Frog soup and the heretics
There’s an old story about a frog that’s been placed in a pot of cold water. The frog happily swims about, not realizing that the stove has been turned on and that the water is heating up. As the temperature goes up, our friend the frog gets cozy and gently drifts off to sleep, never learning of his pending doom. We are all experiencing this slow anesthetization as everyday solutions become more computerized and as computer solutions become increasingly technical. It’s far cheaper these days to control a product with a computer than with older, mechanical devices. Alarm clocks, telephones and cameras are examples of this. Just about every modern product sports many more features than its mechanical counterpart. Yet in practice, we consistently wield the traditional devices with much more subtlety and ability than we do their modern incarnations.
The word HERESY derives from the ancient greek word heresis, which of all things means ‘choice’. Probably not the etymology you were expecting, eh? Most wouldn’t believe that it means something so noble. In modern use it is quite the loaded term - in fact to many people its a serious sin. Well fortunately I’m here to talk about the future of technology, not theology.
Leading minds seem to agree that the technological revolution is on the verge of a popular breakthrough — if we just give it a little more time. Challenging all of this progress would surely be heresy!
Well I for one choose to get out of the hot water. I noticed the rising temperature a long time ago and I’ll be damned if I let everyone else get boiled to death, even if that means I’m a sinner.
