Computers....Avatars....where is the love?
I don't remember the year, exactly, but the issue, I do.
I walked into my bank and sat down with my old and dear friend, Peter Chave, his office was just below mind in the Mall I was managing. He would rib me about i was the Mall-Mangler.
We sat and talked about the new plastic cards coming out, the machines in the side of bank walls that allow the customers "DIRECT ACCESS" into their accounts to pull out twenty dollar bills, -AT WILL, he said, almost terrified.
He had shock on his face like someone just said, " it's your turn - the firing squad was re-loading. That was the start of "the downward spiral."
Today,as a result of computers everywhere, the kids form more perfect relationships with animals and the boxes than they do with each other, and sometimes their parents. It is so easy to hunch over the green glowing square in the dark corner and pull up some pretend, odorless make-believe avatar in your mind than people in real life. You know, one that spills coffee and drops crumbs all over themselves at Seattle's Best.
You can type instantly, or peer through those grotesque little cameras on top of the screen and do God-knows what to or for each other, then quickly, quietly shut off the box, crawl into bed alone for six hours sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.
Computers wake you up in the morning, some kick off your coffee pot, look up dead uncles, piles of cash in the treasury, skin flicks for the bored, write letters to Aunt Tillie in Boise (there REALLY is an Aunt Tillie up there), and can do a thousand other things, all to keep you tied to the screen, and away from YOUR LIFE. My computer tech who fixes my box theorizes the hackers hack, because of big money. They create viruses to generate revenue by making virus software.
Hmm.
Easier that way, doncha know? The Dunkin Donut shop is five minutes down the street from me. I turn that damn thing off now and spend time down there, just sitting, reading, watching the traffic, people , watching CNN, chatting with the staff as my wife works for the school district.
More human contact, very little computer. As an ex salesman, I'm good at it, great at it, actually. Lost without it. The thought of being a computer programmer, sitting all day thinking about logorythms would drive me towards a shotgun.
We need human contact more now than ever, especially with all this social, economic and world craziness going on. Time to talk to each other. I think the love affair with all things computer will eventually be our undoing, at least at this point in our rush to the enge of the cliffs, it seems so.
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I walked into my bank and sat down with my old and dear friend, Peter Chave, his office was just below mind in the Mall I was managing. He would rib me about i was the Mall-Mangler.
We sat and talked about the new plastic cards coming out, the machines in the side of bank walls that allow the customers "DIRECT ACCESS" into their accounts to pull out twenty dollar bills, -AT WILL, he said, almost terrified.
He had shock on his face like someone just said, " it's your turn - the firing squad was re-loading. That was the start of "the downward spiral."
Today,as a result of computers everywhere, the kids form more perfect relationships with animals and the boxes than they do with each other, and sometimes their parents. It is so easy to hunch over the green glowing square in the dark corner and pull up some pretend, odorless make-believe avatar in your mind than people in real life. You know, one that spills coffee and drops crumbs all over themselves at Seattle's Best.
You can type instantly, or peer through those grotesque little cameras on top of the screen and do God-knows what to or for each other, then quickly, quietly shut off the box, crawl into bed alone for six hours sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.
Computers wake you up in the morning, some kick off your coffee pot, look up dead uncles, piles of cash in the treasury, skin flicks for the bored, write letters to Aunt Tillie in Boise (there REALLY is an Aunt Tillie up there), and can do a thousand other things, all to keep you tied to the screen, and away from YOUR LIFE. My computer tech who fixes my box theorizes the hackers hack, because of big money. They create viruses to generate revenue by making virus software.
Hmm.
Easier that way, doncha know? The Dunkin Donut shop is five minutes down the street from me. I turn that damn thing off now and spend time down there, just sitting, reading, watching the traffic, people , watching CNN, chatting with the staff as my wife works for the school district.
More human contact, very little computer. As an ex salesman, I'm good at it, great at it, actually. Lost without it. The thought of being a computer programmer, sitting all day thinking about logorythms would drive me towards a shotgun.
We need human contact more now than ever, especially with all this social, economic and world craziness going on. Time to talk to each other. I think the love affair with all things computer will eventually be our undoing, at least at this point in our rush to the enge of the cliffs, it seems so.
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