I\u2019ve been AWOL now nearly a week, pretty much Laying Low, avoiding phones, credit cards and car rentals. Admittedly, it\u2019s a primitive existence, fraught with danger, close to the ground and devoid of digital toys and devices. Actually it feels a lot like those early pioneer days on the South End when we were poor, TV-less and didn\u2019t own a credit card. Of course, computers hadn\u2019t taken over the world yet. Microsoft and Apple were just learning to crawl. And we weren\u2019t occupied 24\/7 keeping up with Yahoo news and social media and e-mails and twitter feeds and flash sales and text messages and cellphone calls and Netflix updates and internet shopping and all the rest of that instant connectedness to our fellow ants we can no longer imagine living without.<\/p>\n
So far I\u2019m surviving okay. Life does go on without Facebook updates. Admittedly it\u2019s a lonelier existence not keeping abreast of \u2018friends\u2019 shopping adventures and movie \u2018likes\u2019, but I\u2019m managing to fill the void. Give me another week and I\u2019ll found a new religion, one not predicated on base 10, bits and bytes, possibly one that deposes the CyberGod of the 21st century, a religion that gives humankind dominion over computers.<\/p>\n
Okay, I\u2019m only joshing. TV has won. Smartphones rule. We will soon, very soon, become part cyber ourselves. We\u2019ll surgically implant new and improved body parts. We\u2019ll convince ourselves we\u2019re in control. But \u2026 this is delusional. Welcome to the Collective, Friend! Embrace the Borg Hive. We won\u2019t very much notice and the transformation will be painless and quick. Half automaton, half human? I don\u2019t think so, not for very long. Get the Google glasses, buy an implant and 500 apps. Opt for bio-appendages, improved and virtually indestructible. And eventually require all citizens to upgrade their neuro-chips. Smart? Way smart. Pain free? Of course. Disease immune? You betcha! Human? Oh, right. Me paranoid? Wait a few years\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve been AWOL now nearly a week, pretty much Laying Low, avoiding phones, credit cards and car rentals. Admittedly, it\u2019s a primitive existence, fraught with danger, close to the ground and devoid of digital toys and devices. Actually it feels a lot like those early pioneer days on the South End when we were poor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4975,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4974\/revisions\/4975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}