The Industrial Revolution – When Machines Took Control
Now I have reached the end of this series, it is time for me to summarize my conclusions about Technology and its effects on us.
First of all, we must realize that there is no way we can separate ourselves from it. This is one of our most serious illusions – that we can take it or leave it. That what we are (our souls, perhaps) are untainted by our things. When in fact we are our things – body and soul.
Any successful technology becomes an integral part of its society. It becomes part of us, and once that happens (once it captures us) it is not possible to go back to what we were before that union – to our original pure state, before we were tempted in the Garden.
We must keep this problem of temptation clearly in mind. You never get something for nothing – we always lose something in the process – and sometimes a whole lot - a mess of pottage, in Biblical terms.
This was a problem even when our technology was still physical (the Automobile, for example). We could, in theory, think of ourselves and our cars separately – although in practice this was not possible.
But when our technologies became virtual (non-physical) as with Radio and Television (and probably the Movies too) we could not separate ourselves from them – and became blended with them in a new kind of space-time we had no feel for at all – because it was not physical.
But, strangely enough, at an unconscious level we could be controlled by it. And not aware of this control at all.
And not only that, a new kind of people appeared to take advantage of this new power. They could operate invisibly – behind the scene, or perhaps above the scene, pulling the strings that operate the puppets. I am not saying anything new here – power has always been controlled by obscure forces – but these forces were always groups of people who could be observed in the real world, in real time, by the careful observer.
In virtual time and space it is impossible to tell what is really going on. Everything is smoke and mirrors.
And in this new space horrible things could happen – and did happen – in Germany, the USSR, Japan, and China. But the worst one, by far, has not been noticed – the disappearance of real people.
I can speak with some authority here – because I saw this happen. Back in the Sixties (which extended in some places into the Eighties) I was influenced by Gestalt Psychology. My guru at the time was a student of Fritz Perls, the father of Gestalt. and he published Fritz’s writings in his Real People Press (which still exists). When the Sixties ended, I watched with amazement as my guru switched into NLP – which does not believe in a real world (a human world) only in a programmed world (a mechanical one).
The computer – a complex of computer hardware, software; and the Internet and Wireless networks – and, as I just said above, the organizations that are part of this – have become linked to form Globalization.
This master technology has squeezed us out of the mix, and is now running on autopilot – and headed straight over a cliff.
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