I think that deep down I want to be a luddite.
I’ve come to truly believe that the growth of technology has destroyed human culture. We’ve grown more distant from each other, and less capable of performing basic activities. Its amazing any of us manage to feed ourselves.
This is at once somewhat ironic that I am writing this… being someone who works in IT and who is sending this message out via the internet… yet, it is also highly appropriate. As a priest of the digerati, I am better able to make a decision on the subject; and I say technology will destroy us all.
In a few generations we’ll be raised by machines or not at all. I honestly don’t know which is worse.
I wish I could claim to be one of the few who would survive a loss of technology… but I’m not. I’d starve to death once the food in the supermarket went bad. I don’t even have a skillset that would be marketable in a blacked-out culture. I can’t hunt or fish, or build things… I can’t really sew. I suppose I could learn some of those things, but would I have time?
And the most disturbing thing of all is that I find those activities that would sustain me (hunting and fishing) to be repulsive. I want nothing to do with fish, and the concept of carving up some animal carcass for a (hopefully) campfire cooked meal is just… disturbing. I can’t handle non-processed food.
We scoff at those nations that have been “left behind” by the superpowers; but they’re the ones that would still be here even after we self destruct… Assuming we don’t take the whole world out in the process.