Devolution Through Progress
Source: New ‘Wearable Chair’ Allows You to be a Sit Down Slave at All Times – Summit News
Ingenuity and inventiveness are traits peculiar mainly to the human species. Most other living animals simply make do with what they have available and exist as well as their environment allows them. The human species has managed to leverage the use of opposable thumbs to create all kinds of life aiding devices throughout our history. Well, let’s say most of the species. There are still those for whom living in a hut with a dirt floor is a big deal. For most of mankind however, starting from the time when someone figured out that fire made food taste better, created more comfortable homes and repelled wild animals, the path was set to discover and create new things to further enhance the experience of living. As an aside, imagine if patent laws were in existence back then. That guy would be getting royalties from all fires ever in existence.
Fast forward through generations of human history to our present day and we observe that the advance of technology continues to enable all kinds of ingenious inventions. The TV remote comes to mind as does the mute button for watching certain news channels. On the other hand, we also see inventions that are created in dire search of an actual need or that serve very questionable ones. Coloring book apps are an example. Also the ones that superimpose cartoon features on a photo; they’re amusing for 12 seconds, sort of like a shiny light to a kitten. However, the market for phone apps continues to be robust beyond the essential map function that is probably by far still the most useful application. Nowadays, there is an ‘app’ for most everything that purportedly makes living easier for us. The smartphone has become the default resource for answers to any and all of life’s questions. You can even talk to it, somewhat reminiscent of the HAL computer from the film, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
It has supplanted even the need for personal interaction. Next time you are at a gathering of your friends, observe how many are glued to their phone screens even as conversations are occurring around them. It’s not just an affliction of the young; people of all ages are mesmerized by that little 3-1/2 by 5 inch bit of screen. The phone has transcended from being an information device to become a surrogate for social interaction.
And why not? Phone apps are available now to serve virtually every need of modern people. You can order food, hail a ride, book tickets, order maid service, turn off your home lights, check football scores, watch the front door and get a date for Saturday night, all with a few flicks of the finger. We didn’t realize how crude and base our lives were before these apps. Laziness is at a new all time high. Ironically, having all problems solved for you reduces one’s necessity to be creative. All of these ‘advances’ in the human experience may seem harmless, but there is a very dark side to this device dependency apart from the zombie like hold they have on people.
That of course is groupthink. Being a passive consumer of information that is anointed by mass consensus on these devices creates the real risk of dulling people’s individual initiative to think critically and objectively about big issues. Their opinions and worldview are shaped unwittingly to reflect those conveyed on their phones. As in all things, there is always a vanguard of those that set the tone for everyone else, people of influence for whatever reason or circumstance. They set the narrative and everyone accepts it. We can cite numerous examples of this, including just recently with the explosion of support for a 16 year old girl barely articulate enough to order a hamburger who magically became a renowned authority on the weather.
We will continue to see ridiculous narratives getting support purely because of originators having the ability to press their message virally to the accepting masses no longer inclined to think for themselves. As critical thinking atrophies in humans, we risk devolving as a species and become like most other animals; subject to the random vicissitudes of life or worse, to the whims of those more in command of their conciousness. Life may be made more convenient by the use of some inventions and apps, but the risk of losing the human experience is very real.