Last weekend, we needed to get our TV fixed, so we called the LG customer service in Turkey. A mechanical voice answered the phone, telling us to press numbers according to why we were calling, and then to "state our problem in a few words" to leave a message. We didn't even get to talk to a real person.
When we say "machines", people think of factories; pistons pumpin' and engines runnin'.
Your iPhone is a machine. The computer I'm writing this blog post on is a machine. My piano's a machine.
Yes, machines are all we need to make our lives more efficient, produce or consume more in less time, with less opportunity costs. They are the pearls of our world today, the very reason why innovation is so important...?
The x-ray is a machine. Guns are machines.
I am not in the group of people who worship The Machines and adore them. I think that we are way, way too involved with them and there is no way this can result in anything good.
Yesterday, I watched a TV show in which the cops went to a gun store to get information on a customer, a suspect in a murder investigation. The gun shop owner kept saying the famous phrase "Guns don't kill". Finally, one of the cops said, "Stupid people with guns kill".
I cannot emphasize how true this statement by the cop is. Yes, guns sitting on the counter may not spontaneously go off and kill someone who double-crossed it, maybe forgot to grease it in the morning, but people, particularly stupid people with guns, do kill. The gun is the most horrible machine to have ever been invented and to have gotten into the hands of humans. Maybe it is useful in the military business, but now nearly 40 % of America has a gun stored under their pillow.
Apart from guns, which were designed to hurt and kill, there are machines which are really, really creepy. The LG Customer Service talking-lady was certainly creepy; machines replacing humans. My iPhone recognizes what I say, converts it into text, understands it, and answers me. What is not creepy about that?
The movies Blade Runner and The Matrix are classified as science fiction. In both, machines rise against humans and they overpower them, gaining control over the world. It may sound a little paranoid, but with what we have right now; 3D without glasses, phones who talk to you, robots who serve you, those days of Replicants doesn't seem to be far away - that is, assuming that we all don't kill each other with those guns before that.
The human organism is a marvelous machine.
ReplyDeleteIs it any wonder that the human imagination has invented mechanisms to facilitate its control over its environs?
And having done so, entertains itself by attributing to its imaginary creatures those faculties it alone possesses?
If your figure is correct, why be alarmed that 60% of America (not sure what precisely you mean with that phrase…) does not sleep with a machine.
Although both are creatures of the human imagination, there is a difference between Pinocchio and Agent Smith, and it has less to do with machinery than it does with something far less tangible.
The reason I was alarmed by the fact that 40 % of America sleeps with a gun under their pillow was because I realized how seemingly "new" inventions can spread over the years to become everyday, household items, and this specific invention being a machine that allows no mistakes, makes this situation even more severe. I agree with what you said about Pinocchio and Agent Smith. Perhaps, what makes these machines so intimidating and close-to-humans comes from the imaginations and the endless greediness of the people who invent them. I'm pretty sure Geppetto didn't think of taking control over the world when he molded Pinocchio out of an enchanted tree.
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