From My Old Blog: The Super Bad, Grotesquely Ugly, Dark Side of Technology

So just over eleven years ago, I wrote a post on my old blog about the "super bad, grotesquely ugly, dark side of technology," and it seems to have been at least somewhat prescient. Indeed, I myself have become especially critical of big tech (particularly regarding censorship), but social media also seems to have  generally negative effect on people.

OK, this article is mostly about how reliant we are on it and how annoying that can be, but that's just another problem with technology we don't have very good answers for right now.

What is it about technology that can cause such love/hate relationships? It helps with so many things, but when it goes wrong, it goes oh so wrong. Technology is like having an extremely hot girlfriend. They're great and all, especially for some things you just can't do nearly as well yourself, but unfortunately such women tend to be extremely needy and unbearably high maintenance.

OK, so poorly made, moderately disgusting, overtly chauvinistic analogies aside, technology is probably so important to daily life that we would all die off rather quickly if it was all just to go away one day. Yet many people, and myself in particular, often treat technology like a spoiled, ungrateful child treats his parents. We are like, to get all Biblical on you, Bill Gates' prodigal son. We rarely tout it's many benefits (like keeping us alive) and always rant at it's rare hiccups. It's quite irrational really.

But you know what, I don't care. Fuck computers and fuck technology! They can go away and never come back for all I care! Yeah I know I couldn't be writing this if it weren't for technology, so? You think I don't have anything better I could be doing than being lured to this damn machine to write a blog no one will read, or read spam mail sent to me by some douche bag in Nigeria who wants me to invest $10,000 in his brothers Swiss Bank account, or find out how many viruses, trogans and malware I can download in one sitting from some pimplely faced, teenage hacker eating cheese puffs in his mothers basement? No, there is an entire assortment of better things I could be doing right now.

OK, so a quick explanation is in order. About four months ago my computer crashes and my hard drive explodes. I of course lose everything. I then proceed to spend a bunch of money getting a new hard drive and promptly my screen starts screwing up. No big deal right? So I go to Best Buy and the guy tells me it's the mother board and I should call Dell to get it fixed. So I do, and some girl in Bangladesh trying to fake an American accent tells me that actually it's the hard drive that's cashed! Then she tells me to call the out of warranty people the next day (because the out of warranty repair people were obviously out of the office that day for no reason whatsoever). So the next day I call them, and they tell me I need to call the home computer department, but they inexplicably close at 2:00 so I'd have to call them the next day. I patiently explained that we were talking about the warranty now and not the computer itself, which was apparently a cue for him to start speaking his native tongue because I did not understand a single word after that. The situation is currently unresolved as I have stooped to using my brother's computer to write a blog that again, no one will probably read.

And yeah, I know last time I defended free trade, but I might have to make an exception for tech support. I got nothing against people from other countries, but with tech support, I mean, you're resolving problems with God Forsaken, Devil Incarnate technology! Clear communication can very well be the only thing maintaining the victim's sanity.

Regardless, I'm left with my second fried hard drive in 4 months and my hatred for technology has spilled over. Unfortunately, technology is quite inanimate, which makes it difficult to inflict pain upon any of its many forms. And regrettably, any good revenge requires at least some pain. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to settle for breaking something.