The sun neither sets or rises, but we can’t shake the optical illusion. We can’t feel ourselves turning toward or away from the sun even though we do so at almost 1700 kph.
Technology tricks our perception of reality as well. We don’t feel attached to it even though it surrounds us, clings to our bodies and interacts with us with every move we make. We walk on it, sit on it, sleep on it, eat with it, drink with it, travel in it, hold it, carry it, read, write, speak and listen with it, wash and dry with it, brush and wipe with it, open and close, lock and load and on and on and on with it. At work, at home or in the city we occupy a little part of the space around us saturated with technology that we barely think about. It is so intertwined with our existence that we pay it as little attention as our bone structure or the blood pumping through our bodies. The exception is a new or malfunctioning piece of technology. Then it gets all of our attention.
Every piece of technology, from a toothpick to a space station, is produced from the raw materials of the earth by human energy and often retains some of the energy. Think of primitive Mr. Ahg trying to dig a ditch with a stick. Not very efficient. Finding a branch with a flat and broad base gives him the idea to hack out a shovel with a stone scraper. It takes him quite some time, but his efforts are rewarded by the efficiency with which he can dig. The time spent making the shovel is compensated by the time saved digging the ditch. Should he need to dig an another ditch or a hole, the shovel can be used again because part of the energy used to produce it is still contained in its form, in its structural energy.
Technological development not only enhances, it also accumulates energy. The energy used to bang stone against stone transformed the structural energy of a stone and produced a scraper. This energy was employed to create a wooden shovel which would eventually dig up ore and in combination with other technologies—fire, oven, bellows—melt metal that could be structured to produce arrows, knives, pots and shovels. Ahg’s wooden shovel has today become a bulldozer that can move more earth in an hour than he could move in a lifetime.
Technological development accumulates energy and refines its efficiency. Advanced technology utilizes human energy so effectively that it dazzles away all thoughts of the human touch. But it’s there. When we buy a computer, we are paying not only for the physical material but also the human energy still contained in its function; its design, operating system and interface.
Technology; tools, instruments, computers, clothes, homes, nail polish, etc., are constructed from the earth’s materials recreated by human energy to enhance human strength, abilities and potential. Today’s technologies are the accumulation of a development that began not long before Mr. Ahg produced a wooden shovel.
With this in mind we should ask ourselves why a few people get to own and control the major part of all technology? How do we justify that the earth’s resources and the major part of human energy belongs to a handful of people while the multitude of the earth’s inhabitants must satisfy themselves with bits and pieces or are denied access to these materials and energy altogether?
I’m not going to answer that question, but point out that not all technology is useful, strengthening or beneficial. A great deal of it is useless, harmful and destructive. As long as a tiny portion (1%) of humanity own and control a decisive portion of the resources, energy and technology of the world, useless, harmful and destructive technology will continue to flourish further damaging the climate, contaminating the oceans, polluting the air, impoverishing the soil and promoting conflicts within the body of humanity.
No matter how powerful technology becomes, whether used for good or evil, it will always be people who determine its use. Tools don’t command the user. Not even those we are dependent upon.
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“I told my computer that machines will never be able to think like humans.
My computer thanked me for the compliment.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Ignorance about technology is both reasonable and comical. Reasonable because a definition is still emerging, and comical because humans, who think themselves intelligent (sapient), are unaware of their technological nature.
Technology has always been an indispensable part of Homo sapiens existence. No technology, no humans.
It started with the stone knife about 3 million years ago. Advanced apes, hominids, had been using stones as weapons and tools for more than 1 million years when they discovered the advantages of ”producing” stones with sharp edges. Using an available stone is a technique. Shaping the stone to a desired form is technology. Basically, technology is the reshaping of natural resources into forms that serve specific purposes. Many animals use techniques and some have a simple, static technology such as beaver dams, bird nests and bee hives. But even the most techno-capable life forms such as ants, come nowhere near human capacities.
The stone knife represents the birth of human technology. Primitive technology also included axes, choppers and spears. The knife, however, was unmatched by anything evolution had produced. A knife can cut. Beaks, teeth, horns and claws can pierce, bite, rip and tear, but no animal can cut. They can’t remove hides for clothes, slice sinew to rope, shape sticks to spears or give haircuts, and they can’t slice anything.
From the first stone tools to the ability to use fire marks the period of primitive, pre-human technology, a couple of million years before Homo sapiens evolved.
Fire alone sets humanity apart from anything in the animal kingdom or anything in the living world for that matter. The significance of this extra, controllable and portable, source of energy, heat and light cannot be overestimated. In the process of mastering fire, the human-like apes were baked into ape-like humans. Fire was the midwife for the birth of baby humanity, whose existence was coupled to the use of technology.
Human technology develops at a much faster rate than biological evolution. From knives to spears to sinew cords to axes with handles to fire to metals … to robot grass clippers, a continuous line of development extends from the first stone knife to a super computer as surely as a single cell develops eventually to a billion-celled bartender. Stone knives may represent primitive technology, but they are no less technological than a Hubbell telescope, in the same way as a single cell is no less biological than a gospel choir.
Humans produce technology, technology influences humans. Without humans all technology is junk. Without technology humans go extinct.
Our survival has been dependent upon the production and use of technology since the embryo stage of our existence. The stone knife cut our ties to the animal kingdom and the use of fire burned all bridges leading back. We don’t evolve our skin to deal with the environment, but produce clothes to protect us from the sun, wind, rain, frost and mosquitoes, not to mention clothes that tolerate ocean pressure, resist fire and ”breath.” We produce footwear that allows us to tramp through mud, walk on snow, climb mountains, wander in deserts, dunk a basketball and glide down a catwalk. We don’t even make love without technological assistance. Naked against naked feels delicious, but not without a bed, floor, table, car seat or blanket. Ass against grass occurs as a desperate rather than desirable act. To appear without technology (clothes) in public is a crime. It is forbidden to act ”naturally”, because it is unnatural for humans to function without their technological attributes.
Even eating, the most basic prerequisite of survival, is a technological extravaganza. We don’t hunt our food. We don’t eat it raw. We combine several types of foods and spices into prepared meals and consume these with tools, plates and bowls at tables. A complex organization of production, distribution, storage and preparation provides us with our daily bread, extra virgin olive oil, frozen chicken breasts and salted shelled roasted nuts. Drinking involves cups, glasses, bottles, cans and boxes to drink fruit juice, cow’s milk, hot chocolate, iced tea, instant coffee, sugared-colored-flavored-carbonated water and booze.
We are surrounded by technology, live in it, sleep on it, wear it, carry it, look at it, listen to it, hold it, sit on it, travel in it, etc. Many of us wouldn’t be alive if not for medical technology and some of us would have smaller breasts and more wrinkles.
In summary technology is:
– the manipulation of natural resources into forms that serve human purposes; to help, extend and enhance human abilities and promote human potential.
(Humans also produce junk and destructive technology that do nothing or harm us.)
– the material culture of Homo sapiens. Think of how spears, wheels, boats, phones and pantyhose have affected our patterns of behavior.
– an extension of the human existence, an interface with the world.
– everything human-made or artificial.
Technology, in other words, is natural resources recreated by the intelligent energy of humans. A further explanation of this and its vital significance for humanity will be discussed in the next blog. So stay tuned for Magnificent Ignorance 2 – Technology 2
BTW: There is more to say about technology, particularly the modern digital and nano breeds. This will be dealt with under Magnificent Ignorance – Language.
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“Thanks to modern communication technology
we can now be interrupted and disturbed anywhere at anytime.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Jonathan Schell asks, in an introduction to Nick Turse’s book Kill Anything That Moves, if it is possible after decades of talk and over 30,000 books to know basically nothing about the Vietnam War. He declares that such is the case.
Devastation, murder, massacre, rape and torture were parts of a ”continuous stream of atrocities” that gushed unnoticed out of the heart of the war. Single shocking events and isolated atrocities did appear exceptionally, but the extent and persistence of the horrors never penetrated the general ignorance. At least three million people were killed and many more injured in apocalyptic destruction executed by boys trained to act psychophathically on the ground, young men dropping cargos of death from the air, officers coordinating the logistics of annihilation from desks and rulers drooling with greed in boardrooms.
Lack of knowledge of the Vietnam War exemplifies magnificent Ignorance. For ignorance to be magnificent, it must be large, important and simple. Simple in the sense that common intelligence can shatter it.
Without the magnificent ignorance of the Vietnam War, the wars of today could not be conducted. Yet it occupies a low level of ignorance compared to the lack of knowledge about the nature of war itself. The entire history of humanity teaches us that war starts as an enterprise of conquest. No exceptions. War is, always has been and always will be started to capture resources, territory and control. Conquest. No other reason. A war of resistance against the aggressors is not the same thing. The nature of war could be taught in one day and equip a citizenry with the knowledge to see through any claim to start a war for any other reason. The ignorance of the nature of war conquers the prospects of peace and will, as long as it prevails, lead us down a path of destruction, suffering and death.
Schell implies that ignorance of Vietnam prevails despite 30,000 books and uncountable articles. The implication limps because ignorance grows and spreads as much by what is said as by what remains hidden. Information cannot be measured in quantity. The quality of information in Turse’s book for instance weighs heavier than thousands of other books together. Information is the source of knowledge, but the quantity of information no more guarantees substantial knowledge than a number of trees guarantee a substantial house. In this age of disinformation, particularly the kind spread by wannabe conquerors, magnificent ignorance doesn’t just happen, it’s produced.
This blog is an introduction to a series of blogs dealing with the magnificent ignorance of democracy, technology, language, humanity, society and other subjects. It requires no special knowledge or intelligence, but it’s not for dummies. The magnificent ignorance about information-knowledge-intelligence and dummies will also be dealt with.
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Today’s slightly manipulated picture is a reminder that everything has at least two sides.
On the other side of the object containing the ”2” is a reminder
of one of the greatest examples of magnificent ignorance of modern times.
The ignorance is so great that I dare not mention it until the end of this series.
“The land of ignorance borders on the frontier of fear.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Our expert is convinced that red feet are a sign of a superior type of duck.
What’s the expert’s name?
Quack!
“If the world was a company in the humanity business,
the entire leadership would have been fired long ago.
Now humanity is having a going out of business sale
to pay for the lifestyles of the leadership.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Many old and dried up leaves
are determined to bite
the approaching storm.
That’s tragedy.
They try to increase their bite
by encouraging other
old and dried up leaves
to join their struggle.
That’s comedy.
The storm doesn’t notice.
That’s life.
3 months after the bus boycott broke the policy of segregation in Montgomery (1957) the city passed an ordinance making it “unlawful for white and colored persons to play together … cards …. billiards … baseball … games … contests … indoors or outdoors.”
Forbidding people of different colors to play together embarrasses God and illustrates that some people can have a heart of steel filled with stones of hate.
This comes to mind when seeing the ASSASSINATION of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Yes, assassination! This isn’t a question of a ”simple” murder. Look at the video
Despite the caller telling the police that the gun is probably a toy, and despite the obvious size and age of the boy, and despite the lack of a threat to anyone, the police car drives up on the grass and stops right beside the boy and a police shoots him as quickly as he gets out of the car. This maneuver goes against all police training and protocol. Not a gram of caution is employed. Something stinks. Common sense is bleeding. It would be suicidal for police to perform in this fashion if a real gun was involved.
Why the assassination? I have nothing but a guess based on the video and public information. So many of the pictures from the Ferguson protests show white faces throughout the crowds. This threatens the people who run the country. How dare the blacks allow so many whites to join them and how dare so many whites join the blacks. The whites and blacks are supposed to hate each other. If the rulers can’t prohibit the races from playing together they can at least provoke them to fight each other. My guess is that Tamir was assassinated to stimulate race antagonism. If the races stop seeing each other as a threat and unite against their real and common enemy, the people in power will start shitting stones.
(Come now! I know you want to say something. Use the comment section below.)
“We don’t have to love each other to respect and sympathize with each other.
The only problem is that respect and sympathy lead to love.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Do you feel like you’re drowning
in a swamp of decadence
polluted with lies, hypocrisy
and the slimy rot of injustice?
You are.
And you will go under
unless
YOU
stop crying for help
stop playing the victim
stop feeling sorry for yourself
stop denying your greatness
and
follow the song in your heart
written in the blood, sweat,
laughter and embraces
of our ancestors
in the script of our DNA.
It’s a simple song
of life and love
and the love of life
to the beat of the pulse of humanity.
Unite!
UNITE!
The force of love has no other purpose.
Our group, race, religion, sex, nationality
cannot
by itself
defeat the forces of greed,
the masters of inequality,
the rulers of the swamp,
the 1%.
As long as we are fighting among ourselves,
neglecting our humanity
– insulting our souls –
we will remain the pawns,
subjects, serfs and slaves
– the commodities –
of the 1%.
Together
united in respect,
determination, solidarity and necessity
we can open the heart of heaven
and allow its light
to burn away this tiny ulcer
and dry up the swamp.
The light will then
warm our smiles of calm enthusiasm
as we build a global garden
where birdsongs decorate our happiness.
*
“Race is spice in the stew of humanity.
The racist’s diet is not only tasteless
it has no fiber for the gut
or nourishment for the soul.”
Dartwill Aquila
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Racism is a cold dark place where life cannot thrive. It lives in the hearts of most people. Unfortunately. For most people.
Racism in its mildest form sees other people through the superficial filter of race. No hatred need be involved. Believing that racial characteristics affect the quality of character displays a basic ignorance of human nature. It also deprives us of the abilities to see beauty and discover wisdom.
Black Americans (people with dark skin who have traces of African ancestry) often speak of slavery as an evil perpetrated by white people. Slavery was a monumental evil that caused unimaginable misery. White people were deeply and broadly involved in supporting and promoting slavery. Many Black Africans were also directly responsible for the slave trade and all that it implies.
After the initial surprise of the first slave raiders (from Portugal), the Africans mounted effective resistance and beat the raiders back. The Africans had better boats, knew the territory and the waters much better and displayed clever tactical maneuverability and fierce courage. The European aggressors were simply no match for the native defenders.
The raiders did not give up. They shed their raider skin and returned as traders. If anyone said, “Beware of Europeans bearing gifts.” the Africans receiving the gifts didn’t seem to hear. Trading things for people opened the door to the well-stocked slave shop. Over the next three centuries the slave trade would kill millions upon millions of Africans and enslave millions and millions of others. Africans and their obedient gangs of slave hunters killed and rounded up other Africans who they served packaged in ropes, chains and cages to the European traders. The slave trade, this monumental evil devouring some 20 million people over hundreds of years could not have been possible without the willing and active participation of generations of Black Africans.
Viewing slavery as a crime of White people is a dim view. So dim that is nearly blind. And it’s racist. Money puts people in chains. Money. As long as we allow ourselves to be blinded and driven by racist perspectives, the moneyed rulers will remain enthroned in positions of power. Until we learn to see each other as people—equals—regardless of the superficial differences of our appearance (or our nationality, religion or sex), we will remain the subjects and slaves of “traders” who view people as commodities.
Racism is a cold and dark place. It can be found anywhere. Even in the warm light of beautiful Africa.
*
“It can be proven mathematically, biologically, religiously and historically
that we all belong to the same family.
But until it is felt, nothing is proven.”
Dartwill Aquila
*
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“Racists see things in black and white
because their hearts lack depth
and their souls lack height.”
*
“Black, white and tan, red, yellow and brown
beautiful colors in humanity’s gown
torn with names, Stranger, Devil, Clown.
The blood that is spilt on group-named ground
has but one color and flows with no sound
out of the victims of improper nouns.”
*
“As long as black fights white
and white fights black
the 1% fear no attack”
*
Dartwill Aquila
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Stockholm, Dec. 20,1972. At least 20 000 people marched through the dark early evening in a torch-light procession to the American Embassy. FNL’s anniversary in Vietnam functioned as a national day for resistance to the war. The number of marchers were not significantly more than the previous year, but this march was different because the main speaker would be Jane Fonda, one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the day. She had recently visited Vietnam.
When the head of the procession was about 500 meters from the embassy, a young woman threw a balloon filled with red paint hitting not only Ms. Fonda, but also her fiancee Tom Hayden on her right and ”an unknown Maoist” on her left. The darkness exploded in flashes from cameras. In the following days pictures of the event would appear in almost every major newspaper and magazine in the world. All of them would mention the unknown Maoist in the trio wearing splashes of red paint.
Who was this unknown Maoist? And, if he was unknown, how did they know he was a Maoist? They didn’t. He wasn’t. I know this with absolute certainty because I was that person designate as a Maoist. Not one of the flock of journalists or paparazzi bothered to ask who I was. Not that they needed to ask. Who, beside an interpreter would be close to the ear of this English speaking celebrity in a Swedish speaking country. Was I wearing, doing or saying anything to indicate a Maoist affiliation? Don’t be naive! The media was ”shooting a script” that was written before the paint was thrown.
The purpose of the event was to associate Jane Fonda with a Maoist in an attempt to blemish her credibility, or should I say draw (splash) a red line across her reputation. AND divert attention from the real event. Pictures, headlines and columns of comments about a single woman who threw paint at a celebrity (with an unknown Maoist at her side) and barely a word about the 20 000 people who abandoned the height of Christmas preparations to march in cold and darkness to protest against an imperial war.
There’s the media in a nutshell. 20 000 people expressing a common opinion means nothing whereas as pseudo-event grabs all the attention. That was 42 years ago. Have things changed? Of course they have. The media has improved the quality of its bullshit considerably.
BTW. What did Jane tell the crowd when she did speak to them in front of the embassy? She said that she was surprised to learn that the Vietnamese guerilla theater groups performed plays by known American writers. When she questioned this, she was told that it was important for the Vietnam people to be aware of the difference between the American people, who were also suffering because of the war, and the American government who was conducting the war.
It’s fascinating to realize that this powerful insight could be buried with a little red paint and ”an unknown Maoist” if bulldozed by a massive media apparatus.
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“The corporate media in a profit-obsessed corpocracy,
shouts, ”Complain all you want!”
speaks, ”Trust us!”
and whispers, ”Give us your money!””
Dartwill Aquila
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System Humanity 