11.08.07 kulturnatib

Technology

Two friends recently moved into our world of modern technology, particularly computer and computer driven technology. One, after many years of ignoring and, the other, actively avoiding it.

One of them is my mother. She is not as averse to technology as she is avowed in her belief of being too old to learn how to work technology and, in turn, how technology works.

Some years back I gave her a cellphone for her birthday. This was before the cellphone became a camera-cum-radio-cum-digital recorder-cum-organizer-cum-internet surfer-cum-almost everything else.

She was happy enough to receive it. But, she was just as happy to return it a week later. “I just don't think I can learn how to work this,” she said. “And, the keys are awfully small. These are only good for a baby's tiny digits.”

“Oh, well,” was the only thing I could say.

The other week I was on the phone with her asking if I could store some of my stuff at her house. Which stuff, she asked. This and that, I said. What about your computer, she asked next. What about it? Maybe you can just leave it with me, she said, straightforward.

Hmmm, I thought. Ok, I said. I wondered, why the turn around? Computers are practically like cellphones for her, even if its keys are slightly bigger than a cellphone's. “I still continue to write workbooks,” Mom said by way of explaining. “I have a co-teacher who will help me learn how to use the computer.”

Great, I said. But, the computer is presently with the computer doctor. There is something wrong with the power supply. I might need to buy a replacement. I will bring it over as soon as it is fixed.

After I copy my files into an external hard drive, clean up that computer's hard drives – it has more than one --, optimize the system, delete or uninstall vector graphics software that you won't need. But I kept this to myself. This would be information overload for my Mom.

The other friend is Ludo. He always jokes about being the other half of that famous multi-billion though now severed business duo, Ludo&Luym.

The other claim he makes is that he is only a simple farmer. That, he is. One with an extraordinary green thumb. Yet, the only farming he does much of now is planting the seeds of language, another language in students seeking to learn those.

This he does well, too. So much, that he is in demand by people who are going abroad seeking better paying jobs and jobs from abroad seeking cheaper workers here. In both cases, learning another language is essential.

A common complaint of the former group is that Ludo is inaccessible. The only way to get to talk to him is to go to him. He doesn't have a cellphone. He holds cellphones in disdain. “If it's important enough then one should take pains to say it in person,” he maintains. “Cellphones only make conversation too cheap to the point of having no value anymore.”

He doesn't put too much stock on computers, either. I have my own desktop, he says with a mischievous grin. It's a small white board he uses for his classes. It's always on top of my desk, he explains, deadpan.

But, now he is working with a real computer. He has students from as far away as France. They have to conduct their classes through computers. He is resigned to it. He is even genuinely amazed that such classes can be conducted through video-conferencing.

I'm thinking of these two as I read this book, “In The Absence of the Sacred : The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations.”

The author, Gerry Mander (yup, that's his name) says that the present computer driven technology will, most seriously, eventually lead to -- even as it is now -- concentrating power in a few corporations, increase the loss and invasion of privacy, drive consumption to unsustainable levels and seriously threaten our biosphere with us in it.

He says we have much to learn from the indians, indigenous people – many in our own country -- who, even now, battle against threats against their way of life, their land, their belief that everything is connected, that you cannot desecrate land by poisoning it, by disemboweling it without threatening the intricate web of life.

This is not an easy read. Mostly because it is difficult for us to imagine, let alone live, an alternate life without ringtones, sick jokes, easy access pornography, super violent games but also wikipedia, ebay, www.greenpeace.com. Etc.