resolutions, I would like to spend more time outside instead of getting dry eyes and bad posture in front of screen. I sometimes wonder if we'll find a way to harmonise technology and nature. You know, like Tolkiens elves. People unthinkingly write off their wonders as magic, but isn't that what the ignorant have always called technology? Read carefully and you will see a different picture emerging. If we could see things from the past, present and future by looking into a bowl of water, or light our dwellings with effervescent trees, that would be a true achievement. Our powers are crude and contrived; more efficient than primitive methods, but far less healthy. I'm not hopeful that we'll even come close to a solution in my lifetime. For one thing many don't think there's any need for it, and also such a fundamental change would have to happen gradually. I believe we will get there eventually though. The utilitartians will have (and are having) their day in the sun, because their way is very effective in the short run. But long term the consequences of departing so far from our natural design will begin to emerge. Even now they are raising their heads. Some say this is indicative of our impending slide into a clinical, robotic dystopia, but I think not. Humans, though fundamentally stupid, are not entirely brainless, and we can usually figure out (if sometimes a bit belatedly) when something is killing us. Though we may be wrong about most things, we tend to get enough right to enable us to take one more step. Not ideal, perhaps, but valuable nonetheless. For in each additional step we're buying ourselves a bit more time - we run from the dark, because if it finally overtakes us, there will be no more learning.