‘Terminology’ — it’s what they’re calling technology | Ron Colone

Today, in an attempt to expand my horizons and stimulate a different line of thinking, I opened the Technology section, expecting, perhaps, to read about cryptocurrency, nVidia stock, supercomputing, cybersecurity, or the latest AI issue, but instead, what I found was story after story about online video games and game platforms, including Fortnite, Avowed, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Rockstar, Elden Ring Nightrein, PirateFi, Tomb Raider, Portal 2, Baldur’s Gate, and several others. Having never played an online video game, it was all Greek to me — another phrase given to us (maybe not originally) by Shakespeare, meaning “it’s in a language I don’t understand.”

My first thought upon seeing all these video game stories was, this is the crowning glory of our grand technology? … these games? I was hoping to read something that might give me hope, such as finding out that someone has come up with a financially viable desalination technique to solve our water problems, or that we’re inching ever closer to cold fusion or hydrogen power —(not that the corporations and billionaires who are profiting off the petrochemical industry are going to allow that to happen any time soon), but I realized those are the kinds of stories I get when I read the Science pages (just as the stories about the “tech giants,” now, are to be found in the Politics section). Then I softened some, and thought, what better use of technology is there than to add a little more fun into our lives?

I realized that it’s simply a matter of terminology, that this is what they’re calling “technology” these days, which was not nearly as jarring as when I realized (starting in the ‘90s, I think) that what they were calling “R&B,” as a music genre, sounded nothing like the R&B I had grown up loving and listening to.

And that’s when it really struck me, that I have no connection to this stuff — and by “this stuff,” I mean the things of this digital electronic algorithmic robotic, virtual, AI-generated, mass-marketed world, which, I know, places me, once again, outside of the mainstream.

I’m guessing this is not an unusual feeling for people, if they live long enough, to get to a point where they no longer feel connected to the modern world or the times in which they live.

When that happens, then what?

I suppose one option is you can try and educate yourself in the new technologies and keep current as best you can, which I do only to the extent that it affects my ability to create and communicate. You can retreat, nostalgically to the past, which I also do from time to time because I like telling stories and laughing and sharing a private language and personal references with my friends. Another option, when you feel out of touch with the current times, is to embrace and embody timeless truths.

There are so many that any of us could think of: you reap what you sow, change is constant, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but the ones I’m talking about involve the sense of confidence, protection and provision that come from opening up and following your heart; the effectiveness of looking someone in the eyes and connecting, the power of a smile, the importance of how you make someone feel, and the wisdom that only comes from experience.

I’m not meaning to position myself as an enemy of technology, but I have no interest in willingly joining the rush to power a system and a movement that diminishes our humanity, weakens our faculties, and promotes virtual reality over the pursuit of truth.