The Democracy Of Technology

Last weekend, NBC ran a rerun of their made for TV movie "Atomic Train".  As I was watching it in-between playing Final Fantasy IX, I was caught by one part of the movie where the President had come onto TV and was talking about how deadly the world was "once the nuclear genie was released".  This raised the hackles on the back of my neck, and it wasn't until Wednesday that I realized why.  The statement made by the actor playing the President could have been made by any anti-nuclear activist.

Or any anti-progress or pro-environment activist.  It is the statement that technology, the product of man's labor and efforts, are inherently evil and we shouldn't use them.  After all, what has nuclear power given us?  Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, nuclear bombs and all other sorts of disasters.  (Of course, these same people won't talk about how if coal power wastes were treated as a radioactive material, coal power costs would quadruple.)  What has pesticides given us?  Thinning bird eggshells, massive die-off of birds, disasters of all sorts up to and including a silent spring. (Of course, these same people won't want to discuss HOW we'll feed all the people in the world without pesticides.  Organic-process growing will double food costs across the board.)  After all, we should use nice, safe, "friendly" technologies such as solar power (which costs more in materials per kilowatt than an equivalent nuclear power plant), gasohol and alcohol fuels (which reduce engine power in half, cost more to produce than "regular" gasoline, and have all other sorts of problems), or power conservation (which isn't a power policy, but a policy where people are prevented from doing things and it's called creating things).

Many of these people believe that they are "saving the world" and many of them would prefer to "save ourselves from ourselves" in the form of rules and regulations.  In essence, this is the thought of dictatorial elitism, that "I know better, you don't, so don't disobey me".  While this works for a parent to a child, this doesn't work for adults.  As adults, we are supposed to be mature and to be able to choose.  And technology helps us to choose and to grow.

Elites hate technology.  To them, anything that gives people more opportunities, no matter how much they claim otherwise, no matter how much they say that they believe in such things, they despise deep-down as a threat to themselves.  The elites love the era of knights and samurai, knowing that everybody can't be a knight, but they won't be the serfs (of course not!  They'll be knights and princes and dukes and earls and kings).  The skills and training to create a competent swordsman takes years, starting from childhood up and training a swordsman prevents him from doing other things-like being a farmer.  Even their claimed egalitarianism of the English longbow man is a false front-they say to have a good longbow archer, you need to train his grandfather.  And how do you train his grandfather?  By forcing him to train, of course.  Then his father, then the man you want to be the longbow archer in forty to sixty years.  "God created all Men equal, but Mr. Colt made them equal!" (own emphasis).  To train someone to fire a rifle takes about six to eight weeks, requires only a modicum of upper-body strength, and a reasonable amount of intellect.  Some of the best Russian snipers of the WW II were women, and there is nothing that prevents a woman beyond her own mind to know how to shoot.  Why do you think when a new set of elites take over a nation, they take away all the guns?  A swordsman or a longbow man takes time to create-a shooter no time at all and is much more dangerous.

Technology removes many of the advantages of being an elite as well.  A king might have a 32 piece band, but for the cost of only the musical instrument, someone can go out and get a CD player and all the CDs of music they want, of whatever kind of music they want.   Travel to see another country, or to get something from another nation, was the most expensive thing in a person's life, would take weeks or months, and be something astonishing.  Today, the cost and time of shipping from across the state or across the planet are minor and irrelevant-these things are the most minor part of travel and shipping.  A king might have access to the best doctors in the land, regardless of their actual knowledge of how medicine works.  Anywhere in the United States today, you could go to an ER, fall down and you would be treated and nobody would ask to see if you had money or whatever until after you were treated.  If you wanted to eat meat more than twice a week, you had to be the richest of the rich not too long ago.  Today, you could eat three meals a day of nothing but the finest of fish and meat if you wished-the cost is the most minor of problems.  To get books, you used to have to copy each of them laboriously by hand, each word at a time.  The printing press, the typewriter, the computer and the Internet all make the written word available in ways that a serf or even a priest in the 11th century would barely be able to understand.

Technology is inherently democratic.  A tool that improves someone's ability to labor means that they produce more products-be it food, coal, or even ditches-than not having the same tool.  With the ability to produce more product from the same work, people now have time to do other things, think, assume, look out and discover.  But, elites want to keep people tired and overworked-if they have too little to do, they might think that the elites aren't needed.  Elites have to be needed for them to endure-else, why else would they be around?  An elite minority hates anything that gives the majority tools to develop-it's a poor knife that doesn't slash both ways.  The technology of democracy is the gifts of freedom-freedom from want (as food is easily available), freedom from worry (medicine and comfort are close at hand and effective), and freedom from fear (the guns and bombs and missiles that protect us will make any conquering elite think twice before starting).  Elites deny these things, keeping them for themselves and making a simple offer-if you wish them, you have to be one of us.  But, we won't let you all in!  You have to fight your way to the top, one way or another.

Whenever someone tells you that you can't have what you want because it would be "harmful to the environment" sneer at them.  Ask them what they really want, ignore the propaganda and well-worn code words and phrases and get to the truth-what do they want?  Do they want to change the whole world and alter it so that you can't save your child because the medicine that you would use hurts animals?  Do they want you to be cold at night because you can't afford gas or electricity to power the heaters?  Do they want you to be hungry because food costs twice as much?  

If they do, ask them if they'll suffer the same?  Many of them won't-after all, "saving" you means that they get certian privileges, don't you know?

New rant, next week.  I promise it will be jam-packed full of all my thoughts.

PS-If anyone has a legal copy of the PlayStation Ghost In The Shell game, I'd be very glad to negotiate out a reasonable price for a copy.  Thank you.

You want to come here and hear my opinion, you're welcome to come by. If not, you can Go Away, and let other people in.

Check out the Previous Rant.

This page was created on 11/30/00.

Created by Jonathan Souza on Front Page 2000.