Modern Innovations that are Destroying the World: Part 2 - Nano-Tech, GPS, and Pumpkin Spice?

Modern Innovations that are Destroying the World: Part 2 - Nano-Tech, GPS, and Pumpkin Spice?
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   Hello valued reader! It's been a long while for Mosquito Cannon. Honestly I know you missed me and I missed you too. That bright point in your day just hasn't been the same reading all of those other dry failed attempts at humor out there. They're a dime a dozen, aren't they? But it is cool to realize that Mosquito Cannon is seriously in the "older" blog group now as more and more of these internet article spammers come on board with what all the popular kids are doing.

   Well I want to make it clear Mosquito Cannon is not like those kids. In fact, Mosquito Cannon's theme is unique, well thought out, and inspired. And that theme is to shoot a Cannon at a Mosquito. What does that mean? You'll understand. It's an answer I don't want to blurt out. I'd much rather have it emerge slowly like a budding flower. That way you can appreciate it for all its purity and beauty.

   What you figured it out already? Ah fine...I guess you can think of it as overreacting. Either way we are on to Part 2 of a series on things destroying the world. And oh, there are a lot of "things". So let's load the cannon and begin, shall we?

The Room Is Bigger

   So what do I mean when I say the room is bigger? Is that supposed to be some sort of witty metaphor? Yes...yes it is. What I mean is this:

Let's say you and a buddy are at lunch. You pick a table in the corner and start talking about some of the serious issues that are pressing our world today. Like the new Pumpkin Spice charcoal they just came out with at the store today. (This is right after the inevitable launch of Pumpkin Spice tires for your car).

    You joke and laugh and carry on about Pumpkin Spice people and how they must be out of their minds. All in all its a fun conversation and even though your spouse may be a Pumpkin Spice fanatic, it was just a vent you got out of your system and you can go home to respecting them again and not faulting them for that Pumpkin Spice scented blanket they bought a few weeks ago. No big issue. No complaints, no hurt feelings. Everybody feels better. But...

   Instead of that happening, its a different world where everything is recorded. (Maybe the government has cameras in everyone's eyes by now...you know its coming *shot fired*). And your conversation goes public. In fact, let's say it happens in real time like everyone in the world is in the room with you, listening to you, and you say all of your derogatory things about Pumpkin Spice people publicly for everyone in the world to see and hear.

   Well, in a pool of hundreds of millions of internet users there will be plenty of people who are offended by what you said. Angered, hurt, or threatened even. If you said that about Pumpkin Spice people, what else would you be willing to do to them? You have Pumpkinspiceophobea don't you? You'll never understand Pumpkin Spice people at all because you aren't one of them. So stop trying and put aside your prejudice.
 
   Very quickly you are disliked and you are offended yourself. Some of these people are accusing you of some terrible things that flat out aren't true. After all, your spouse is a Pumpkin Spice fanatic, you have Pumpkin Spice fanatic friends, you are certainly NOT a Pumpkinspiceophobe. You respond defensively of course. Pumpkin Spice people ARE ridiculous. This thing has gone too far. Pumpkin Spice tattoos are about as far as you should go, but that's it darn it! Pumpkin Spice is everywhere. You had every right to say what you did and no one else was there anyway. How do they know what you really meant?

   Some people read into your defensiveness and further condemn you. You get threats. People say they don't even know if you're a real human being and insult your family or appearance, taking low blows. Others rush to your defense. Feeling threatened by the escalating hate piled on you as non-Pumpkin Spicers themselves, they polarize the issue and take their own nasty jabs. Some of them seem to genuinely hate Pumpkin Spicers and start using "foodie" slurs. This escalates the situation even further and some of the Pumpkin Spicers come right back with their own slurs and horrendous remarks.

   By this point you want it all to go away and you just apologize. Some thank you for it, but others see it as a sign of weakness or a farce and slam you even harder. A lot see it as you admitting you were wrong making your genuine defendants feel betrayed. Many turn on you and dislike you. Your more radical defenders slam the Pumpkin Spicers even harder and before you know it it seems out of control. You're miserable and just want it to go away. You'll take sensitivity training if you have to just to keep from this getting out further. Hopefully you don't lose your job or have some psycho knock on your door with a handgun.

The modern world's Prince Franz Ferdinand.

  I know what you're thinking.  Why didn't he just keep his comments sensitive and not use a dangerous label? By and large that wisdom is good. There are a lot of labels that can and should be avoided to keep focusing conversations on better facts with more detail to avoid these situations. But in the end, is it really possible to keep from offending everyone?

   In fact, this thing actually happens every day and its destroying the world! You see, the world isn't just you and your immediate relatives or friends anymore. It's everyone. A single word or incident can go anywhere now and no one understands the context of what you said or did. And with people in California arguing with people in Georgia over what you said, they have little hope of understanding each other's comments or thoughts either. Let alone coming to any practical solutions that don't involve hurting the other group.

The beginning of most wars, historically.

   This all seems ridiculous, yet it happens every single day, all day long! Racial issues, politics, bathroom laws, you name it. Whatever it is, it has become an out of control wheel of madness sucking people into its wake. Unfortunately, these discussions create a false perception that everyone hates each other or that the Pumpkin Spicers are somehow irreconcilably different from the others. One is always hurting the other somehow and in that "us versus them" issues are even created or fabricated just to make sure your side wins.

   Think its ridiculous still? Just look at the racial riots in the streets and animosity developing around recent events in the United States. Before facts are even known lines are drawn. There's fights over everything from obscure language to costumes.

Remember this one? Neither do I...neither do I...

  One guy slams Colin Kaepernick for not respecting the national anthem and flag. Someone else get's offended because that's his right and how dare you be offended by that. Someone else is offended because they know people that died for that right and the only reason they have it is their sacrifice and you must hate those sacrifices. Someone else is offended because people seem to hate everyone that doesn't come from this country and you sound kinda like them. Then we're offended because he was successful in that country and rewarded by people who love that country and make a hundredth of his income. People are offended then because that must mean he can't have an opinion of his own if he makes a lot of money and they just will never understand what its like to be like him. On and on and on it goes. Each one barely understanding the other, each one getting angrier and angrier at the implications of what the other said. All of a sudden its us versus them. All of sudden its about everyone because they all get accused somehow.

Every day is "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" Day. 

Just on a smaller scale.

   By the time you throw out vastly inadequate labels to accuse people like White, Black, Immigrant, American, etc... it becomes impossible to have an intelligent conversation where anything is accomplished. In fact, think of any national conversation that didn't include a racial label that didn't offend anyone. You can't, because as soon as you say, "White people" or "Mexicans" it doesn't matter what attribute, characteristic, issue, or idea you are addressing with that label, it WILL miss the mark and it WILL inevitably be wrong to someone, somehow.

   Internet, News Media, Entertainment...every platform where people talk into the "Big Room" becomes a breeding ground for animosity and hatred. The only thing that will control it is wisdom from experience and understanding on the part of literally just about everyone. We don't know how long it will take humanity to adjust to this developing "Hive Mind" but hopefully we don't kill each other first.


Nano Technology

   If you are not aware of Nano-Technology and all of its implications, allow me to horrify you. Imagine someone sending an invisible machine into your house to do whatever it wants. It can record your conversations, shoot video of you, take your food, your keys, hide your wallet, get on your computer and spend your credit card, and, oh yeah, it can kill you too. And no, its not a ninja. But it's definitely ninja-esque. Now imagine that house is your body. How do you feel? That's the effects of nano-tech. How is this possible? microscopic machines the size of blood cells able to penetrate your body through food, liquid, air, or even by contact. Soo...an army of microscopic ninjas raiding your food pantry...or brain, I meant brain. Pretty disturbing isn't it?

   Now to be fair, that's not the main use of nano-technology, as far as we know. (I'm looking at you conspiracy theorists). Most modern uses of nano-technology are applicable to building. As in creating artificially constructed wood and other materials. Nano-bots are doing some amazing things and have some outrageous implications. Like being able to fight diseases and such. But for every cool new technology there is a terrifying new use to harm. Such as in the case of gun powder. On one end pretty fireworks and construction demolition made easy. On another, bombs and guns. You get the point.

Who wants to make some fireworks!?

   With nano-bots that's the implication as well. Let me give you a visual. Country A wants to conquer country B. With a single conniving tyrant at the helm of Country A (like Kim Il Sung of North Korea, for instance, or Glenda, the "good" witch form the Wizard of Oz), they could send a hardly distinguishable cloud of bots into a city's water supply or just drop it over the air. Those bots fall into the population and infiltrate everything and get into the bodies of the citizens. Then they start going to work, tearing down cellular structures or blocking blood vessels. With enough bots they could reduce every person in the city to goop and there would be no way to stop it. It doesn't even have to be Country A dropping bots onto Country B, it can be a lone terrorist too (such as Glenda for instance).

   In reality, the only way to stop the bots would be to have bots of your own working inside you like white blood cells to fight them off as they come. That's great and all, but where do you think those bots will come from? Perhaps the government? Hm, better not get out outta line. Hope they aren't controlled by a central computer with a rogue AI...

Will Smith wont be around to save us for forever people.

Much like nuclear weapons made the annihilation of the human race that much easier for the outlying psychopath, so too do nano-bots bring the power of the single individual closer and closer to direct control over your life. So the question becomes, are you ready for that kind of centralized power? Are you ready for someone to be able to flip a switch and turn you into motor oil? Or let you experience the sensation of drowning from your couch? I would reckon that you are not, or perhaps have chosen not to think about it; since there really isn't much you can do to stop it. You may not think like that, but I've watched enough Sci-Fi thrillers to know where this could go, and you know what? History shows I am probably going to be right.

GPS

   There are a couple of ways GPS is destroying the world. The first is that it's helping everyone get where they need to go without having to know directions. I know, that sounds like a huge bonus. You're sitting there like, "that's a destruction I like!" But seriously, some of the most basic navigation skills required to use a map and compass are now lost because of GPS.

   "But humanity evolves," you say. "Every generation has done it," you say. But hear me out. Don't tune me out like that add for a new miracle treatment to cure cellulite or, heaven forbid, that Broncos game. I have a point here.

   You see, navigation teaches people some very basic things about life. Not just in navigating streets and addresses, but navigating challenges and people altogether. I remember working on the road for a non-profit organization fresh out of college. We would travel across the country doing educational assemblies at public schools. We didn't have GPS. You know what we had? A map. A compass, and occasionally someone's directions. That's what we had.

   Driving into a new place you have never been with a map to take you there, knowing getting to your destination means your job is a pressure that forces you to learn confidence and decisiveness as well as critical thinking. We had to make it or bust. We didn't have something to walk us there step by step, or Google Street View to see our destination before we got there. We had to navigate unfamiliar territory with confidence in our tools and skills as well as in the people we were relying on. We had to learn how to trust people, understand people and places we hadn't encountered and keep ourselves safe and healthy in the event something went wrong.

And trust me, something always went wrong.

   Now I will grant you we were a hundred shades more pampered than the Pioneeers of days gone by, but we were forced to stand on our own feet far more than people growing up in this world today. With everything being done for them, these life lessons are lost, this confidence in the unknown is lost as literally it becomes impossible to get lost. That's big. Just like the survivalist looks at society and is baffled by the panic in peoples' minds when stuff goes wrong, so too we look at the panic in the eyes of the increasingly younger generations when these pampering devices fail and cringe a little inside.

   In the end, its our fault. It's up to us to teach them and not let technology take the place of all these things. Unfortunately history shares with us how poorly we do that, which is why it makes the list.

   The other way GPS is destroying society is in privacy. Want to go off-grid for awhile? Too bad. No matter where you go as long as you have a cell phone with you (an inseparable commodity today), you can be found. Again, this has implications for a tyrannical government that you cannot run from (like one run by Glenda). So now instead of being able to melt you they can find you wherever you go, then melt you. (This is certainly the case after they install that chip in your hand).

Come to think of it, 

Glenda was pretty good at getting people melted.

   But even without being a doom and gloom conspirator, the other implications are that someone knows where you spent every minute of your life. In fact, if you own a smartphone you've likely downloaded  applications on your device already that are selling your locations, web history, phone contents, and other things to marketers use to help sell you their products. A long time ago someone once said to me, "if the product is for free, you are the product being sold."

Yup, that's the one. That about sums it up.

   Yikes. GPS and meta-data turns everyone into a commodity and you have a whole societal value put on you just based off that very thing. Even if you are comfortable with this, the uncomfortable implication is that your location is really not an accurate indicator of what you do or who you are. Yet its being treated as such by marketers already. Your digital footprint is being used to complete an online"profile" for you and telling a story about you that is entirely inadequate but the only story the rest of the world has on you. That includes the government and its coinciding legal structure.

   What that's like is someone taking a single snapshot of your life and cataloging that as your identity. You may have gone to the liquor store to pick up a buddy, but the meta-data tells marketers you're a drinker. Get the idea?

This is going to work. I know it.

  There are plenty of other things GPS does too, like help that random guy that wants to hurt you find your exact location. But it's a small jump considering at one point in time we all had phone books to find people any way. GPS still makes the list for its honorable contribution, so...well done GPS.

  And that's all there is to it. It's been awhile since I wrote an article so I am a bit rusty. Still, I hope you were educated and entertained. Or perhaps amused. You can figure it out.

Once again we have fired at the mosquito with our cannon. Who knows if we hit anything. Until next time...