Click Online Commentary

BBC World is available in the wee hours overnight on Television One in New Zealand. It features comprehensive and up-to-date news, amongst a wide range of sagacious and entertaining viewing. Of foremost note for the technologically interested is the weekly half-hour Click Online program. This reports hardware and software developments, providing useful tips for all expertise levels.

The last week in March, 2002, Click Online reported from Hannover, Germany, where the 33rd Annual CEBIT technology expo had opened. The show's presenters, led by Stephen Cole, guided us through the latest digital offerings in terms of cameras, PDA/cellphones, PCs and the like. Not satisfied with the simple presentation of new goods, Click Online asked where consumer technology was going. The poignancy of the question was underlined by the fact that the BBC crew could not obtain basic cellphone connection on the sprawling site. It is necessary to seek resolution of such glaring contradictions.

'Newer, faster, cheaper, better' is the computer enthusiast's essential refrain. Each device evolution provides 'more bang for your buck', justifying continual reinvestment. 'Old' devices (1-5 years) still work fine, but might take more time. Efficiency is the name of the game, and so we follow on, hungrily gobbling each morsel of processing gain, in the quest for enhancement of apparently the only finite commodity - time - and a more life-like virtual experience. Working harder and longer to obtain those reinvestment dollars, we wonder where the time has gone, and try impossibly to get more.

Technology for the masses is a classic 'dog chasing its tail' opiate. When technology fails to work properly, innumerable hours are lost recovering our increasing state of dependency upon it. We are getting nowhere but more and more encumbered with the devices that promised to liberate us. Understanding why this is, rather than the latest advertised product out, is the key to our happiness.

Computer chips were invented to replace people in the cycle of production. They don't join unions, take personal maintenance breaks or demand redundancy payment - simple. Plus they're astronomically quicker and more accurate.
Unfortunately, developing computer chips is a very expensive business, which other businesses could not afford to buy into if it weren't for Jo Public subsidising the process through our continual reinvestment. By now it should be obvious what is actually eating up our quality of life. How do we stop the slide?

Don't buy any brand-new gadgetry - not until you've seen clear proof of superiority over your current systems. Then it is better to shop around for a second-hand item increment ahead of your own, and save substantial dosh. Good recycled gear continually hits the market because industry is forced to pursue technological advantage by regularly replacing its equipment, unlike the consumer. Next we should examine just what it is we're being sold via those new gadgets the manufacturers say we must have.

We are sucked in by gimmickry, pure and simple. Hypnosis = visual capture by way of flashing lights and colour, full-motion gaming, virtual war and celebrity mythology.

It is time for us to become stars in our own movies, instead of passive recipients of disaster fear not of our making. We can be heroes, not just for one day, by shifting our focus away from the billion-dollar screens we are slaves to and onto what is really important - humanity itself. Observe critically the steady erosion by stealth of all that is warm in our hearts and communities by the 'dream maker' (read dream breaker) 'communication' industries.

We have to reject the crapulent, no-future world of depredation and violence being foisted upon us daily, and act, in our own best interests, to save this world - for there is no other.

Think, before you consume.

Act, where there is still time.

Click Online Commentary

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