Brooks Peterson

Monday, May. 3, 1999

Dealing with a crisis of hi-tech faith

   I think we can all agree that there are few sadder spectacles in the entire range of human experience than that of the hopeless recidivist.
   I mean, the poor guy tries, he really does. He does everything in his power to forsake his bad old ways. But just like that fellow Laocoon - you know, the one rassling with the snakes - the snakes finally get him. And there you are. Or, rather, there I am.
   Faithful readers may remember the child-like glee with which I wrote recently of having experienced a kind of transcendental awakening: When, on a whim, I looked myself up in the City Directory, it listed my occupation as "Technician."
   Talk about liberation: Finally, I could hold my head high. Masses of megabytes snap to attention. Serried ranks of chips would do my bidding.
   Of course, I had fallen victim to hubris. (Those old Greeks knew their stuff, let me tell you.)
   My downfall began innocently enough. I was passing the time of day with a colleague, and inevitably the conversation turned to one of my favorite themes: the impact of technology on those who use it.
   And I backslid. Before I knew what I was saying, I found myself - me, a Technician - railing against the very hi-tech blessings I should be celebrating. Suddenly, I launched into one of my all too familiar rants about hapless humans being reduced to lackeys of the machine.
   How, I asked rhetorically, do you suppose those medieval monks, who labored endlessly over hauntingly beautiful illuminated manuscripts, reacted to the advent of movable type?
   And it only got worse. From that, I progressed to a nostalgic evocation of the Age of Steam when Real Journalists did their thing on manual typewriters in smoke-filled newsrooms.
   In those halcyon days (I emoted), I would report for duty, slip some copy paper (a derivative of papyrus used by ink-stained scribes in bygone days) into the old Underwood, and presto: I was pontificatin'.
   Ah, but now: With each successive generation of computers, we (I) have acquired more capabilities. We can make up pages, we can move copy and art around with dazzling rapidity, we can juggle type faces ...
   And what do you know? As we acquire these marvelous capabilities ... we've got to use 'em. A lot.
   It was when I was in mid-diatribe that my colleague, a thoughtful type, made the connection that sort of put it all into perspective. (I have chosen to protect his identity: Everybody in the building is aware of my Luddite tendencies, but I wouldn't want him to be contaminated by association with my views.)
   Have you ever noticed, he asked, that the computer is the only big-ticket item you buy in the sure and certain knowledge that it will be outdated within six months or so? You buy a car, you do so on the assumption that it will serve you for at least four or five years. How would you react if the thing became hopelessly outdated in half a year? Right. But if the purchase is a computer, you just grin weakly and shrug your shoulders - as do I.
   But that's not all (he continued): You buy these computers - these paragons of high technology - knowing full well that they're going to malfunction no matter how gently you treat them or how faithfully you pore over the operating instructions. Do you know of a computer that doesn't crash?
   Ah, but that's not the worst of it. No indeed. When you really hit bottom is when you consult an expert and are informed that (1.) your misfortune is self-inflicted, the result of the dreaded Operator Error, and/or (2.) that you're just going to have to sign off and start over with whatever you can salvage from the smoldering rubble.
   I can only marvel at the clarity of vision that brought my friend to these insights - but, oh, how I wish he had not pushed me down the path to hi-tech heresy. I had dared to style myself a Technician. But I was unworthy. It was just a beautiful spun-sugar fantasy, a cruel deception perpetrated on an innocent wayfarer on the information superhighway.
   So, what now? The answer's obvious: Reboot.
   
    (Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
   

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