It’s a long list.
And begins with–well, I don’t even have a name for it. Not just technology. Not just a cloud. Not electrical currents. “IT” delivers all the information and pictures and video and sound that pop out of my laptop and screen. Seemingly transported by nothing but air. What do we call that? And how the hell does it happen.
Or bitcoin? I’m still back in early Cro-Magnon time hoping that there’s gold underground at Fort Knox. One ennce of gold for every paper dollar I have. I know that we’re long beyond that. But I just don’t understand when we shifted over to play money. Never mind that now even more ephemeral “dollars” are “mined” somewhere–but don’t exist. How the hell does bitcoin contribute to global warming if it’s AWOL?
Which makes non-fungible tokens an even greater mystery. I kind of get the idea that humans have decided that intangible feelings have value. Of course they do. But in what universe do we need to give them financial value? You mean, I could have “sold” the love I felt for Dave to someone else if I had kept a decent ledger of how I loved him every day. If I had had a block-chain documenting that love.
Hell, yes, I use Google to try to understand all this. And one term at a time, I think I get the gist. But when I put them together, I am confused, stupefied, at sea.
Let’s not even talk about A.I. and Chat GPT. Once more, I understand that we first feared and then indeed discovered that all the little motherboards in our computers had—without our telling them to—outgrown us. Had learned to think and reason and make connections on their own. I know for a fact that when I play Scrabble on my computer, the computer has “learned” better and better strategies to beat me. Mimicking my own moves. It’s only held back by my telling it to be “easy” on me. We’re in the realm of science fiction here – especially the early sci-fi horror stories that sprang up long before a computer outplayed everyone on Jeopardy.
I don’t understand how we ever transport enough food into New York or Seattle or Los Angeles to feed the MILLIONS of mouths there. Here in Helena, I see the Albertsons’ semis pull into the delivery slots at Safeway. But for millions of people? There must be hundreds of thousands of trucks pulling in and out 24 hours a day to multiple docks. The city streets have to be clogged with trucks.
And then, there’s the garbage. Here in Helena, I know it’s Monday morning when I hear the city truck come, emit its back-up beeps and scoop up the big green dumpsters at the apartment complex next door. And, like all Helenans, I take my glass and plastics to the adroitly named “transfer station” and see the yawning abyss into which the dump trucks deposit garbage. But for millions?? I can’t get my mind around it.
And when I take the last size XL Time and True jeggings off the rack at Walmart, how does it happen that several new pairs of XL Time and True jeggings are located in China, placed in a huge container with hundreds of unrelated products, transported across the Pacific, and put on the right semi in Long Beach and delivered to Helena. It’s unfathomable.
And, in a different vein, I cannot imagine what workers around the world think or feel as they manufacture enough glitter-laden ribbon, ornaments, wreaths, greeting cards, and fake Christmas trees for us. First off, all that glitter has to be a serious health hazard. And for sure, it’s as wasteful and unneeded as a product could be. Now here the web did me some good. Cleopatra made glitter out of crushed up beetles. Ours is usually a combination of aluminum and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Makes you feel really fine about wearing makeup full of glitter!
I’m just as perplexed about our priorities. Since acquiring Tiger Tiger and Tuxedo, I have purchased an obscene number of clever cat toys. Snakes that crawl across the floor, eyes flashing and forked tongues darting in and out. Packages of what I call “bice”—little fuzzy objects shaped like mice but with bird feathers attached. The ultimate fantasy for indoor cats. How is it that we slide farther and farther away from world peace or nuclear disarmament agreements but keep designing and making better and better cat toys?
Or guns. Or gummies for every single human ailment. Or wicked apps with games that involve as much death as possible. Or purple fake fingernails that last for weeks.
And I have no way of understanding why one or two people choose to build and live in a house with 15 bedrooms and 20 bathrooms. Or wear “couture” dresses that cost $10,000. I mean, what’s the joy in that except to brag about its NFTs – non-fungible tokens. Envy, in other words, if I’m on the right track.
And why do so many new cars look either like hearses or like someone accidently poured a bucket of mud into the paint before it was sprayed on.
Why do the new credit unions and churches in Helena have interchangeable, nonsensical names: Intrepid Credit Union, Ascent Bank, Narrate Church, Life Church, Fresh Life Church, Well Church, Vocal Credit Union, Opportunity Bank. Why not the Opportunity Church or the Intrepid Congregation. I swear every time I go by one of the billboards hawking these institutions I have a conversation with myself: “Of course, I would like my bank account to ascend, but I bet you aren’t promising that.” “And why would I seek out a vocal credit union, unless that’s a promise to let a real person answer my call, rather than an automated voice.” A few of the sturdy old names remain: United Methodist and Bank of the Rockies. But none have the cache of the oh-so-secure Pioneer Savings and Loan Association that held my childhood account.
Of course, if I happen to love a mystery product, I’m not as cynical. Take e-readers for instance. The fact that I can travel to Europe with a library of a couple thousand books at my fingerprints and still meet weight limits is purely miraculous. But how is it that we haven’t made e-readers and millions of age-appropriate books available to children around the globe in all languages. We could, I believe.
Twentieth-century Marcella understood a lot of our world. Not everything. But I could see how a correcting Selectric typewriter worked. I learned about what keeps airplanes aloft. I “got” penicillin—as a miracle mold. The cats of my youth played with grocery bags and string – and real birds. Telephone lines and electric wires were visible. Accurate or not, I could picture little bursts of current or sound scooting along them. Grandpa Pyle gave us real silver dollars for our birthdays.
I’m saying nothing at all, really, except that I’m old. Except that I’m less attuned to the changes in our world. Retiring truly brought cataclysmic change to my knowledge and life. Nothing now requires me to understand the contemporary world easily – fluidly. While it is second nature to my 50 year-old-nephews.
But I do want to stay curious. To know enough to want to know more. To cozy up to—rather than shy away from—the vocabulary and images and worries and possibilities of these years—not just the ones of 50 years ago.
For no other reason than that a complex universe is more wondrous to consider. Or that inquiring minds have all the fun! ©
