Written by Frederica
At this season of the year when many of us will be either buying or receiving some new item of technology, it occurs to me to wonder whether this wonderful technology is really our friend or whether it has become the entire focus of our lives and thus a potential foe.
I have realised over the past 21 months that technology has been deliberately used against us by those whose business it should have been to nurture and protect us as a nation. They appear to have pursued this path in order to follow a deleterious agenda of their own. My anger and frustration has grown over this time and is now an almost all-consuming desire to see this situation reversed. To see technology used for the good it can do rather than for the evil that has been perpetrated against the people of the World by those whose only desire is to have absolute power over all they survey (including us people). If they succeed, I suspect that life as we know it will become pretty grim. Technology will drive everything – including us – and will indeed become ‘The Foe’!
I became acquainted with technology relatively late in life. It simply did not exist for people of my era. The existence of computers for daily use was unknown in my earlier years. I learned my keyboard skills on an old fashioned typewriter. Re-typing was a bore so it was with great relief that I embraced the advent of the word-processor typewriter. A wonderful device that stored the document in its memory and was able to be edited before finally pushing the print button!
Great strides have been made in the last forty years. The ability to produce documents, spreadsheets and presentations using PowerPoint etc., and send them to the intended recipient electronically has been a godsend to businesses – but not so good for the postal service!
I know many people are addicted to ‘gaming’ devices like XBox. It has never appealed to me. Spending hour after hour chasing little beasts round a screen using a remote control box seemed like wasted time to me and I do wonder about what it does to the mind~processes! But … each to his own!
Social Media has become an all encompassing medium now. Those who spend much of their time on Facebook and Twitter are something of a puzzlement to me. I cannot conceive of why one might want to lay bare one’s lifestyle for others (albeit invited in as ‘friends’) to pore over and compare with their own. It seems like a strange form of voyeurism! The odd snippets I see posted on the various commenting forums from Twitter accounts don’t seem to provide any ‘value added’ to anybody’s life. I suppose, like anything else, it becomes an addiction! But … are these forms of communication facilitated by the advancement of ‘technology, providing any real ‘enhancement’ to our daily lives?
I freely confess that, in my own case – I don’t do Facebook or Twitter – the ability to comment on current affairs or communicate with others in commenting threads on ‘below the line’ forums has been a revelation and often a comfort. To be able to communicate, often in ‘real time’, with others on matters of interest (usually political in the current climate) in places far removed from one’s home location has been a voyage of discovery. Conversing with someone else who is located halfway round the World with the ease of a few taps of the keyboard is a constant source of amazement to me.
The means to carry out research on many subjects using the internet has been a great advance in the wonders of technology. In the early days of the World Wide Web the search engines were not as sophisticated as they are today. Typing in one’s information requirement was very much a question of phrasing the request in the format that the web would recognise and respond to. I spent many a fruitless hour searching for information and coming away empty handed because I could not speak the ‘correct language’!
Conversely, replying upon information gleaned from the internet without taking the trouble to double check using other means can be counter-productive. Similarly, such methods have been used by students looking for a quick-fix to homework difficulties whereby they have cut and pasted chunks of information without pausing to consider and assimilate the information they have used. An instance where technology is not necessarily a force for good!
YouTube has become the go-to source for those seeking information on ‘how-to-do-it’! Once one would have relied upon one or several reference books, often necessitating a trip to a local library. The abandonment of books in favour of putting technology first and foremost seems to me to be a slightly retrograde step, even when taking into account that the information posted online might be more up-to-date! However, YouTube has now been found to be ‘taking down’ posts that are deemed not in keeping with the politically correct narrative. So I would draw your attention to the following video – a statement made by Stephen Kelly, a former NSW policeman for 28 years. It is rather long -30 mins – but well worth listening to.
I have felt much amazement and considerable anger at the extreme measures that have been taken in Australia recently. I feel shame and perturbation that our own government has remained silent (and thereby complicit) at the draconian way in which that country is dealing with its people! What has happened there could well happen here very soon now. Internment camps and forced vaccination would have been unthinkable in a modern democracy until very recently!
Thank goodness for technology which still enables us to befriend each other in times of trouble and doubt and provide us with an insight into others’ troubles!
The internet (YouTube etc included) has been useful in many ways to acquire information that the MSM have either overlooked or chosen to ignore. Thus, this technology has hitherto been a friend.
However, increasingly we are finding that ‘inconvenient truths’ which do not suit the narrative of those-in-power are being ‘blocked’ and ‘cancelled’, to prevent us all from seeing things that might empower us to act in ways that ‘authority’ would not wish! Technology becoming the foe!
I have twice struggled through Orwell’s 1984. The first time I was so shocked that I decided I would never read it again. Recent times have made me change that decision. The second reading was even more concerning insomuch as I found that what was always regarded as a work of fiction has now become a handbook for unscrupulous governments worldwide.
But this is the festive season so I wish to wind up my latest ‘grump’ session with something rather more ‘light’ but still focussing upon the theme of our second winter of discontent! Some time ago another regular commenter on this site introduced me to Gilbert and Sulivan’s Mikado “Little List!”. I had not previously delved very deeply into this genre but my interest was piqued. So I have spent some time since viewing on the internet the various versions of this performance. I leave you with one of my favourites as a little light relief for the season. I wish you all a very Happy Christmas.
Well it’s a two edged sword isn’t it. Unfortunately the psychopaths have taken control of it, and it’s addictive. And people are getting “groomed ” into having all singing all dancing smartphones which will prove to be their “electronic handcuff”. I don’t like the sound of the “Metaverse” either.
I got on a bus full of schoolchildren recently; it was creepy and unnatural. None of them spoke to each other but were glued to their smartphones, computer games, twitter whatever. Didn’t used to be like that.
That’s how they’ve done it! They have stolen our children! Our own children were the recipients of this first wave, we have tagged on alongside them (with their help and instruction -especially in my own case) in order to be seen to ‘keep up’. our grandchildren and great grandchildren (assuming that there ever are any) will be the victims of the eternal slavery!
Yet technology should have been a blessing not a curse! We should never have been so trusting! Our naive inquisitiveness and wish to be seen to be ‘with it’ have led us to the brink of our own destruction!
A two edged sword is dead right. It is BOTH friend and foe.
I suppose everything is a bit like that. Every GOOD thing in the world can be used for BAD purposes.