can you imagine if television didn't really exist and it was all imagined; fake? how much of our lives would we have wasted sitting or lying down in front of what would be a blank screen? how ludicrous and boring as a species we would look? well it is fake and it is ludicrous. digital entertainment is a mere simulation of real life that's forcing us to become bystanders in our own world, encouraging this indolent lifestyle as opposed to allowing us to witness such phenomena firsthand.
don't get me wrong, i think technology is a fascinating thing, especially in regard to relieving humans from a lot of manual work. but such technology also relieves us from having to walk down the road to see our friends the same way that laser shows and museums allow us to easily view the galaxy and world around us for the price of an admission ticket. but is that really relief or is it just laziness? we've become a society of the spectacle; watching our lives fold out vicariously through simulacra, while not actually living them ourselves. the application of technology is so often preoccupied with whether it can be, but very rarely in deliberation of whether it should. every so often i wonder should there be this much access? does it foster laziness over basic human experience? i know i'd rather interact with my own friends then watch people i don't know interact on screen, i'd rather lay under the stars than watch a laser show and i'd certainly rather see the world than read about it in a travel book. i'm just so afraid of not living life to the fullest and terrified i've been conditioned into doing so for the past eighteen years of my life.
the thing that concerns me most is how much potential technology has and how willing society is to push it to that absolute potential. it's fast becoming nothing more than a distraction from human roots, whereas it should just be a basic utensil to free us from manual labor in order to - put shallowly - allow us time to roam the earth free, without burden, nude etc. etc. i can't remember the last time i even went for a walk just for the fun of it, nor the last time i ever felt completely free and relieved of any societal pressures. the world is moving at such a fast pace, you have to struggle to keep up, allowing few moments for anyone to even stop and think; is this what we really want for the human race? technology, with this deep focus on the future, is quickly detaching humanity from its past. some call it necessary, others progression, but there's only so far all this can go before human nature itself becomes overridden entirely and subsequently obsolete.
i can't say i know the solution to this. i doubt casting off all our material possessions, running around bare and pressing our faces to fields of daisies will do a thing to save or better humanity, but there should be a balance; some kind of middle ground between naturalism and this machine totalitarian era we're entering into. the thing that bothers me the most about all this, is how complacent people have become with this digital entertainment consumption, how we're so contented with going to things like laser shows and other simulations of nature, all the while letting the real phenomena fade uncared for and unappreciated into the distance.
