[Discuss] [OT] Smart Phones

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

On 3/1/2013 12:44 PM, Kent Borg wrote:
> On 03/01/2013 11:47 AM, Rich Pieri wrote:
>> But again, the nature of the activity hasn't changed, just the tools
> used to perform them.
>
> You make sense, but at the expense of being sensible.

No disrespect, but I disagree.

>
> By your logic electric power and telegraph and trains and cars and 
> radio and TV and lasers and maybe even space travel didn't change the 
> nature of activity either, just the tools.

In the sense that the "activity" is spending a major portion of each 
workday earning the money that goes to support multi-national 
corporations, you're right.  In the sense that the "activity" is 
acquiring enough food to stay alive, shelter, and a chance to contribute 
to society, we differ.

My wife, who is a nurse, has a friend who works in the Public Health 
Service in Pennsylvania. They spent an unforgettable evening together in 
Lancaster, talking over old classmates and old memories, while we sat on 
the porch of a guest house, opposite a field where fireflies were as 
thick as the stars overhead, and where the only other sounds to be heard 
were made by horse-drawn wagons and carriages.

Be careful, so the saying goes, of what you ask for: we may have asked 
for more convenience in our lives, and more time for our families, and 
more options when choosing what route to take from out safe suburban 
enclave into the dangerous, dirty, crowded, threatening city. What we 
*got* was an electronic leash that makes us available to our rulers 
twenty-four by seven, that requires us to substitute knee-jerk reactions 
for heads-up thinking, and which condemns us to appear as if we are 
subalterns who need to be told what to do during every second of our lives.

I think the Amish have a better take on things: the limiting factor, 
after all, is human evolution.

Bill

-- 
Bill Horne
339-364-8487