But things are changing and have changed. So-called technological advances occur at incredibly rates in the race to discover a new explanation of a previous discovery or the race to prove that a centuries old discovery is true and verified by our perceived reality. Does that mean Heisenberg was wrong?

However, technology has allotted some conveniences. No longer are humans faced with the same worries of survival. We are well taken care of. You have only to type in a few words and at your fingertips is the information a data engine has gathered. But co-existence with this so-called leap of human evolution is the ancient practice of starvation, vulnerability to the elements, and covering up. Western Culture can have this pre-assembled and delivered to your door. That changes things. People become hooked into their environment in order to do anything. It is as if you have to know the way to work to get to work. But what happens when that environment is virtual and augmented? How does that affect neurons in the brain? What if you believe in that augmented universe, do you then believe that your life is dependent upon a screen?

Information comprises a culture, so when the information changes as does that culture. There is technology, so it is ridiculous to return to pre-microchip or something. Humans cannot return to the primitive era. It is somewhat difficult to believe that, is it not? What exactly would we do with everything? Would that not mean the industrial age was built to return to the primitive age? Recycling is already a problem and dumping garbage all over the earth already happens. Look at the streets in your town, litter everywhere!

The reality is the industrial era is over. It is the digital era now. And the digital age changes much rapidly than the industrial. From conception to execution in the digital age is mere seconds to months whereas the industrial age took years from concept to execution. But what is the cost? I do not know. I have not been around long enough on the planet.

The Sharing Economy. Why not share skills and expertise rather than create jobs for profit? Under the current economy, everyone becomes a corporate cabal, elsewise no one would have value (cost, price, money). If money is currency, is not the act of current (flow) more important than the object selected to represent that flow? See, symbols have replaced conscience. Therein lays the alienation and excommunication so many fear, so we fear what we have already become.

“Never underestimate the power of denial.” ~American Beauty

This is the psychosis of civilization. Self-denial. We deny that we dislike the current state of affairs, so we cast lots in hopes that our denial is unfounded. Yet, unhappiness and misery continue unabated. Now, we have reproduced ourselves into that which we wish to be: avatars, profile pictures, images on the screen, a permanent state of Hallowe’en, save midnight never arrives and we need never worry over the grand unmasking. Self-denial to an artificial intelligence downloading dreams forgetting that we are what is real. And the “line” between actuality and virtual actuality continues to fade. No longer do we pursue (or lament) the American Dream, it is the Electron Dream. We want to be ghosts in the machine.

 

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