2011 Mar 10 3:22 am I’m also becoming more aware of how our society in general is becoming less conscious in direct proportion to technology. By that I mean in a way of being able to problem solve and use their mind to think for themselves instead of having technology do it for them. Of course they can use their mind to use technology to enhance their experiences, but take away technology and they become numb, in shock and unable to function. It’s like they are only able to function as long as they are plugged into the matrix, the electronic system and when that becomes unplugged, like it will, they become lost and disoriented.
The last two generations, from the 1970’s to the present day have been slowly uneducated in self sufficiency as the use of technology has increased, and more and more electronic gadgets have flooded the market place. I heard a disturbing comment on the TV the other day that confirmed my suspicions, where an educator stated that the math that was once taught in grades 7 and 8, are now university options.
The major flaw with this fragile technological society is how the present technology becomes old and obsolete as new and improved products emerge on an exponential scale. This “consumer” driven society drives itself into a “feeding” frenzy trying to keep up to the head of the pack. Previous products are scrapped and discarded in landfill, or at best, the materials are re-cycled. It’s ironic in that present day engineers and designers fail to recognize that as the OLD technology that formed the basis of the new is abandoned, so too is technology and society abandoning its roots, the very foundations that created it. It’s like a person cutting off their left hand and then using the parts to create a new body part that it thinks will be better than the old.
Even now, very few people are able to run or repair older products as manufactures of those products and components and technical knowhow that created them no longer exist. A classic example is the US Apollo space program that put a man on the moon in 1969. After the space program was shelved in the early 1970’s, and focus was shifted to the shuttle, that technology was abandoned. Now that he shuttle is being shelved, young scientists ,curious as to how the Apollo mission worked, are now having to reverse engineer the technology that existed over 50 years ago, as they have no clue as to how they did it, and especially without the use of modern computers available today.
Even the present state of technology that is available today is very fragile as only a handful of companies produce specific parts and only a handful of people know how to operate and maintain the machines and computers that are producing the products, and should some disaster strike those companies or people, the technology would be seriously compromised. Think of all the people and products that are necessary to make and run a car, computer, cell phone, or TV, or to bring you food and items for shelter. It’s staggering, and if a link in the chain is broken, the whole system goes into chaos. While technology is great, it is also very fragile.
As the Earth changes continue to escalate, the electric power grids that drive the new technology will fail and when that happens, most of the younger generation will be lost, as they will be unable to fall back on the old technology that didn’t rely on electrical power, computers and sophisticated programs and products.
Saysame (Says-a-me) 