MY TECHNOLOGICAL PARADOX

I am in a massive technological paradox. One part of me very much admires and appreciates the astonishing technology at my disposal. But another part spends its time recoiling in animal terror and making “Eeeeeeee!” noises.

That technology is pretty miraculous when you pause to consider it. Well, it is to me, because I was born in 1961.

We were still using shillings and pounds back then, and my father could send me to the shop to buy him cigarettes and not be charged with child abuse. So, yeah, the technological marvels at my disposal, which have been thrust upon me, and which I have no choice but to use in order to make my way in the world, are bordering on the miraculous for someone of my vintage.

Laugh all you like at the grumpy old bloke complaining about modern shit he doesn’t understand. Those of you born into the digital age and who have absorbed the technology by osmosis, like a lemon tree that enjoys having urine sprayed under it, will one day be where I am today. And your kids will laugh at you. Or get their AI-powered cyborgs to laugh for them.

Then you too will face the paradox I face almost every hour of every day.

Half of me seriously loves the technology. It really is pretty awesome to have the sum total of human knowledge in the palm of your hand. Mobile phones are serious Star Trek shit for me. I grew up in a house which got its first five-kilo black Bakelite dial-operated telephone in the mid-60s – and that was a high and holy day in my family. My father, who was born in 1912, rarely used it, and would glare at it in passing like Satan himself had placed it there. Mum put it on a doily and covered it in plastic lest it accumulate dust. The first time it rang the family behaved like the Germans were shelling them again.

I love and use the maps, the camera, the emails, the web-surfing – though obviously not with the ease and expertise of younger people. It’s all new shit to me and I have to learn it, and I only ever learn as much of it as I need to know to do what I need to do. And yes, I am clumsy with it, and yes, there are probably better and more efficient ways of doing this stuff. Often when I am shown how to do it better by my son, I’m like a primitive jungle cannibal tasting beer for the first time. I am literally incandescent with joy.

But there is more and more technology. All of which I need to understand on some level in order to use it. There are Zoom meetings and Webinars. There are Dropboxes with downloads, a dozen different types of social media, and an iCloud in which everything lives…until the Bat Empire hacks it and we all kill each other with rocks. My TV is smarter than a Year 12 class – and everything talks to everything else via wireless voodoo that needs to be paid for, even though it has no physical substance.

We are all linked on Social Media to a greater or lesser degree, and for reasons I cannot grasp (other than that is what we have always been), many of us live either like vacuous voyeurs, or self-centred narcissists, or some bizarre mutation of both.

And technology’s onset and rapid evolution is relentless. Even my beloved motorcycle has succumbed. I kinda wish bike-tech stopped with the advent of fuel injection. Carbies can be fickle bastards, but they respond to violence and swearing.

But I am at a loss to understand why we really need five adjustable engine maps, keyless ignition, rear-and-forward facing radar, six-axial cornering traction control, and so much more, all of which result in a bike so electronically sophisticated and therefore complicated, you have no chance of fixing anything on the side of the road. Yes, they are more reliable than they were, but I come from a time when I could not take motorcycle reliability for granted. I’m just hard-wired like that.

And maybe worst of all, technology has changed people’s behaviour – very much for the worst. Not all that long ago, disputes between men were settled in a trial by combat. I loved that shit. You sassed me, and depending on the level of sass and my disposition at the time, three things would happen. The first was a quick five across the eyes for you to consider your options. The second was fists, elbows, knees, and boots. If either you or I could not continue, it stopped there. The third was me dragging you out the carpark, punching you until your eyes fell out of your head, then ramming your idiot face into a parked car until the shape of your head changed, and you were sorry.

That is no longer possible because we are being filmed all the time. Every move we make, every breath we take, is on some hard-drive somewhere. Sure, you can still get it on in the toilets, but hi-res video of you emerging from the shitters with blood up to your elbows is rather damning in court. And that’s all that video surveillance does. It doesn’t prevent crime and make you safer, it just makes it easier to prosecute the offender. You’re still in hospital growing your organs back.

See also

Esoterica

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ADVENTURE CLOSE

2 March 20211

I once lived in a world of consequences. I now live in a world with no consequences. Or rather, different and entirely banal consequences, most of which resemble you closing your eyes, blocking your ears, and yelling “LALALALALALALALA!” at the top of your lungs until whatever was bothering you can no longer be seen or heard. But it’s still there, isn’t it?

So, you’re free to state whatever you want to whomever you like, either in person or on-line, and that person either needs to suck it up, or block you. Nothing is resolved, and bad behaviour will continue because there has been no consequence that actually means anything. But a man who has had his teeth kicked out, his jaw fractured, and pisses blood for a week, will invariably think twice before questioning anyone’s parentage again, will he not? Unlike a person who insults you on-line, then blocks you or complains to the platform that then kills your account. That person will carry on behaving like that because he has suffered no consequence.

So, I live this paradox. One part of me loves how the technological wizardry enhances my life. One part of me screams in base terror each time some new technology needs to be mastered. And one part of me despises what this technology has made of us all, how much it’s complicated our lives, and how very much we rely on it.

And we do rely on it. We cannot work or live without it. This is no longer a country, or indeed a world, for old men. And that is as it should be, because thus has it always been.

Certainly, the pace of technological change is accelerating. I think I am the last generation that has crawled out of the primeval pre-digital swamp of simplicity and consequence, and now stands on the side of a seemingly endless technological mountain that I have no choice but to climb every day.

And so I do. It’s not like there’s a choice, is there?