The Ever Growing Reliance On Technology

    There is no clearer demonstration of this than in Arrival as the Prisoner undergoes his medical in the hospital. So this good doctor, and I say good doctor because he appears to be a kind man, and we have nothing against him as yet, but who doesn't wear a penny farthing badge, gives The Prisoner a medical. Because the after effects of Rover can be very unpleasant, of having been suffocated into unconsciousness. Well the doctor checks his ticker, then punches the keys on a pad then stands waiting, rubbing his chin as a computer whirrs, spins its information reels and finally ejects a printed computer card which the doctor takes and studies for a moment. "Everything’s in order. You're absolutely fit."

    So this doctor, who to be perfectly honest does not inspire confidence, who has only checked the Prisoners heart now has to get a diagnosis from a computer in order to pronounce that everything is in order and that the patient is absolutely fit! This is certainly a bad sign indeed, especially if this is an indication of things to come, and unfortunately it is!

   At its time, the village was well ahead in the world of technology. Computers, and I include The General in this, gadgets such as the Electro Pass used by No.6 in Arriavl to get past the security of Rover at the helicopter. The electronic beam used to bring down the pigeon in Hammer Into Anvil Electronic force fields employed for security in both The General and Dance of the Dead, Number 6 tried to go in, the Town hall is fussy about who it lets in! And once you are in, to try and pass through an electrical force field a second time is fatal! There's the Free Information electronic information board. Together with radar, sonar, voice analysing equipment, a lie detector in Free For All. Gas guns, "One squirt you're paralysed, two squirts you're dead!" To make nothing of surveillance equipment, cameras, microphones, cordless telephones and loudspeakers which don't need to be wired or connected into...... well anything! And during the time that the prognosis report on No.6 ordered by No.2 during the episode of It's Your Funeral, No.2 asked No.8 how accurate is the prognosis, No.8 had to reply that she didn't know!

    "Why Not? No.2 asks

    "Twice we programmed our machines for a percental appraisals of their own efficiencies. Each time they've refused to give back the requested information!" No.8 explained.

    "How?"

    "Simply by not returning the data to us"

   "They'll be wanting their own trade union next!" quips No.2.

   Machines with  minds of their own, well there's a thought. But today people have grown to rely upon technology and all the gadgets that go with it more and more. As I do here, typing this blog-article and again when I come to post it and for you to be able to read it. But at least I do not possess one of those damned irritating mobile phones, together with their irritating ring tones!

   Technology and its gadgets are relied upon to entertain us, gaming machines, 'X' Boxes, Play Stations. To keep us informed, "Tom-Tom" navigation to direct us when driving, whatever happened to the trusty road atlas, or can't people read maps anymore? To keep us in touch by email, text and mobile phones, to get football alerts, the weather, connection to the internet, to take that world shattering photograph or that which can be an embarrassment to another when sent around the world. Abuse through the mobile phone, which is like science which can be perverted! And texting, people cannot resist sending texts which to me is another language from another planet, or perhaps I'm getting old. Texting someone on the other side of the classroom or play ground, office or even on the top deck of a bus, when all you have to do is walk over and speak in person. But at least I'm not the person sitting behind you or a couple of seats away on the bus, coach and train, already telephoning home, having just got on, to say "I've just got on the bus and am on my way home," this in a loud and irritating manner so that all my fellow passengers can hear you!

    No one, it seems can live without his or her mobile phone, from the age of ten or earlier, to well 80. Whatever did people do before the mobile phone.... they used things called telephone boxes or kiosks, that's what they did, and some people still do today believe it or not. Yet it has to be said that in an emergency a mobile phone can be an important device, always providing you can get a signal. But at the same time the mobile phone has eroded away more of our privacy, this with the added feature of a camera, which enables one to take a picture and almost instantly share it with friends. And what's more you may not realise that your photograph has been taken, for whatever purpose.

  No one writes proper letters to one another any more, well I do from time to time. In days gone by if you lived in a town or city there would be a post delivery in the morning, mid morning. The afternoon and evening post deliveries, and yes you can believe it.

    But hardly anyone is satisfied these days. People want new and better services and improved hardware to go with it. Everything must be faster, faster internet speeds for downloading etc, etc and its all wanted yesterday. And no sooner is one model of something brought out, like a television set, DVD player/recorder,  I-Pad, or tablet, then something better then has to be produced by another company. Or indeed there are times when a company will bring out something new and better only months after the previous device!

   If we are not careful it will not be a world war which finally puts paid to the earth, not plague, but technology! And the people of the third world will have to learn to make do with the 'X' box standing in the corner and not have HD technology. And I can tell you that digital TV isn't all its cracked up to be. In the first area to have it's analogue signal switched off, people found out that they couuldn't get "free view" through a set top box, nor through cable. Its satellite or nothing! This is the government forcing their will upon the people, taking away the people's choice.

   The whole earth as the village....... soon baby!