Your Brain On WiFi.

I read an interesting article today that commented on technology's hold on us as a society. We rely, nay are entirely Dependant upon technological devices to keep our heads above water. Be forewarned though, this is no Great Lake you're swimming in, but the Dirac Sea; slip in and you're a goner.

I know when my pc goes on the fritz I feel frustrated, but certainly not lost. I've gone weeks without a function computer before. I just found other things to occupy my time. I watch TV, go for drives, read a book, but I don't panic. Now I'm not reliant upon my computer for my livelihood. It's a tool for amusement and interaction. I surf the web, I play video games and I chat with friends, thus is the extent of the purpose of my pc.

It's the same thing with cellphones. As it stands the port in which you plug in the charger is starting to breakdown on mine. I imagine it will fall apart in my hand like soggy paper and I won't really care. It was purchased for me so my parents could keep tabs on me when I started to drive more often. I can understand their purpose for me having one, but I think in the history of the phone, some 5 years old now I have used it less than 100 times for calls, and only slightly more for texting. It's a novelty at best. I've previously stated my feelings about cellphones, so let's shift gears.

When it comes to advances in technology and especially medicine, nothing gets the creative juices flowing like a good old fashioned war. When there's blood money to be made, and the government's footing the bill you can bet scientists will get to work on whatever needs to be done. It's horrific to think about, but so many of our modern devices were once upon a time military technology. A lot of companies that make our household items and devices actually have contracts with the the military for things like clothing, footwear, communications devices, etc. And how do we as the customer benefit? We pay for the consumer models which help to fund the research necessary for more devices, and so on and so forth. I'm not trying to make a declaration against war or consumerism. In fact I think that both serve very fundamental purposes in the human world.

War is horrific. Let's get that stated first, however in the twisted vagaries of such an act there's a clear purpose. From one point of view it does aid in keeping the population of the world in check. I know that sounds monstrous, but let's look at the facts. The world's population is ballooning. We're not exactly running out of space, if push came to shove and we had to cram people in every square foot on the planet's surface, we've got space to spare. The main concern is resources. I don't just mean fossil fuels, obviously war's not fantastic for that as a lot of war machines are fuel hogs. Instead I'm thinking about food and water. Our access to resources like that are not as limitless as we like to think, and many countries are unable to feed their populace. I am reminded of the many African countries that have starving children, men and women. Countries ruled by warlords who massacre and butcher their own people. The upside (if one could be gleaned) is that in some weird biological directive, these tyrants keep the population lower than it would be if they were all holding hands and singing.

I feel as though I need to reiterate that I'm playing the Devil's advocate here. Human nature is truly selfish and destructive, but we seem to be driven by forces beyond the obvious and conscious. Propelled by an individual need to survive, and kept in check by morals that usually prevent us from stepping upon one another to achieve this goal humankind is likely to survive forever. Movies always give us these threats about how nuclear war would decimate the human population on Earth. I find this very fantastic and hard to believe. We're nothing if not resourceful. If by some strange occurrence our atmosphere became instantly toxic to humans, I have little doubt that we'd still have a contingent of our species who would find a way to survive. When I think about everything that we've accomplished as humans, I am hard pressed to imagine a world where we are totally helpless.

We've flown to the moon, been to the bottom of the ocean and circumnavigated the world on motorcycles. We have witness events so brief and glorious it's difficult to quantify their existence at all, and we've survived every natural disaster the world wants to throw at us. Should we ever succumb to a third world war, I am most confident that the aftermath in the technology and medical fields will yield cures to our most violent of diseases. We'll cure cancer, AIDS/HIV and mental illnesses of the most extreme natures.

For those of you who have seen the Matrix, (and for those of you who haven't, what the hell?) I recommend you watch the Animatrix, primarily The Second Renaissance segments. That vignette really speaks to me about hope and human determination. We are a race of creatures that jumps into the fire to find out it's hot. In the scheme of the Universe we are so brief, so insignificant, but given the time there is nothing I don't feel we're capable of.

The next time your cellphone dies, or your XBox acts up just take a moment to think about how miraculous it is that they exist and work in the first place.