Thinking about technology

While I'm constitutionally incapable of thinking along the same lines as him, I can't help but think that some of what Ted Kaczynski said/wrote was apt. I mean, I get enormously frustrated with the arbitrary skill that we are expected to acquire to manipulate the technological devices that are supposed to make our lives easier. In other words, we struggle with the tools of technology instead of struggling with nature. And the result is a horrible dependence.

This is a complicated issue, and I want to dig more through things. But the gist is here - I hate that I am an expert with a cell phone I no longer have. I hate that there are ninety different things that I could do with the old phone that I couldn't do with the new one - even though the salespeople say that the new one has all of the old tools. It doesn't. You give things up when companies decide they can make more money if they block things, or try to control the way that you get what you want.

There's an anti-capitalist strain here, and I don't want to wax too vitriolic for my own good. I don't hate capitalism that much. I just hate the way that people have faith in it like some religion, like it can be trusted to solve the world's problems through competition and all that. As if companies will be forced to respect the lives of their employees and customers because of market pressures. I just don't believe that.

Back to Ted. This guy had a point. I just wish that he hadn't used terrorism to try to make it. The complaint is real. With only a few exceptions, we are expected to study the things we buy to figure them out. We are supposed to learn new skills to manipulate new gadgets to do the same things as old gadgets. And these skills and patterns are not related to any particular aspect of our desired goal. How many times have we struggled to figure out a remote control because of the choices that the designers made about naming the buttons? What do you call the button that takes you back to the last channel - Last, Return, Recall, etc. If you put buttons on the remote for systems that aren't included with the remote, are you making it easier for a person to add stuff later, or are you making them wonder what they already have? Are you making them think they already have something?

I'm ranting. Ted is a convicted murderer, and not a role model. I don't want to be like Ted. But I want the world to stop thinking that it's our job to learn the products that companies want to sell us. It's the other way around.