Top One Reason People Hate Technology

OK, where to start…

OnStar: OnStar uses is the combination of 2 major technologies. One is a similar system to the black box on a airplane. This technology in cars has been around since 1970! It tracks data on crashes and is used to make cars safer for the general public and can be used in court to show dangerous driving. The second is GPS. Now, although this become operational globally in the 90′s, similar technologies have been around since the 40′s and were widely used in WWII. Having cars speeds controlled by these technologies is not scary, in fact it is probably the best method of accident prevention. Several years ago they started demo’ing Magnetic cars in California where there was no need to accelerate or drive. Speeds were controlled by magnets in the roads and a computer system. Cars could drive 70 mph within 5 feet of each other without any human error causing accidents… computer error, well, that is for another entry Oh and BTW, don’t you have to voluntarily buy OnStar?

Data mining (Facebook, Google, Credit Card): I wrote on this before, but I will re-iterate. Credit Cards companies are just that: Companies. They are in business for the bottom line. In the same vain as Health Insurance companies charging more to people with heart disease in their family and car insurance companies charging more for 17 year old males, they have every right to determine your risk to their bottom line and the bonus to them is, you can’t lie like you could on a physical, every purchase tells a story about you. One thing the article did teach me though is to stop paying for lapdances on my Visa. Now, Google and Facebook are very similar in this regard. You tell them something about yourself and they use it to their advantage.  Write or wrong, that is the agreement you make by using their services. There are 100′s of search engines, don’t like it, use one who cares less about who you are… The one example I am tired of hearing about is this (which seems to be in every tech article I read) “Facebook changed their terms of service and essentially gave themselves the ability to do anything they wanted with user’s data and content whenever they felt like it, the community freaked out.” THIS IS PROPOGANDA! Facebook wasn’t trying to steal your data, they were trying to protect themselves like any company who holds sensitive information. The term actually was put in place because: If I send a picture or a message to you there are now two copies of that item: mine in my outbox and yours in your inbox. Now if I cancel my account they can simply delete my copy, but who “owns” the other copy? If you sent a Christmas gift to your girlfriend and then broke up, just try getting it back! In exactly the same manner Zuckerberg said that they need to keep control of that item, because now that you are gone you certainly aren’t the rightful owner. Admittedly, they could have gone about this in a better way, but regardless, they were not giving themselves the rights to all data!

Digital Cameras and CCTV: The argument here is that because everything from cellphones to pens have cameras in them, you can be recorded at any moment and placed on YouTube for millions to see. Fair enough. I myself don’t see the necessity of a camera built into every object. But is it really changing our lives? Do you walk around constantly thinking that you better not take a peak at that hot chick’s ass for fear of being caught on a total stranger’s camera? I am the first to admit this is a small small world, but I am not about to start panicking that I will be caught with my pants down by someone that happens to snap a picture at that exact moment and by some miracle that picture will be seen by someone I know. The biggest load of bullshit on this list is CCTV. This is the most useless technology ever concieved (at least in its current form). I don’t care that I am on camera nearly my entire day, because a) no one is watching and b) even if they were they couldn’t tell it was me! There is no magic CSI “enhance” button that turns %^#$%& scribbled on a gum wrapper in the backseat of my car into “I shot JR” and lands me in jail.

RFID Tags: I left this for the end for no other reason than it is my most simplistic and unelaborate argument. RFID tags are not going to take over humanity. They aren’t. It is a fantastic technology that can be used in numerous industries and in many fashions, but assimilating humanity into having all ID inserted under the skin is not going to happen overnight. AND even if it does, this is not a way for the governement to track our every move. The range of an RFID tag is less than 10m, so unless the gov’t wants to invest in more monitors than human beings, our every move isn’t going to be tracked! The passport argument doesn’t even hold either. If anything this will speed up airport times, and give border guards the exact same information they already have! Doesn’t sound like an apocalyptic move to me.

It is “Top” lists like this that promote the ignorance and fear mongering that sweeps through and takes over rational people’s minds. And this is the Top One reason why people hate technology: Dipshit reporters writing fake stories about exagerated technological capabilities with the underlying message being “EVERYBODY PANIC!” I myself will live my life, own a camera, use Google and Facebook, charge stuff on credit card, walk around in any major city surrounded by CCTV. I suggest you do too.