Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Does Western Civilization deserve to continue? You be the judge...

I am so proud to belong to a society that can produce a couch that will order a pizza for me without me ever having to lift a finger. A recent story making the rounds on all the various news outlets details the work of a group in Ireland that is developing a sofa that, by determining your weight using force sensors it legs, can tell who you are and perform a series of tasks without having to be prompted. These include turning on appliances, entertainment equipment and placing various and sundry food orders.

One student who I shared this with commented, "What if I don't want a pizza?" My first thought is that there's a lot of stuff that we don't want that we go ahead and accept because its just sort of shoved at us. I mean, have you seen the latest Quiznos commercial about the guy being raised by wolves? Do we really "want" to see yet another installment of "The Bachelor"? Do I really have to open that junk email about Viagra or body part enlargement? If a pizza shows up at my door every night after I get home from work and its been charged to my bank debit card will I send it away? Especially knowing that it is my own laziness that has caused its creation in the first place. I would hate to think that the pizza's life would go unfulfilled.

Anyway, is this what Western Civilization's idea of progress has brought us to? If so, the machines won't have to battle us for control of the planet. We'll gladly hand it over to them as long as we don't have to get up from watching the latest vicarious "reality" programming. Arrgh!

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