Encartaism

by Eudoxus

Monosoft pioneered ease of access to information in much the same way as McConglomerate created the fast food experience, easy cheap and relatively tasteless, and inexplicably leaving an unpleasant after taste. Yet the cheesy conception of higher availability fulfills its purpose, it feeds our primal need to ascertain information, albeit at a price. What we have been reduced to is a simple menu that comes in three different sizes, small, medium and large. The Internet and CD-ROM interface are the modern equivalent of the ubiquitous ‘drive-thru’. No matter where on Earth one pull in, the selection is consistently the same. Like the homogenised product quality control of the McConglomerates. Information too is becoming a homogenised commodity sourced from only a narrow spectrum of primary sources.

What has happened to our generations’ acceptance for an easier alternative (sadly bland) for the sake of ease and convenience. It is an epidemic that has spread right across the board, encompassing all facets of human existence, breeding subsequent generations of children that are more and more heavily dependant (like the contemporary ‘junkie’) on technology to provide stability and link to ‘reality’. Like any form of addiction, our generation has turned to convenience technology as a form of psychological crutch.

Take for example the high-school student on assignment to write a report on the Himalayas. Traditionally students would have to utilise their entire note taking and summarising abilities and draw together a number of sources and produce an original work. Today’s trend however, is to go to the nearest PC load up the latest CD-ROM encylopaedia and ‘cut’n’paste’. Similar scenarios are happening with information sourced from the Internet. The actually worrying part being the fact that the teachers are actually accepting this blatant plagiarism as original work. This laziness and complacency on the part of technological innovation at its base. Yet imagine if all these wondrous devices decided one day to cease working? Would society, be suddenly become gripped by Pandemonium as scores of adolescents fight the horrendous symptoms of ‘withdrawal’. Understandably the scenario of total technological failure is slightly sci-fi, but on a lower level imagine what could happen to an individual societally conditioned for and environment abundant in technology? Maybe an individual is getting lost in the wilderness for example. In this scenario an individual would not be able to survive in that particular environment for a prolonged period because the society that spawned him/her didn’t endow him/her in the skills necessary for basic survival. It all basically turns into a proverbial ‘fish-out-of-water’ situation.

The reality is we’re gripped in the midst of a technological revolution, not of course in the sense of rebellion, but of ever-significant change in respect to the way human society does business with itself. Unfortunately technology has not advanced to the level of being capable to give birth to a truly self-aware Artificial Intelligence, but it has managed already to relinquish many mundane tasks such as information processing from human operators. This sort of thing can be good, in respect to freeing up time for people and allowing them to utilise time in an increasingly efficient manner. Although as we succeed control over those aspects of society, we’re leaving ourselves ever more vulnerable.

Will it ever occur that as subsequent generations develop onward and give rise to another generation, that all knowledge of societal mechanics disappears out of knowledge, and to be invested into the machine? For what if one day technology suddenly failed altogether? Humanities’ ultimate demise will be a result of his over-specialisation. Yet this is the very tune to which the forces of progress are marching too

An ever increasingly complex technological society has resulted in the need for educational institutions to offer more significantly specialist courses and syllabi, to meet the demands of the Digital Age. Did you know a child today born into an upper-middle class western family would spend the first 20 years of its life learning how to successfully integrate itself into present-day society? That equates to almost 25% of a person’s lifetime. This figure compared to the measly 10 years of basic education required by our society only 50 years ago. It’s a scary thought knowing how much of a person’s life is needed to understand the mechanics of his world.

What aggravates this figure further is that today, students have the ability to forge a career path, early on in their schooling life, right from the beginnings of secondary school. Understandably choice is a good thing, yet the danger lies in specialising too early. If fast-forwarded in to the future, you’re left with an individual, who knows their occupation precisely, yet knows very little about anything else. Multiply this, and you’re left with a scenario echoing on of Aldus Huxley’s “A Brave New World”, society that is the epitome of mass over-specialisation.

So put into a pessimist perspective, humanity is inadvertently marching along the path to technological oblivion. If our own weapons of mass destruction don’t kill us, or the systematic collapse of Earth’s Biosphere, than surely our own stupidity will. The Encartarisation of the education system is monopolising the student’s ability to make intelligent choices as a consequence of information available. The demise of broad, non-biased information and the slovenly convenience of ‘drive-thru’ information access are putting us on a collision path with oblivion.

It so might happen that humanity will wake up one day and discover, that yes all his machines are working perfectly, yet there is not a soul who could even explain the mechanics of it. Let us not autonomise the machine, STOP the plague of Encartaism, and wrest control for our secure future!