Icarus and technological abuse
Technology has advanced tremendously in the past decades. Communication has exceeded any of its predecessors. Cellphones today eclipse the enhancement of the late twentieth century. Ever since the internet blossomed in the late 90s, it has only connected the global nation with its social platforms. The internet is a means of knowledge, attaining information with the click of a button. With this great technology has grave responsibility. It is not only the detrimental use on the dark web but the obsession with technology has a means of survival. People glued to their technology in order to get through the day. Unable to disconnect from their devices.
The greek myth of Icarus best illustrates this problem. Icarus and his father Daedalus were imprisoned and to escape Daedalus invented wax wings. Yet he warned his son not to veer off course as the wax was not sturdy. Icarus so jolly in flying lost sight of the mission and began to fly freely away from his father and towards the sun. In this loss of purpose, he drew too close to the sun and his wax wings melted causing him to crash into the sea and drown. His father alternatively, landed safely on the nearest island to mourn his dead son. Daedalus focused on the mission and not the enjoyment of flying survived while his son did not meet the same fate. Icarus’s over-indulgence in his father’s invention was his downfall. Caught up in the moment of flying was detrimental fall to despair. He lost track where he was and drifted toward his end.
The alarming irony is clear in our present societies. People are so caught up in their phones they do not look in front of them bumping into the person ahead. In more tragic examples, an individual texting and driving crashes into a pedestrian crossing the street. Too focused on their phones, they are not aware of the upcoming encounter. While technology is not the sole issue, as someone reading a book could cause the same damage but it is at times a driver using a map app like Waze that is the cause of the suffering. The slogans “do not text and drive” correlate to people feeling compelled to answer people swiftly. Someone texted, I need to answer. The phone buzzes and the driver feels an obligation to respond immediately. Innocently reaching for their phone while looking away from the road. Disconnecting from the road ahead is endangering but the communicate asset is necessary. While all sorts of distractions can occur on the road such as a wailing child, an incoming message is not one of those that requires validation.
Travesties emerging from roadside indulgence are common enough for the public to forbid its use. Public endangerment is quite the necessity. It also fuels a distraction for humanity. A way of voiding obligations for entertainment. Technology fuels a void to use instead of facing responsibility. Need to study for a test but instead watching Netflix to pass the time. While technology can produce positive results in attaining information, its frequency for other than obligational use habituates a negative routine. It becomes a tool for unproductive usage and unmotivated potential. It has the possibility for good. Technology enables simpler directions and accessible study guides and most importantly communication. Yet its hedonistic prevalence shifts human mentality from a tool for construction to a toy for play. A measure of lost time and even more lost brain cells. Persistent trends down this path erodes any ability to transcend this virtual force for the real world.
Technological neutrality provides man with an opportunity. To use for good or bad. Bad is not necessarily devilish plots to harm others. Secret communications to raise calamity. It is the surface World Wide Web danger that hides in plain site. It mummifies people into a zombie apocalypse. Glued to their cellphones like a patient to his ventilator. It is their medicine to the cancer of reality. The only way to overcome the struggles of reality is through cellphone inoculation. Having a bad day watch a romcom, need to get your rage out watch a comedic special. Entertainment is at a person’s fingertips. One click and they have whatever they need in an instant. Though limited to an extent, it is a personal robotic servant. It can educate inspire and develop the individual. It requires devotion and dedication but the committed can grow. This is truly incredible but it is the stooped in the enjoyment that leaks. Watching every youtube crash course video still is through the technical element. Even with the individual’s growth, his reliance on the technology to bring him this knowledge is problematic. The mechanism’s vitality is at stake.
Terrifying dangers are virtual. They seem real even if fiction. Whether in cinema or the news. In the latter, news networks brought to your screen are relatable. It is not a story in text but a speaker from a text (news on a teleprompter). The audience perceives a person relaying information to them earnestly. The confidence in their claims and the body language in its execution feels reliable. A person is talking to the audience and the audience like in any encounter trusts the other. People are gullible especially at a disadvantage in knowledge. They are being taught that which they did not know before. Intuitively it makes sense to rely on the information. A newspaper is worded in a certain way. There is no individual, less confrontation and more opportunity to disagree. Alternatively, the news is seen as objective meaning it’s just information not propaganda. Journalism is acquired content not agenda pushing. The virtual though is remote feels much closer. It feels like they are talking to us. The inability to discern rationally the news as newspapers in audio format derails the sceptical attitude. The news teachers exploit the public through gossip hanging stories embellished in citizen trust.
The former relating to cinematic fiction portrays plot lines that seem very real. While fiction is more real than real, it more idealistic than realistic. One of the most obstructive truths is movie romance. The “real world” does not operate in the same way. Films are orchestrated in the ideal course to fetishise. A method of hormonal regurgitation to maintain an audience's staring. People watch and monkey see monkey do. Yet actors are playing by the strings of the director’s thoughts and goals not the average Joe. While the audience may enjoy for the aspiring utopia, it is not a recipe for success in personal execution. The world is not as lovey-dovey as fairy tales are supposed to occur. They are bedtime stories for children. For children to stretch their imaginations and fall asleep in joyous satisfaction. Just as Santa is not real so too happy ever afters are also. Life is work and is very difficult. Those caught up in cinematic fantasies are doomed to the unnatural character of people. While Shakespeares’ tragedies weren’t necessarily that much more realistic, it is important that any theme in cinema though has profound value is not to be mimicked identically. It is to absorb and ponder for the self.
The cinematic creation is hyperreal. A Disneyland of sorts. Unlike theatre, the technological use to reframe real life events and make humorous dialogue with natural events. Recent marvel movies have made allusions to real life events whether WWII for Captain America or the Afghanistan war in Iron Man. Though Spiderman may be the best example in Peter Parker’s bewilderment of superheroes in his childish aspirations. Even more so is the irony of cinema mocking the fiction of other storylines. Blending fiction with reality only fantasises the ideal more with real life events that take place in the present. The audience is aware that fantasy is foreign but synthesising fictional characters within a realistic dilemma with concurrent event muddles rationality. Visual becomes ever unavoidable. We see, we grasp and we internalise. Cinema has provided an escape with reality tv in the form of game shows and unscripted programs. Reality television is this dividing line. Reality shows are not realistic in the average Joe sense. It is an inauthentic portrayal of the audience whether for production or social reasons. Fabrication is not realised by the audience. Even if it is, it is placed with the rest of cinema as a textbook of information. Consuming enough information will believe that which is true. The rational faculty cannot discern that which is habituated to disagree with sufficient overload.
Texting is the first step into the virtual expense. Prioritising messaging over speaking. The immediate response exceeds the emailing stage. It is no longer a notification but a filtered encounter. The confrontation is is apparent but not present. The encounter lacks the emotional experience and the directed intent. Words cannot facilitate the terminological tone necessary for dialogue. Even after growing up in this age, the struggle to decode bland language persists. Some people have rules. While usually the tone of voice denotes the proclivity magnitude, the text does not. My fiancé argued that “ok” is plain and upset while “okay” was more ecstatic. There is no universal order. Even if there is, it is not taught and is merely a sectarian oral framework. For now, each person has a separate decoding process. Some people use exclamation points to emphasise feelings and yet it is still insufficient. Emojis to the rescue. Now symbols are the measure of communication. An emoji combination is the modern hieroglyphics. In a sense we have regressed to pre-literary stages. We had also progressed by unifying literary and extralinguistic aspects. Words and gestures to communicate.
The virtual shift in the meta-verse phenomenon has people purchasing virtual land. Virtual reality was for a while the highlight of escapism. A world different than our own. Limited by the software but unlike prior gaming systems it enables an individual to properly mobilise around the universe. Though a flawed reality, its pleasure in promoting a self sufficient altered reality is encouraged. Yet the augmented reality experience has begun to overtake the virtual. Augmented reality is the self sufficiently in the real world even if simultaneously through the virtual lens. The game Pokemon Go is a perfect example. A game virtually compiled through the real world. People would see virtual Pokemon sitting in their recently mowed lawn. Immersed in the virtual via reality. There is a great deal of good like the target app that aids in digitally viewing an object in their home. Yet caution of expelling the tool for a lifestyle. Augmented reality is to aid with realistic life not to become its replacement.
Trendy dystopias of the 60s pointed to the dangers of cyberpunk. Machines ruling the world. Scares in the acclaimed films of Terminator, The Matrix, I Robot and Blade Runner. Debating the puzzling possibility of Skynet and the eradication of humanity is not inevitable nor near. The new Blade Runner 2049 displays potential affinities to augmented reality. It was more a futuristic aspiration for augmented reality consumerism. Augmented reality has not overtaken our realistic perceptions. The dichotomy is still obvious but combatively it is regressing. For those born into full-blown augmented reality for desired consumerism, there will be little for the “real” to be recognised. The virtual will have become the objective. In a television show called Altered Carbon, the protagonist takes a pill and then is able to see the virtual in its real form. It is only in the conscious state that fiction can vitalise. The dark dirty alley becomes a Vegas strip of brothels and bars. Meshing the virtual for the real foregoes the actual for the fake. Once melded completely the farce is true. The struggle may be comforted but the real ignored. Civilisation may save the individual from the chaotic jungle but virtuality is not changing location, it's changing visual perception.
Technology is a true gift to man. Man has deciphered its power and has morphed it into helpful assimilation. In this vein, we must caution our use. Technology is a tool not an end in of itself. We cannot become servants to our technology. While there may be no Skynet actively orchestrating humanity’s downfall, we will passively submit ourselves to the machines. We cannot sacrifice our individuality and existence for our technological comforts. We cannot become addicted to technical soma. Not measuring our complacency by indulgence in fingertip pleasure. It is a danger to ourselves not to confront the incoming evil and avoid our issues. Accountability in its ultimate phase to elevate our being as the top priority to the secondary machine aid.
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