Machines allow humans the privilege of existential anxiety. Machines provide us with extra time to worry about the status of our careers, and/or the context of our sexual relationships, and/or what it means to be alive. Unconsciously, we hate technology. We hate the way it replaces visceral experience with self-absorption. And the only way we can reconcile that hatred is by pretending machines hate us, too.
...
The truth, of course, is that we are the slaves; the machines became our masters through a bloodless coup that began during the Industrial Revolution...We need to remain optimistic. And how do we do that? By preparing ourselves for a futuristic war against intelligent, man-hating cyborgs. As long as we dream of a war that has not yet happened, we are able to believe it's a war we have not yet lost.
-Chuck Klosterman, IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
Blogagaard Loves to Ponder
About Me
- David Oppegaard
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- I am the author of And the Hills Opened Up, The Suicide Collectors, and Wormwood, Nevada.
AddThis
8 comments:
I like Klosterman, but you know, humans have been worrying about our existence since before the industrial revolution. Personally, I love technology, but I don't use it to remove myself from visceral experience. Although I have to say, it is nice to turn on the iPod when the pope lady starts yelling on my bus. There is a visceral experience I will take a rain check on.
I wonder if every sentient species goes through the "Build Robots and Survive Them" phase? We tend to think of these things as if we are the only sentient beings in the universe.
Not just that, Ken, I wonder if every sentient race goes through a "giving a shit about Paris Hilton" phase.
Or a replace my blog picture with a weird animal phase. :)
I sat behind Chuck Klosterman in Comp III at the University of North Dakota. That's my claim to fame.
Dig it.
oh, I dig. He came to speak at the old "Ruminator Bookstore" and I asked him about what he thought about Velvet Revolver...
here's your visceral experience, Mike:
LONDON (Reuters) - U R dumped -- one in seven say they have suffered the same fate as Britney Spears' ex-husband and been told it's all over via text message or email, a survey said Friday.
While hiding behind technology might appear a cowardly way of splitting up, it contrasts with the four percent who simply drop all communication with their lovers without notice.
"Most of us send emails and texts everyday, so it comes as no surprise they are now being used to ditch someone -- however distasteful this is," said Rob Barnes from moneysupermarket.com, which carried out the survey.
"The results show one per cent of the population would use a social networking site to dump a partner. It would be interesting to see how this changes as sites such as Facebook and MySpace become more apparent in our everyday lives."
One of the most high-profile victims of dumping by text was Kevin Federline, who reportedly received news that pop singer Spears was filing for divorce while being filmed for a television show.
The survey said 15 percent of the 2,194 people questioned had been dumped by text or email, although a quarter of those in the most tech-savvy 18 to 24-year-old age group would choose the traditional method -- a letter.
Ha, I love it.
"kev, u r 2 lame. i want dvrce. <3 brit"
Post a Comment