Technology reducing ataraxia.

For days I was wrestling with a recalcitrant email system.  Emails refused to depart from my computer, and I could find no one who understood even how the system works, let alone correct it.  I paid a silly amount to someone purporting to be an expert, but it turned out he wasn’t .

So let me be an epicurean philosopher for a moment and ask the question, “Why are we doing all this technology to ourselves?  What is the point, except to illustrate that collectively we can do it, and someone, somewhere is making a pile of money at it?”

Apparently, 5G, a system that is going to take over the world, is going to allow you (yes!) to connect your electric kettle to the internet. Nothing will be isolated. Big Brother can surveil electronically in real time how many slices of bread you are toasting for breakfast.  Why?  Don’t ask!

There are lots of us increasingly feeble old people, and few can understand computers or electronics.  Wait till the 20s/30s crowd, who are foisting all this technology upon us,  reach old age – because they will.  By  that time it will be too late. They will be getting confused, forgetful and stressed – and will have done it to themselves.  But I suppose the imaginations of these techies doesn’t run to imaging themselves old and feeling helpless.  If the greatest threat to us all is  the climate crisis, the second is the complexity and ubiquity of technology, which frequently doesn’t work, and no one seems to know why.  Wait till it happens to you – and repent!

This an an epicurean blog.  We believe in a happy, contented life with peace of mind.  I fear it is all going wrong!!

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