Fire and Knowledge

Wired News is starting a new column called The Luddite. Sounds (reads?) like it will be interesting. Good to see some other perspectives in such a technology-centered magazine.

And that’s the reason for this column: to lend a contrarian perspective to a world besotted with technology and all its bright, glittery appeal. This is not, as some of my colleagues have characterized it, an “anti-technology” column. I’m not, strictly speaking, anti-technology. I just don’t treat it like a freaking religion. So this is a “perspective” column.

In case you’re wondering, this Luddite thing doesn’t compromise my effectiveness as an editor for what is often described as a “tech site.” On the contrary, a professional editor can edit anything. Besides, I like to think that my colleagues find my iconoclastic crankiness kind of endearing. If nothing else, it breaks up the monotony of all those clacking keyboards. I swear, sometimes it sounds like the pious fiddling with their prayer beads in here….

For one thing, human beings are not meant to go as fast as modern technology compels them to go. Technology might make it possible to work at warp speed, yes, but that doesn’t make it healthy. And just because the latest software makes it feasible to double your workload (or “productivity,” to you middle-management types), that shouldn’t give the boss the right to expect you will….

Anything that diminishes the value of a single human being poses a threat to a rational, humane society. When technology can cure a disease or help you with your homework or bring a little joy to a shut-in, that’s great. But when it costs you your job, or trashes the environment, or takes you out of the real world in favor of a virtual one, or drives your blood pressure through the roof, it’s a monster.

(via Question Technology)