'Technology Good!'

[browngirl]

Am I an awful curmudgeon if I hate anti-technology messages?

So, I was listening to a song called "Relay Tower" about how a lovely old sycamore got cut down to build a cell phone tower in order to improve reception, and an old couple discover this when they return to the town of their youth to go looking for the sycamore that, as young lovers, they had carved their heart upon. The point of the song was that "you can't carve a heart on a relay tower".

I heard the song, and I started to think. I thought of the couple's daughter, driving to pick her parents up in this town, her car breaking down by the side of the road. A man stops and motions for her to open the door; she smilingly shakes her head no and points to her cell phone; she's already called for help. He starts trying to break in the car window, and she calls the police. He gets the car window broken in, and is trying to drag her out of the car when the police show up and capture him. If the relay tower had not been there, and her cell phone had consequently not gotten any reception, the police would have found her nude, sexually assaulted body in a ditch three days later.

So, we present these alternate histories to the couple and ask them, would they rather have the sycamore tree, or their living, untraumatized daughter?

I'm not advocating blind worship of technology, actually, despite my title. I just....I hear lots of "Technology Bad!" messages, and they irritate me, because I believe that nearly anything has both good and bad to it. (I *don't* believe that the good and bad are in equal balance, most of the time. For example, I do think that my grandfather's death ended his suffering after his stroke. That said, I'd MUCH rather have my grandpa back, healthy and alive.) I think technology is like that. Without any technology we'd be scavenging apes still; our first technologies enabled us to hunt, to eat better, to develop more complex social structures and larger brains, to become who we are now. Technology is an integral part of that, and change is an integral part of technology.

As songs about the 'cost of progress' go, I far prefer the end of "Caretaker", where the man who cut down the oak tree plants an acorn.

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I like that. I just did a post about the blackout reaffirming my faith in technology.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Heh. :)

You and yours are ok?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

No problems. We and nellorat's two visiting sisters are all OK.

Well, yes, but....

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I think there needs to be balance. I'm not anti-technology, but I'm also very pro-nature, and I think there's a great deal of sense in trying to find a way to bring both of those things into harmony.

The part of "Relay Tower" that I think best sums that point up is in the chorus:

"You can call from anywhere, it's true
If there was anywhere left worth going to"

Not every technological marvel is necessarily progress, and good things can be taken to awful extremes. Balance is the key.

Re: Well, yes, but....

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Well, I *did* say, "I'm not advocating blind worship of technology, actually, despite my title. " I do agree with you here, but I also know that situations such as the one I described with the daughter I theorized for the couple do happen (for example, a friend of mine was recently chased through/out of a public park by a guy trying to catch her, who banged on her car door as she leaped in and drove away). The balance does encompass both.

Also, see what camwyn said to me. ;)

[camwyn]

The point of the song was that "you can't carve a heart on a relay tower".

If these people had any kind of respect for trees at all, they wouldn't have carved the heart there in the first place. Carving anything into the bark of a tree means that you're exposing the inner, vulnerable layers of the tree to insect assault and weather damage, potentially introducing new points of rot. Every park ranger and tree specialist I have ever spoken to on the subject has said that carving initials into trees is as bad for the tree as throwing a wadded-up Burger King bag into a wilderness area is for the local environment in general. And they've been saying it for years, too.

You can't carve a heart on a relay tower, but you can spray-paint your initials on when no one's looking - and that's the moral equivalent of what these supposedly romantic young people did to the tree. If the song's going to be idealizing nature as opposed to technology, it ought to remember that the people involved were ecological vandals.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Three snaps up! I'd forgotten to mention that bit of my reaction, but it's true, too.

Sometimes it's really sad how little people make themselves learn about what they're supposedly defending.

[jenny_evergreen]

This is a pet peeve of mine...the closed-minded liberal. They get the general messages, like "technology bad, nature good", and mindlessly cling to them just as the closed-minded conservative clings to their ideologies.

Keeping an open mind requires diligently NOT seeing the world in black and white.

I'm an animal-rights-motivated vegetarian. I, unlike a lot of my counterparts, know perfectly well that eating meat is not inherently wrong. I think people start thinking that way to bolster their beliefs. It's HARD to live in the gray area and cling to beliefs that go against the majority. (And it always seems that the majority doesn't share your beliefs.) But, in my clearly rather passionate opinion, the moment we give in to black and white thought, we become part of the problem. Hell, we ARE the problem.

*stares at the soapbox she's just jumped off of* Er, hope you don't mind, I didn't see that coming. *sheepish smile*

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

This is a pet peeve of mine...the closed-minded liberal. They get the general messages, like "technology bad, nature good", and mindlessly cling to them just as the closed-minded conservative clings to their ideologies.

While there are certainly closed-minded people in pretty much any crowd, "technology bad, nature good" is not a "liberal" ideology, it's a Romantic one.

(BTW, Ayesha, generally speaking, analog roam has a much larger range than digital or PCS, so might very well have worked even if the poor, graffiti-riddled tree had survived.)

[jenny_evergreen]

I'd argue that it's both, but I'm not the arguing kind. Insert the absolutist/extremist version of the liberal idea of your choice if that one doesn't work for you. *engages in tongue biting* Caught me at a bad moment, I guess.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Eh. Technology does have a price. Not every new development is good. I'm among the people who are against the Sharon golf course putting up a cel phone tower in the middle of one of the greens. Yes, coverage does get spotty in places. So? Where did we get this idea that we need to be instantly reachable everywhere?

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I *did* say "I don't advocate blind worship of technology". But I don't think it's the inhuman monster that many people seem to---while using its products to say so.

I knew this reminded me of something!

[camwyn]

I seem to recall hearing that the Talking Heads came up with this song as a sort of slap-back at "Big Yellow Taxi" and the general feeling of "technology/modern Western civilization suxx0r" that seemed to be pervading the environmental movement at the time...


Nothing But Flowers - Talking Heads

Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it's nothing but flowers

There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it

We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it

There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
you've got it, you've got it

If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you've got it, you've got it

Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong

Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it

This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it

I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it

And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it

I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it

We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it

This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it

Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle

I think it was essentially their reminder that all the stuff people were decrying came into existence because people wanted it in the first place. And that getting rid of it to bring back the supposedly idyllic pastoral past would mean paying a price that a lot of folks didn't seem to understand. Tech has its problems and it puts a lot of strain and pain on the world, but getting rid of tech, or turning it down without seriously thinking about why, has its problems too. After all, the (comparatively) low-tech solution to getting into and out of Manhattan is the use of ferries, and we all saw how well that worked when the power went out. Granted, the problem wouldn't have been as bad if the tech that went out (electrically lit tunnels, electrically governed tolls at most of the bridges) had never come into existence in the first place, but you get the idea.

Yes, the modern world has problems and technology has its costs. But as someone who owes her vision to lasers and her elementary education to the superhighways from her home to the area with the good schools, I have to say: take some time to learn the truth about both the pros and the cons of 'progress' before shooting either the old way or the new down. 'The good old days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.'

[poltr1]

My philosophy about technology is that technology is a tool which should enable us to do things better, faster, and cheaper. Technology should serve us, not the other way around. Also, technology is good only when it works the way we want it to.