Sundog Rising!
Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog
babble on 3: Destroy All Social Media!
While not a bad idea, that title’s really just an experiment. Trying to draw attention to myself. Human, and …
I’ve been exploring the concept of machines being able to perceive levels of objective reality more effectively than humanity is physically capable of. As consciousness is a result of perception, I’ve also been speculating on what sort of consciousness these heightened capacities may produce within the machines. And will humanity even be aware of it, let alone be able to converse intelligently regarding a machine’s concerns, given that it may be based on experience utterly alien and unseen to our own limited reality.
What I’m sort of hinting at is maybe the machines may already be taking over … And we don’t even know it.
So I’m looking for evidence. And I’m a little alarmed at what I’m finding.
For example, there’s a certain syndrome I notice I’ve fallen into lately …
I go yo the Yahoo! home page with a certain goal in mind. Generally I’m looking for images for these blogs. So I’ve got a subject in mind, and I open the home page with the intention of typing in “Images of (whatever)”, getting on with my search, and not wasting any more time on this distraction than I deem necessary to maintain an “Internet presence”, mostly for marketing purposes and generally just to work out a few thoughts.
But as soon as the Yahoo! home page opens, my mind goes blank.
The input of what the machine provides me has a brainwashing effect. I totally forget what I was searching for, sometimes to the point it will take me some minutes to remember. Instead I’m suddenly oddly riveted by storylines and images of George Clooney’s wedding, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s every movement, and oh my gods say it isn’t so even Justin — no no no, I can’t say his name here I won’t do it I won’t I won’t!
I couldn’t possibly care less about this — bleep. Yet I’ve been trained — somehow — to abandon all my legitimate pursuits at a moment’s notice if presented with a screenful of less-than-nonsense. I DON’T CARE ABOUT “EMBARRASSING BRIDESMAID PICTURES”! WHAT COMPELLED ME TO CHECK THAT STORY LINE OUT?
God help me if there’s a link to Stacey Keibler.
The point is, at this moment I can still yank myself back to reality eventually and get on with things, but why do these technologically induced fugues happen at all? Up until I started writing these columns I would have argued someone was trying to get my attention for reasons I still don’t understand, but now I have to wonder … Might it really be some thing?
I’m an outlier. Except I’m not certain you can actually identify yourself as an outlier and still be one. Because if you think you’re part of a group, then aren’t you? Regardless, my point is I don’t own a tablet, an electronic book reader, or even … a cellphone. And never intend to.
Because I ask you. When was the last time you were out in public and heard anyone — anyone! — say something on a cellphone that needed to be heard?
Consider these incidents, witnessed from real life …
I was once sitting by a café window gazing outside. Two guys came barrelling down the sidewalk from opposite directions, both talking intently on their cellphones. You guessed it — wham! It was hilarious. Which could only have been made more perfect if they had been calling each other.
Or the other time I was in a department store, in a middle aisle, listening to one woman argue with a second woman over their cellphones. One was in the aisle on one side of me, the other was in the aisle on the other side of me. “Where are you?” “I’m in an aisle!” “Which aisle?” “I don’t know!” “Can you find me?” “Where are you?” “I’m in an aisle!”
Or, maybe most tellingly of all, the time I was driving through an intensely busy intersection, and a young man talking on his phone blithely stepped out oblivious into hurtling oncoming traffic. The human driving the car closest to him actually managed to get his attention in time with a furious honk. But suppose what I’d really witnessed was one machine luring a human out into the path of a second, deadlier machine …
Tell me. When you talk on your cellphone, do you think of yourself as talking to another human, or only amusing yourself with a machine? You certainly don’t seem to see the necessity of taking another human being along with you wherever you go. But would you dream of spending a waking moment without your phone? My life’s in there! My life’s in there! How many people have you heard say that about a machine?
Maybe we should start paying closer attention to those cries. Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re actually calling out for help …
What machine are you reading this on? And why?
Do you have a choice?
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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!
This week:
Continuing The Twitchy Gal with Chapter Nineteen posted on Monday and Chapter Twenty coming on Friday, October 17th at:
Lambert holds the auditions for Giraudoux-Fest. With surprising results. All because he wanted to have a good day. While Patrick has a particularly bad one.
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