Sublime Tech

I'm sitting here listening to the Alan Parsons Project's 1977 classic "I, Robot". Only recently did I obtain another copy of this album, my first CD copy in fact. The last time I listened to it prior was sometime in 1998. I always associated this album with not just its science fiction theme, but with the future in general. It's funny that for seven years it was no longer in my life.
As I listen to it, I find myself thinking about how pervasive technology has become in our lives now. After all, here I am typing this in WordPad on a Windows XP machine (I prefer Macintosh, but that's another story), something that most of us see as common place. Not everybody has computers, though, and they think somehow that they have managed to avoid the"blight" of technology.
Think again.
Since the digital genie was released from its bottle, it has entered almost every aspect of our lives in one form or another. To think that we can do without it now is to be misleading. Even if we don't own any new technology and choose to live as the Amish do, the effects of technology are always there. Imagine where we would be in a world without technology... that's actually difficult. Whenever we do anything, newer technology is there.
Computers making calculations regarding weather patterns for months in advance, helping farmers know what to expect. Wristwatches with alarms and multiple settings. Televisions that are capable of disallowing certain programs from being viewed. Even if you completely shun computers and choose to live a life that resembles the 1970's, you will not escape tech. For whenever you listen to the radio, hoping to catch that ever elusive Pink Floyd song, you can bet that the station is not using an old analog tape copy, but a CD.
Ultimately, the best kind of technology is the type that sits in the background, or better, the underground, not making us aware of its presence. In-your-face technology isn't really the way to go for most of the masses. Like digital Morlocks, these technologies hide from plain site.
But let's not allow those same digital Morlocks to devour us. Technology is best when it is sublime.