Fear of Unplugging
Before there was an Information Age,
people had to think for themselves.
Before people could text,
they actually had to open their mouths in order to speak.
Before people could surf or cruise the web,
they actually had to learn how to get along in the real world.
Pray that no one pulls the plug
and erases this generation's identity.
When it comes to recent inventions that have too much power over our lives,
the Internet is at the top of the list,
having knocked electricity down to second place a decade ago,
and completely overshadowing water purification and petrochemicals.
Quite a few people would never have gotten married
unless they had met their significant other online,
and for many others, texting has actually become more important than
driving safely and surviving the commute.
The truth is, we have been hit with an information tsunami,
and our inner virtues are drowning.
It would seem as though the Internet-enabled smartphone
has long since replaced the crack pipe and the cocaine straw,
and, no, there is no detox clinic for this pandemic addiction.
And if the average human being was told
to either give up the Internet for one month or be put to death,
then that human being would surely die.
There are many adults who did well in a world that had no Internet,
but as they give in to old age and pass away, they are being replaced by
generations of adults literally born in bondage to the Internet,
adults who have an easier time texting than they do speaking.
If the plug does get pulled, will humanity survive?
We may call it cyberspace, but that doesn't make the Internet
another organ in our bodies, albeit a synthetic one. Otherwise,
we'd all be born texting.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 59)"
Copyright (c) 2015, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, 12 August 2014, 11:15PM
Mind Ray in My Cell' Phone
There is a mind ray in my cell' phone,
addicting me to the high of high-tech boondoggles,
forcing me to be happy and stupid
against my will. There is a mind ray in my cell' phone,
and I get stoned on the buzz of the digital frequency.
She has become my pocket bitch,
seducing me to push her mechanical buttons
in the middle of heavy freeway traffic,
makin' me look like the chatterin' dumb-ass on the crowded elevator
as my tongue licks her mic' with mad vibrations.
There is a mind ray in my cell' phone makin' me
bow down to the very big unhip corporate machine,
lulling me to sleep with Republican wet-dreams and Enron fuck-fantasies.
There is a very ungroovy mind ray in my cell' phone and I
think I'm gone
now.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 10)"
Copyright (c) 2002, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
5 April 2002
Overload Overlord
The Information Age,
ever learning,
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This present world is flooded with
an unprecedented tsunami of data
bringing confusion instead of peace.
And the more humanity knows,
the less humanity understands.
How can a thousand ways to wipe your butt and
ten-thousand ways to grow soybeans and
a hundred-thousand ways to build an electric power-plant and
a million ways to have sex
teach you to be kind to your neighbor?
Can you really find your own dignity and self-worth
within ten-million results from a search-engine query?
Sometimes, more isn't better.
We've seen more information within the past five years
than we've ever seen in the earlier five-thousand,
and with it came heinous new ways of
maiming, violating, stealing, killing, and destroying,
every step towards the light being counteracted by
ten steps towards the darkness, people hopelessly enticed by
this endless deluge of data like flies trapped in sweet syrup,
suffocating, drowning, dying like the days of Noah's flood.
Humanity does not have the Information Age:
the Information Age has humanity, possesses humanity,
owns humanity like a master owns a slave,
like a narcotic owns a drug-addict.
And the only way to get that next fix is by
performing yet another query on yet another search-engine.
Some things were never meant to be found.
From "Various Works by Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr. (Volume 49)"
Copyright (c) 2012, Kenneth Irving Scott, Jr., All Rights Reserved
Saturday, 7 August 2010, 12:25AM
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