Technology broke the world (a soapbox rant)

I am a creature of habit. I am resistive to change. That may be a gross understatement. I guess it still remains to be seen. I think as people we all are. Rituals and routines are soothing.

All changes, even the most longed for have their melancholy, for what we leave behind is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another. - Antole France

With the ability to do things faster you would think it would free up time to spend on more meaning pursuits. But instead of doing that companies are now pushing three or more FTEs (full time employee) workloads onto a single employee to maximize their profits. And we won't even talk about what that has done to the family unit.
Before I go much farther I want to state very emphatically: The advances in technology are not to blame for everything but I honestly believe that it is what got the ball rolling. I think we were psychologically unprepared to keep up with the rapid changes.

Now that so much of our time is consumed at work, people try to compensate by multitasking. Instead of spending a lazy day with your kids laying in the grass encouraging them to imagine what the different shapes of the clouds could be you spend 30 minutes drilling into them that those are cumulus clouds and teach them to say cloud in spanish. Kids getting together is no longer just a pleasant way to pass the time with friends, it is networking and an education in group dynamics.

It's not just childhood that is rushed through. Everything is a rush. You can't go to dinner with your family without taking a call on your cell phone. The fact that technology has made everything accessible faster and it advances so quickly has instilled this attitude of instant gratification in every aspect of our lives.

The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves. - Dresden James

Clothing trends, hairstyles, and makeup are out of style before a season is over. In fact, any trend is over before it barely even starts. Everything changes too quickly. By the time the battery dies on your cordless phone, it's cheaper to buy a new phone that is more powerful that the original one you had. Computers, which really in the long run haven't been around that long, are almost obsolete before you can even get it shipped to your home.
Integrity and taking pride in your job are becoming more and more rare. There aren't enough hours in the day to get the job done and really devote yourself to quality assurance. Customer service and just plain common courtesy have gone to the wayside. People just don't seem to have the time anymore.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility. - Sigmund Freud

All of this rushing and instant gratification adds up to a whole lot of poor decision making. Since the loftier scholarly or spiritual goals seem unattainable people pursue materialistic goals. In such a disposable society it seems like that is all you ever do. More and more importance is placed on getting ahead financially. So you can obtain the next great thing. Human interaction begins to suffer.

As relationships become more superficial, people start to lose faith in humanity as a whole. You can't count on your friends or damaged family unit when you are in a bind. So who do people turn to? The government. All the sudden Big Brother is the affectionate term for your surrogate family.

Any one who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - Douglas Adams

So what if the person who won the popular vote wasn't elected president? The electoral college was created by the government for a reason. Terrorists have attacked our country? It's ok, we can give away a few personal freedoms in exchange for a feeling of safety. Big Brother is taking care of us. He can watch over us at the airport. He can watch over us in our cars. He can even keep us safe in our own homes.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Sure we were attacked by an organization led by Osama bin Laden and he is hiding in a country that practice atrocities against women and children. Oh wait, a few weeks later there are weapons of mass destruction in a neighboring country. The women and children can wait. We know how to get that dictator. No, we can't go back to our original goal (it was all about keeping us safe right?) that would leave their country in shambles. We haven't won yet. If we quit that means we lost. Let's just keep sacrificing our good men and women in the armed forces. It doesn't matter that 74% of us don't think it's working. This is a democracy, why should it matter what the majority thinks? We don't have the time to deal with things like that. We need to put in extra hours so we can buy an XBox 360.