The half functioning technology

Everything in our house seems to have passed its used by date.....we recently replaced the TV because it was only giving us half a look at things.....then the washing machine decided that a spin cycle was really too much work and why didn’t we just let things drip a little?? The toaster went on a half strike too, and only toasts on one side at a time. And last night the stereo went Bang and poof, literally, and scared us half to death whilst sending a nice scent of burning plastic into the air! You’ll be pleased to know the speakers are fine...only they have no way of speaking about anything. Come to think of it everything is half functional......which in all respects may as well be not functioning because half just doesn’t do it for us! I guess you could say I have been half functioning lately too, what with all the illness etc. Hmmm...seems a little refurbishing across the board is necessary. Lucky we have a tax refund to look forward to!
Why is it that before you even have time to consider what ‘fun’ stuff you could do with the tax refund, it gets spoken for with all the ‘need’ stuff.
In a simpler world I guess we could do the wash with the rest of the village in the river on a rock and listen to music around a campfire with friends and a guitar, and toast over a fire or hot coals, whilst entertaining ourselves with games, charades, funny anecdotes and wonder of wonder actually reading a book or two or three...
We are intimately tied to all these wondrous technologies though and the more we are offered the more we seem to need. They are the mainstays of our lives and we have forgotten how to live functionally without them!
Perhaps the most notable 20th century philosophers to look directly at modern technology were Dewey and Heidegger. Although both saw technology as integral to modern life, Dewey was the more optimistic about the ultimate role of technology.
Surprisingly it was not until the twentieth century that the development of the ethics of technology as a systematic and more or less independent sub discipline of philosophy started. Perhaps this is because the twentieth century has witnessed a richer variety of conceptualizations of technology than previously. Also that these ideas of technology move beyond the conceptualization of technology as a neutral tool, or as a historical necessity. This includes conceptualizations of technology as a political phenomenon (Technological media) as a social activity (Mobile phones), as a cultural phenomenon (computers; i.e. Face book), as a professional activity (engineering, It, electronics, even medicine etc), and as a cognitive activity (online education).
Heidegger said that the essence of modern technology is the conversion of the whole universe of matter into an undifferentiated "standing reserve" (Bestand) of energy, available for any use to which humans choose to put it. He says that technology recreates the essence of humanity and that it encourages us to think of all things in the world as standing by, ready for our consumption. Heidegger described the essence of modern technology as Gestell, or "enframing." Heidegger states in this idea that not only is technology a means to an end, but that the means and the end reflect upon each other and interact in a complex way; we create technology, but technology also creates us. Heidegger did not totally condemn technology: certainly he acknowledged that modern technology contained grave dangers, but he also nevertheless argued that it may constitute a chance for human beings to enter a new epoch in their relation to being. And well I will concur that it certainly has....our way of being is very different now! We no longer see ourselves as isolated from our fellow beings in a global sense yet by the same token we participate in fewer activities as a community. We no longer spend the best part of our days engaging in work activities necessary for basic survival or even comfortable existence. No, instead we engage in work related activities to an end that may not be necessary for survival but which will provide us with an income that can provide us with the technology that will give us ostensibly more time to enjoy our lives! (That is, if after we have made enough money to provide ourselves with all these new machines and gadgets we also have enough energy or time to have fun!)Of course we then have quick fixes of fun through My space and Face book communications, brief and yet reaching out somehow to humanity...and quick games we can play on our phones on the bus to work and TV shows we can watch on the TV while we eat our meals or even prepare them ..That is ‘if’ we prepare them, microwaves make readymade meals too easy! And music we can listen to on our IPods whilst working and so on....we no longer have separate, work rest, play time.....we just work and get quickie fixes of the other whilst working....and continue to service our growing attachment to gadgets that ‘ will give us more time........’
Technology has given us new sense of beingness... and a new sense of time.....and in so doing it has robbed us of something too...a sense of connection to the natural world, to simple pleasure that we can share intimately with another and to a sense of time as something that can and will stretch to our needs.....Heidegger warned against the possibility of man being enslaved by technology, Heidegger states that eventually, we may be to technology what technology has caused the natural world to be to us: a group of resources that are consumable and waiting to be consumed. Technology may eventually deny us the ability to reveal our inmost selves and to become what we are capable of becoming. We may lose the ability to destine our own futures and to affect our own destinies. So all of technology may only be half working, not just my errant machines!! Technology, which was so going to liberate us, may only half be doing this Job!!

Ah well I will determine my immediate future, a trip to the Laundromat to use someone else’s washing machine, after eating a half raw piece of toast. Then I will get on the computer and post this little piece of communication....whilst actually talking to no-one in particular.....