I think it might be time for me to take a little vacation from the internet, or at least a vacation from certain aspects of it. I’m feelinga bit like I’m not really benefiting from the internet as much as I once thought. Quoth Neil Postman in the following video (circa 1995),

Am I using this technology, or is it using me?

At first glance, this question may seem a little silly. However, as I explain further after this video, it’s really a very important question to ask.

Below is another video, which I think adds to the insight captured in Postman’s question, although from a slightly different angle. In this video, Michael Pollan talks about looking at the world from the plants’ point of view.

Pollan’s focus is on Nature in the traditional sense, the biological world, and how we humans might not be as superior to it as we might think. But I think this insight can be extended also to technology. The belief that technology is solely the creation of Man and Human Intelligence, and that technology serves Man alone and has no self-interest of its own, might be a bit naive and narcissistic and hubristic on our part. It’s like saying that plants are entirely the creation of Dirt and Mineral Intelligence. From a certain point of view, technology is simply using human intelligence as fertilizer. Technology is a new species that is growing out of us. Some scientists predict that computers will surpass the computational capacity of the human brain as soon as the 2020’s, and AI will indubitably become superior to HI. We’ll be the new apes. Computers will view us as their evolutionary ancestors and put us in zoos. Or maybe the human race will simply be absorbed into the technological race the way that water and minerals are absorbed into plants.

Well, actually, I guess we already are being absorbed. In light of this, Neil Postman’s question becomes much more relevant.Again, at first glance, this seems silly, absurd even. But is it really that hard to believe? If you were able to travel back in time a mere one hundred years and you tried to explain the technological landscape of 2008 to the people of 1908, you would no doubt have quite a difficult time merely explaining it, let alone convincing people of its truth. Things are always much clearer in hindsight than in foresight.Now, is this cause for alarm? I doubt it. The arrival of plants didn’t cause the demise of dirt, quite the opposite really. So I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. At any rate, I don’t think we can stop it. But, nonetheless, I think I’m going to try to take a little break from computer technology for a while, a few days maybe, while I still can. It’s high time for me to be absorbed into a good book.