Meanwhile, the technology ate the rest of our country’s soul

(10:00AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The Boomers aged. Sure, not everything was perfect, not everything was back to normal. But we were staying fed. We were staying entertained. The electric bill was hard to pay but at least the damned AC worked when it got hot. Flick the switch, the dang thing turns on and works, that’s all want out of life.

Kids were hitting summer vacation. It was beach time, barbecue time, cold beer in the hot sun time. And frankly, we didn’t have the money anymore to haul our asses to DC for lobbying or NYC for protest marches. Transportation’s become rather expensive, doncha know. But really, don’t sweat it. Obama will end the wars soon. Just give him time. More time. More time. More time. Echo… echo… echo…

Then the kids started begging you to take them to see the new Transformers movie.

Now, only if you were ex-military would you cringe as you realized that the first such movie, which you’d been forced to sit through as a stoic, benign parent; was a two hour US Air Force Cyber Command recruiting commercial. The rest of the 98% of you who have never served, never known anyone who served, and don’t know or care what’s involved with military service would just resign yourselves to sitting through two hours of the usual Hollywood uber-simplistic stentorian morality play interspersed with robotic chase scenes and explosions set to glorious music.

But it’s just a petty annoyance, just as it’s a petty annoyance that the new Star Trek movie kinda messed with Kirk’s handling of the Kobayashi Maru. I mean, any true Star Trek geek knows that compassion and diplomacy, not JUST hacking your own computer system, was the Roddenberry way around a no-win alternative; just as surely as there are some of us who still swear by that “quaint” concept of the Prime Directive of the Federation. But most of the Star Trek geeks who’d remember that and could still afford to take their kids to the new movie today would agree that hacking computer systems is cool, too… right? So what’s not to like? Right?

So while you masses were wandering about in your respective opiated states, Google drove vehicles with 3-D cameras through your neighborhoods, taking pictures for their online streetview map scenes. Nobody talked about the tech behind this event. There were no stories in the news about it, and Google didn’t explain. It just… happened.

I mean, some snarky beeyotch on a blog (cough ahem) might have posted a photograph which revealed what was really going on with this, but who gives a shit about longhaired hippie freak pinko bloggers and stuff? Whatever. It just happened and those know-nothing paranoids nobody really gives a shit about are always bitching about stuff like new technology that helps us do our travellin’ foo; so whee, whoopie doo, yippie yay, cue up Don Fagen’s “I.G.Y.” and fuckem. There’ll be spandex jackets, one for everyone.

The subset of our society which concerns itself with law enforcement, security and military functions celebrated their enhanced abilities to perform surveillance on enemies foreign and domestic (as well as occasionally imagined) with the enthusiastic assistance of those sectors of the industrial complex that continue to feast on their blood, erm, I mean, um, “serve their technology needs”.

And last but by no means least, the ominously named California corporation “NextG” (hmm, what does the “G” stand for, anybody? Bueller? Bueller?) began ramrodding 40 foot poles for their wi-fi technology down the collective throat of the United States of America; coincidentally at the same time that the entire nation was being forced to go to digital television technology.

Nobody really mentioned the fact that the UHF and VHF frequency bands which had been used nationwide for free, publicly accessible television would now be available for… something else. What else? Just don’t you worry your pretty little pointed head about it, Miss Liberty. It ain’t nuthin’ but a thang. Phr33 1nt4rdn3tz for all! Nothing but win, right?

And nobody was talking about warrantless wiretapping anymore. Or the fact that gas prices hadn’t changed. Or the fact that food prices hadn’t changed. Or the fact that unemployment was as high as ever. Well, ok, a few leftist cranks were talking about it, but who the fuck pays attention to THEM?

Who gives a shit? Bring me a beer. I need to work on my tan. How many hot dogs do I want? Three. Mustard and relish. Where’s the goddamn SPF 15?

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  1. and this new digital TV must thing blows my mind.  What’s it all for?  But it all does, what you say, prove something, someone, somewhere, really wants to control our life, our movements, our thoughts, everyday in every way.

  2. …for the good discussion and very interesting links.  

    Here’s to those who are “people programming” resistant.

    When I saw Steven Spielberg’s name flash in the Transformers trailer, I felt shocked that he would stoop to the kind of recruitment exploitation you show here.  I found myself immediately blaming it on the contagion of the “Bernie Madoff Syndrome”.  Greed spreads exponentially.  Is Spielberg trying to recoup some of the losses he sustained with Madoff?  Not that that’s necessary.  Greed infects on it’s own accord.    

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