photo: I, Tevaprapas |
Modern man lives in a multi-tasking paradise whose existence is
fortified by the presence of ever more advanced electronic equipment that
seems to have a mind of its own. Your average android will talk back to you
with its Siri component while also demonstrating its talents for voice
recognition like a precocious adolescent. The internet of everything is the
term that’s applied to the interconnected world that awaits your delectation.
Of course, there’s always pushback by those who fear that the objects of man’s
creation will begin to take the wheel. Driverless cars are not even a novelty
anymore. But those who navigate
the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan have had a rude awakening. There are no
more toll booths and everything is automated which means that the humans
manning toll booths who barely noticed anything but the money being proffered
have been replaced by high speed sensors which detect not only E-Z passes but
everything else about an automobile, including things like unpaid tickets. Patrol cars
manned by State Troopers, who formerly never ventured into Manhattan, now are
stationed near the site of former toll booths. Big Brother indeed, but that’s no longer the
end of the story. Our cars have themselves become living sources of information
and the dream of freedom and independence on the open road will even be further
lost when vehicles become like planes whose automated arrivals and
departures are all run by way of computer, leaving little room for human choice
or error. Ironically the hegemony of the data byte will eventually end up with human
consciousness occupying the lowest rung of the food chain. So many things will
be going on of their own accord that the result will be a cybernetic volitional
state that will be as successful in defeating human ego as a Buddha.
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