I'm writing this on a Mac. Not a new one (I'm not all that cool). I've owned this one since 2007. So I had to get on down to a local Apple store recently and upgrade it to a 10.6.7. (Whatever that is.)
And the fact is, I really didn't have much choice in the matter. If I want my website to function, if I want Firefox 4 to download, if I want to simply "keep up" with all the other computers in constant communication with this one, I had to purchase new hardware. Will have to again and again, actually, until poor old Mac here will no longer be capable of "keeping up," at which point I will have to toss him out and fork over the money for a brand new computer. (I just hope and pray Mac hasn't gotten as smart as HAL by then, or disposal could become a real problem.)
Check out the verbs in those two paragraphs above-had to, didn't have much choice, had to, will have to again and again, will have to-and you begin to understand where science fiction comes from. We've reached the point where it's no longer clear which is in control: our will, or the will of cyberspace... But it is clear that as an author and a publisher with books and ePubs to sell in 2011, the success of my individual creativity-not to mention my fricking livelihood-depends on how well I can participate in a hive mind.
Which gets spooky, because while this vast and intricate web supports us, it can also entrap us. The hive mind is not unbiased. The hive mind is actually extremely biased, extremely quick to judge, and extremely harsh in its judgments. Facebook, which was supposed to be a harmless way of keeping in touch with others, has already killed a couple of people. Twitter is the fastest way of slinging poison darts ever invented.
No wonder artists, writers, and film makers are getting alarmed. We don't really know what lies in the shadow of this much technology. We don't really know what it's doing to our souls.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Luddite. I love my gadgets. They make my life richer and easier in thousands of ways. Don't even think about taking my coffee grinder, or my hot water cascading out of its indoor faucets, or my stereo (notice I didn't say iPod-told you I wasn't cool), or this laptop perched up on a huge dictionary (where it won't break my neck to look at it all day) which writes, edits and produces Word.docs without ever needing White Out, glue or Exacto knives. (The sign tacked up on my office wall back in the dark ages said: "Cut and paste till you puke.")
I just find myself increasingly uncomfortable with how rapidly 'the home of the free and the brave' has turned into 'the land where we all have to have the same sorts of things (is that freedom?) and panic when they don't work properly' (is that bravery?). And yes, panic is exactly what I did last week after hours of downloading and installing things onto Mac here, only to learn that doing so made him much smarter than his co-worker, Epson. It took many more hours of downloading and installing to bring that laggard Epson up to speed.
During a lecture by psychologist and author Glen Slater on Technology and Soul a few weeks ago, while Slater talked about the "singularity point" approaching-where computers become as smart as people, and "can think like human beings"-I found myself writing, "When so many crushing, unsolved problems on this planet can be attributed directly to human error, why in the world would any intelligent machine want to think like more like a human being?" down in my notebook.
Unless we find ways to hang onto our souls during this upheaval-which started back in the Industrial Revolution has hasn't stopped yet-unless we find ways to re-animate life-which was historically tied to a particular place and the creation of meaningful things by hand-when computers reach the singularity point and begin to spontaneously generate their own science fiction, human beings will be the bad guys.
The perpetual scholar type, with lifelong interests in comparative religion and analytical psychology, Kay has a Bachelor of Science with Honors from Portland State University, but considers her real education to be 18 years of private focus on the human shadow. When not reading or writing, she's outside gardening on 3 hilly, wooded acres near Portland, Oregon.
To learn more please visit: http://www.shadowintheusa.com/
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