The mere use of the term "search engine" to define the process by which we obtain most information in the technocratic world today, holds the underlying premise that we are being mechanized. "Booting up" is another great folly of language, when one considers the fascist tendency to rule by the boot, and computers seem to delegate our days for us, be it in the food we eat down to the reliance upon them as to where to obtain the food, it is ever pervasive and, I would say invasive into our daily interactions. The reliance on mechanization and generation of information from an external source has further led to the alienation within us. As the external is clogged and space is consumed with blinking lights, signage and information, the internal space is emptied.
"A preliminary study released earlier in the year looked at 150 20- to 35-year-olds in Japan and found that more than one in 10 were suffering from severe memory problems. Researchers from Hokkaido University's in Japan said the memory dysfunction was enough to further study the possible connection between reliance on computer gadgets, organizers and automatic car navigation systems." - Rose Palazzolo, Aug 14th ABC News
It is as if we have "outsourced" the functions that have dictated our survival for the existence of our species, in just a few short years when speaking of information, and of course, around ten thousand years when speaking of energy slaves in tools and manufacturing, agriculture and religion. Ten thousand is, of course, an estimate of this culture, and not taking into account ancient civilizations that have come and gone since time immemorial. Our instincts of survival as well as our means of communication (arguably a trait of survival) are on the decline whilst our reliance on technology is on the steep upgrade. It is visible in our advertising alone.
One car ad for Subaru reads, "Built to Withstand Mother Nature and Human Nature", as if the car itself is the valued object of affection worth saving from the horrific chaos of "nature", while another, for Ford's Fiesta, reads, "Most People Would Prefer A Hot Climate", in a crass spit in the face of our, obvious, man made climate change, and the will to overcome reason for perceived comfort of auto-cratic lifestyle. These are not merely small signifiers of culture, as some might say, if one were to stop and consider the role that advertising plays in a consumer society. It is dually the carrot and the stick of our forced existence. Archeologists thousands of years from now, supposing of course that this lifeway will be of any relevance to a future society, will be decoding billboards, not codex's of Chomsky and Freud to analyze our steep downgrade. The academy serves itself, the advertisers serve the rest.
I do not need to, at any length, continue to lambast car culture, as it is self evident as a means to a destructive end, but the process of the mechanization does need to be examined, skewered and served on a disposable plate. Where-in lies the difference in car culture and computer culture? Both are equally destructive forces to the ecology of our current planet. Both have created insurmountable amounts of damage in the death both have doled out (car accidents, drone bombings, ecocide, facebook). The difference of course lies in our ability to ration out certain amounts of pain for perceived benefit, and even then, we accept the physical damage of cars, for now, while still remaining skeptical at best, apathetic at worst, to the psychological damage of computer rule. Even this is being placed onto a computer for the rapid consumption and posterity that digital Jesus provides. We, as "thinking" animals, have forsaken that which provides our namesake, thought. Homo Sapien means, crudely, man who thinks. We are moving into the next subcategory of specie, Homo Pixelus. Man who appears on screen.
Skipping out of the furtherance of this subject for now, I leave you with it's impetus. I came home from a class I am auditing where I made the suggestion of bringing to class articles with significance to the topics we are discussing, as a way of creating a sense of urgency of the topic. The topics are the origins of civilization, culture and it's effect on how we connect, or do not connect, with the land. Being that I am somewhat accustomed to these ideas being thrashed about, I came home and searched for what I see as the hallmark of our culture, in a google search "engine to generate articles in the news today. Once we begin to make certain connections, others just fall in line. This is the benefit of getting to the root, all else springs out, and you can follow it to it's ends, our ends. To discover how patriarchy and food relate, may seem like a large leap at first, but once the connection of agrarian life creating boundaries, property, war and soldiers, division of labor and creation of gender roles, well, the connections just get shorter and shorter.
The topic I chose was: disaster.
This was my result: About 35,500 results (0.07 seconds)
In a search for "kindness"...
This was my result: About 5,080 results (0.07 seconds)
