Hi folks,

For today I’ll tell you a short story about this quasi-debate I had the other day with a friend of mine regarding technology and its consequences.

Me and Koto are relatively new friends actually and even if he wasn’t a local until recently, rumor has it in the neighbourhood he’s some kind of expert in technology and human nature.
Wired technology, to be more precise, as he is quite aged too.
Fine with me, I think any expert deserves respect regardless its domain of expertise.
So anyways, I was really glad to see him again at my door yesterday (he visits me quite often since we’ve first met).

Especially because, believe it or not, past days I was just working on a blog article about technology, its numerous assimetries and, of course, about the way it impacts on human nature.
And frankly, after intense researches I found myself stuck as different facts point to very different standings or directions.
Then bam! all of a sudden there he was: a perfect interlocutor at a perfect time.

So we sit in the garden, enjoyed that peaceful summer late afternoon, offered him some snacks I’ve noticed he particulary likes and as he started to eat I impatiently opened the subject: « Hope you won’t mind, pal, I just thought about telling you a few things that are bothering me these days. It’s about technology and people, actually. »
No reaction so I went on: « I was thinking about the MH 17 airplane flight: just one push of a button from some brainless humanoid and that was it: a missile vaporised the plane and put an instant end to 298 lives. We have way too much technology, one can say, wouldn’t you agree? »
Silence again but I took it as an incentive for me to move on.
« But then again, just few months before, same airways Company but on a different route, the MH 370  simply disappeared without a trace, it just vanished from monitoring devices and all technologies reunited from all most technological advanced countries proved unable to track, find or understand what happened and where and how. So one could say we have way too insufficient technology, right? »
He fixed his gaze on me and I felt he was drilling my brains from the inside out.
But as silence still lingered I went on: « Or what about this one: as convenient as it might seem, general-use technology is slowly but surely taking our privacy away. I frankly have no idea what my laptop or tablet or smart-phone ever really  do and more is to come, even harder to grasp like the glasses. Not that I have anything to hide at all! We all got used to the free emails which means our intimate data resides on stranger servers and cloud-computing is making its way as we speak. Plus we all know that search-engines store private data, that some social networks never deletes accounts (and even simply disabling an account can be a pain) and we also know that cameras and microphones on our various devices can be remotely controled.
My point here is this might not be a privacy violation because technology seems to change the nature of human privacy itself. Not only in the « Snowden-leaks » way but mostly based on public acceptance. And what’s worse is it takes us from the natural environment and locks us onto screens of various sizes and resolutions. Makes any sense to you? »
Complete silence.
« So basically what I am trying to tell you is that, when it comes to the impact of technology on humans, I guess there are 3 categories of people: those who understand nothing but think they understood something, those who understand something but think they understood nothing and then there are those few who understand perfectly but do not agree with what they understood. »
He looked at me as if I was hopeless, turned around then slowly and quietly left.
Just like that.
This is exactly what happened and everything told here is the pure truth.

Well.
Maybe I should have told you from the very start that Koto is actually an alley cat which every now and then accepts (with a somewhat royal attitude, I should add) a treat from me despite him being quite aged and homeless.
But adding such small detail since the begining of the story wouldn’t have changed things much, would it ?
I mean, chances are another interlocutor, a human one, wouldn’t bring a clearer view regarding the impact of technology on human nature anyway.
But maybe one day technology will allow us to communicate with all (or at least some) other living beings that share the Earth with us.
I would very much like to live that day and hear stories as told by civilizations that always have been around us and us largely ignoring them or calling them ‘animals’ in a sardonic way.

How about such kind of a technology for a change?

Unfortunately, I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime and I doubt it will sometime happen in the first place anyway.
So let me just thank you for reading this and salute you until next time, folks, using currently existing technology!

Bye!

Bogdan