It's becoming increasingly clear to me that there is a very small but very vocal group of people -- most of them young and geeky and fairly inexperienced -- who like to think that the world did not exist before the Internet and who therefore frequently make outrageous claims about technology and the world it's creating. I preface this by saying that I am not a Luddite -- and for those of you who have forgotten that words mean things and therefore don't know what a Luddite is, that's someone who fears and hates and rejects technology. I am not one of those. I like technology. I use technology. (I will have more to say about the word "technology" in a bit.) But as someone who's not so young anymore, but who is still about as geeky as it's possible to be and still function semi-normally in the world, I'd like to try and make a few things clear.
1. The invention of the microwave oven did not destroy the ability of people to cook and, y'know, eat. People still eat. And people still cook. And bake. On stoves and grills and in ovens. With pots and pans. The microwave is a cooking tool. One of many. But people still have to eat. Technology is not a replacement for things, it just sometimes makes things easier.
2. The invention of television did not destroy radio. Or cinema. Just as the invention of home video did not destroy television or cinema. Just as the invention of cinema did not destroy theater. And the invention of the Internet has not destroyed television (so-called Reality TV, on the other hand.... But I digress). The one thing you can count on when it comes to people and entertainment is that more than anything else people want OPTIONS. That's something else you should know about technology: it's about choices.
3. The inventions of the telegraph and the telephone and the cellular phone and text messaging did not destroy the ability of people to talk (though they did in some ways destroy the distances between people). I mean, the human body still comes equipped with a larynx, and pretty much everybody still uses it, pretty much all the time, whether they're talking long-distance or not. So unless we evolve ourselves out of a larynx (and yes, people did and do evolve, despite what the Christians and the Republicans say), people are gonna talk. And while I'm on the subject of the human body and the things it comes equipped with:
4. The invention of digital porn and its proliferation by means of the Internet has not stopped people from having sex with each other. And it NEVER WILL. Even though the Internet's primary purpose for existing is now and pretty much always has been the efficient distribution of every kind of porn imaginable, that porn has not taken the place of real live physical sex between real live physical people. Anyone who's ever actually had sex with another living person knows this, and why.
5. Art still exists. People still paint. I mean with paint, not numbers. People still draw. People still sculpt. People still make art, with their hands. The invention of digital technology has not destroyed either the ability or the desire of people to do these things.
6. People still play sports and games. The invention of video games has not interfered with this in the slightest. All you need to do is check how much your favorite athlete gets paid per year and you'll see just how true this is.
7. People still make music. They still sing and play instruments. The invention of recording and digital distribution has not destroyed these things, if only because you have to have something to record and distribute. Anyway people have been making music for as long as they've been making anything. I feel pretty confident in saying that they're going to keep doing it.
8. Handwriting still exists. I mean, people still write. By hand. On paper. With pens and pencils and markers. These things aren't going anywhere; they are necessary things in the universe -- which, I should mention, exists (see below). Which brings me to:
9. Paper still exists. It isn't going anywhere. It is far too useful, practical, and (most importantly) sustainable for it to go anywhere. Stop going on about this mythical paperless society that I've been hearing about since roughly 1982. It isn't coming. And it shouldn't. You know why? Because computers (and by computers I mean not just your desktop CPUs, your laptops, and your notebooks, but your iPhones and iPads and iWhatever-the-fuck-Steve-Jobs-comes-up-with-nexts, your smart phones and Droids and Blackberrys and MP3 players and Kindles and Nooks), which are made mostly of plastics (petroleum and natural gas, folks, which I'm sure I don't need to remind you are fossil fuels and which we ARE running out of despite what the Christians and the Republicans say) and precious metals, are neither green nor sustainable. Paper is both. Which brings me to:
10. Digital texts have existed for pretty much as long as computers have. That's roughly, what, 30 or 40 years, give or take? Physical printed books have existed in one form or another for roughly 5,000 years, give or take. They aren't going anywhere. You know why? Well, point the first, see note on "Paper," above. And point the second, no one in all that time has managed to come up with anything better. "But but but," I hear you say, "digital texts, ebooks, Kindle, Nook!" Blah, blah, blah. Those things are different, not better. And they're good for archiving, if your only goal is to get as much text as possible into as little space as you can get away with. So that's fine. But please stop confusing digital texts with books. They are NOT the same thing. And they are not better because (and here's a key point to which I will return; see below) THEY DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST. See, here's the thing: people -- all people -- are physical beings, animals really, that live in a world of things. I know your English teacher told you that you shouldn't use the word "things" like this because it's vague and wishywashy and these are things (!) you should try to avoid being, at least in your writing, but I'm an English teacher too and sometimes it's really kind of a good word. Anyway, the point is that people are physical creatures that live in a physical world and -- important concept here -- need to interact with that world. "But but but," I hear you say, "I interact with my Kindle and my Nook and my iPad. They're physical." Why, yes, yes they are. That doesn't make them books, in the same way that your ability to interact physically with a tree doesn't suddenly make it the same as a person. And if you like them, fine. If they're useful for you, lovely. Mazel tov and Mwa! I blow fond kisses in your general direction. Have fun, bubbi. You should know that they're making you dumber (there's even real data to back me up on that, but I don't have time to cite any of it -- go, look it up, that's supposed to be one of the things the Internet is good for). But whatever, that's your business. Just, please, accept the fact that your Kindle and your Nook and your iPad are not books. They're computers. And yes there is a big difference.
So what is the point of all this? In a nutshell, it's this: THE UNIVERSE EXISTS. Now I know you all have grown up watching The Matrix, and you probably think that its boneheaded reliance on the empty-headededness of Baudrillard and other postmodernist I guess we'll call them "philosophers" for lack of a better word somehow has something to do with actual, y'know, IDEAS, but you really need to get your heads around the concept that (I'm going to shout it again now to make sure you all can hear me) THE WORLD EXISTS. I shouldn't have to tell you that because if you're like most people you actually live in it and interact with it pretty much constantly. And I'm sure some of you are thinking of Ray Kurzweil right about now, but let me just clear something up for you, Ray Kurzweil writes science fiction. I know, that's not what he thinks it is, but I'll remind you once again that I'm an English teacher and you can trust me when I tell you that what Ray Kurzweil writes is science fiction. The virtual immortalilty that Kurzweil is promising you is as flimsy and unreal as every other kind of immortality the human race has fantasized about since it first evolved an awareness of the fact that it would someday die. You're never going to live in a virtual space inside a computer. You're not going to get your brain mapped and uploaded into a computer where you will live blissfully for the rest of eternity. And even if you could, do I really have to tell you that it wouldn't be you, any more than a clone of you would be you (a clone would be your twin, not your self)? Technology (Oxford Dictionary of English definition: "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes; machinery and equipment based on such knowledge") is only useful to the extent that it does things for us in the real world. As I mentioned earlier, I love technology, I use it all the time, and most of the time it makes my job, if not my life, better and easier. But it is not an end in itself. It should not be a way of denying the world -- which, once again, in case you missed it the first time, EXISTS. There's a real world that's even better than the one inside that computer. Just calm down and live in it for a while.
Professor Malvolio Q. Merriman
