Paved With Good Inventions

As we continue to hurl ourselves into Idiocracy territory, I thought about the last 20 years of my life.  After all, my 20^th reunion is this fall.  Good time to reflect.  Look back on my adult life.  Cry in the corner a bit.

What I discovered is that for all the technological innovation we’ve seen in the last two decades, we’ve become incredibly stupid and selfish.  If I could go back in time and change one thing, I might actually make the ultimate sacrifice.  I might try to prevent the invention of the Internet.

I know.

I KNOW.

What madness is this?  Why, on Earth would you un-invent the Internet?  Aren’t you writing a blog?  Aren’t you selling shirts, online?   Aren’t you trying, and failing, to produce YouTube videos?  Yeah, but that doesn’t change the truth.  And, before you start clutching your routers and barking madly, understand where I’m coming from on this.  It’s like Terminator 2.  No matter how hard they tried to keep Skynet from happening, it happened.  Granted, it happened in a bad way, a la Terminator 3, but it was inevitable.   Now, I don't want to keep the Internet from ever happening.   I only wish to delay the process until we are better equipped, mentally and emotionally, to handle it.

We were given fire by the Gods.  And we ended up torching the world.  We literally did not understand what we were given.    For awhile we just did silly things with the Internet.   Hell, we still do.  Cats playing keyboards, planking, Hadouken pics, Horse Head Mask videos.  But soon, it warped and became something different.   There was porn… so much porn.  Then there were cell phones and soon commercial WiFi.  iPods.  iPhones. 

Facebook, Instagram, Elvis Presley, Disneyland.

It spiraled out of control.   Slang (OMG, WTF,  ROTFLMAOBBQ)

We became addicted to technology.  Our lives revolved around little devices that did everything for us.   A phone replaced a pager, a camera, a gaming device, a laptop, watch, GPS, radio, Walkman, and tons of other devices.  It became the Swiss Army Lazy Man.   Texting gave way to sexting.   Polaroids gave way to selfies-in-a-bathroom-with-duck-face being Instagramed and put up on Facebook.  “Like, please!”  (read: I have no self esteem and need constant and instant approval to maintain my shell of an existence.)  Soon, there was cyber-bullying.   Hacking phones, emails, the need for 24/7 news that may or may not even be accurate spread like a wildfire.   We became unable to put the genie back into the bottle.

And, I don’t think we ever will.   Isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years we’ve invented things that bring us closer together, more so than ever before, yet put us farther apart in terms of actually connecting with people.  Used to be, if you wanted to reach someone, you had to catch them at home, by phone.   Now, you call their cell.  And, in a lot of cases, they want you to hang up and just text.    Also, isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years, so much technology has come about yet, what’s the last thing we cured?  Polio, I think.   We’ve created a generation of customers.

Our kids?  Our kids have become over-privileged and entitled. 

“Well, Johnny has an iPod and he’s seven.” 

“Well, Johnny is also a selfish brat that can’t wipe himself yet, but can send a text.  He probably still wets the bed.”

Nobody wants to work for anything.  And I don’t mean the 47% vs. the 1%.  I’m talking about EVERYONE.   Somewhere along the way, we lost our mission.   Our grandparents went to WWII.  They sacrificed a lot of things in order to keep the country running.   Now, we’re asked to give up something and suddenly,  since 9/11, our government is out to control or enslave us.  Take away our rights.  Funny.  Our grandparents sacrificed a lot in order to give their family a better life.   Our parents, well, at least mine, gave up a lot of stuff in order to make our lives better.   They scrimped and saved.  They went without new clothes or fancy appliances.  They made ends meet and did what they could to ensure that we never had to live like that, ever.   And somehow, we thought, “Oh, cool.  Great.  Thanks.”  And that was it.  We accepted their generous offer.  We watched as they worked hard and bled for us and we just took that better life and continued to not pay it forward, but instead we cheapened the thought.

We were given so much without having to ask for it and yet, when it came to our children, or the next generation born into the millennium, they didn’t understand what our parents did to provide, because we were the end result.  We didn’t continue the trend.   We didn’t have to work hard anymore.   Technology caught up and made it easier.   Hell, I am just as responsible.   I work in an office all day, but I also run a business where I don’t have to put a lot of effort into it and am rewarded, monetarily.   Granted, I wish I could work more on it.   I know the quality would benefit, but at the end of the day, I get emails saying , “Congrats on your sale” with no deserving of that praise.  The Internet has done the work for me.

We take to Facebook and instead of sharing our lives with each other, we share half assed researched and cited examples of hate against one group or another.   I can count on at least one hand how many friends I have on Facebook that never say a word, yet post CONTINUALLY their disdain for one group or another in this world.   And 9 times out of 10, they share from one subjective group that is not even factual all the time.  It’s just a funny picture, or what they claim to be funny, slamming another person/group/religion/etc.   They don’t say “Hi”, or “How are you” they say, “Here’s why you’re all wrong and I’m right” in graphic form.  And for all that friending and sharing that goes on, I believe we are more so divided than we ever were as a civilization.   Friends are not friends, they are an audience for our amusement and our agendas.  We don't connect, we try to redirect.

We do not deserve the Internet.    If aliens were to come here, looking for intelligent life, we’d be blown off the face of the galaxy like we were a plague. 

“For the love of Blurg!   Zyphos, we must eradicate this menace on Earth before it spreads and infects us.”  

“How do you know that, Lishu?” 

“I saw it on Reddit.   And Grimjor saw a post on Zarnbook that he shared from "I bet this Gorpcar can get more likes than Firtarp.”

100 Andelorians like this.  (Picture of a tentacle in a thumbs up position.)

So, yeah.  Let’s go back, blow the servers and tell the geeks of the 90s to keep working on it and we’ll work on being better humans, so that one day, we may be deserving of such an awesome power.    Should be ready, sometime before the next Mayan calendar runs out. 

Digital Cameras for Dumbasses.

Sometimes, I can be a total idiot. I got into a debate at work once while discussing geography. The topic had to do with Dallas, the 80's television show, not the city in Texas. I was adamant that the shooting location for Southfork was in Nevada instead of Dallas, the city, not the 80's television show. Everyone looked at me as if I had just grown a third arm out of my neck. Of course, being the kind of person that has to settle the dispute by going to a higher power for clarification, I searched my old standby, Wikipedia, for the answer. I was shocked. Southfork Ranch was not in Nevada as I had been led to believe. Then my whole world suddenly crashed as if I was Keanu Reeves finding out I was in The Matrix. "Gambling in Casablanca? Soylent Green is people? Dil was a man? Whoa!"

Actually, I blame my parents for the geographical faux pas. Not directly of course, but still, it's because of them that I am unable to correctly use a digital camera without issues. You see, when I was a child, I liked looking watching home movies and seeing photos of my family from before I was born. Being the youngest of three there was a lot of history to catch up on and this was the best way to do it. Once I flipped through a pack of pictures that included shots of my Dad in the dessert outside of Vegas as well as shots of Southfork Ranch. Being that they were from the same roll and all together in the same envelope, I assumed that Southfork was outside of Las Vegas. I realized later, after being laughed at by my coworkers, what had happened. One year there was a Lions trip to Dallas, the next year was a State Farm trip to Vegas. It took two years to fill up one roll film. This is something that even plagues me now in the world of digital photography.

While growing up, I used to love taking pictures on vacation. I had my little Instamatic camera with the four side flash bulbs and barbell shaped film all ready for each trip to the beach or camping. Then, I would get the pictures developed and find that half were either too dark or of someone's ear. Then came my 35 millimeter and I was able to take more pictures with an instant built in flash. I snapped pictures of my bedroom and of my yard and got really handy with being able to capture the quintessence of man's struggle against nature and machine by taking a picture of myself running into a tree while cutting grass with the riding mower. Still, I fell victim to the same folly as my parents. I never could use an entire roll on one trip. I would get pictures back years later that encompassed a trip to Myrtle Beach book ended with Christmas pictures from before and after the vacation. To make matters worse, I can look at pictures taken from 3 different decades and not be able to tell you exactly which one came first because my parents have the same furniture in all three. They aren't exactly ahead of the curve when it comes to furniture buying. They've lived in two houses in my 33 years of life, the most recent one they've lived for over 20 years. The only change to the carpeting was in the basement was due to flooding from Hurricane Ivan in 2004, yet all the carpeting looks as if it was just laid yesterday. What can I say? I am my parents' son. Currently, I probably have 6 undeveloped disposable cameras, somewhere in my house, with pictures that range from 1999-2005 and one picture to take on each roll.

Cameras and photo taking have now become the bane of my existence since having a child. I recently got a Canon Powershot digital camera a couple Christmas' ago and I must say I am hooked. Now, I don't have to worry about fifteen wasted pictures of the inside of a lens cap when I get my prints back. I don't have the hang up of being able to capture the perfect moment only to be crushed by the fact that I forgot to advance the film. I also get the ability to instantly share my daughter's newest tricks with my friends and family without having to lug around a photo album. My only issue is that I am just as laxed now in downloading pictures as I was two years ago in developing film from a 35mm disposable. Since my daughter was born we've been snapping pictures almost everyday to capture each smile, creep, crawl, and clap. I've downloaded the pictures probably 3 times since last July. I have a 2GB memory card and only ran out of space this past week when I attempted to use the movie feature to capture her first attempt at pulling herself up into a standing position. I had to quickly scan and delete some bad pictures of us blinking.

Now in order to keep free space available and a constantly updated library I ordered an external hard drive to hold all of my pictures. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep ahead of the times unlike my parents. I'm currently in the process of trying to scan pages from their photo albums into my computer in hopes of preserving memories of our past forever. Because who wants to lose classic shots of us in Washington DC which, according to my wife was in Washington State until about 10 years ago. Apparently, someone in her family didn't finish a roll fast enough and the rest is photographic history.

Oh, and just for the record, South Fork is not located in Dallas. It's near Plano, in a community called Parker. So, pffft, I was half right.