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The Curse Of Technology
by Paul McGoldrick
I don’t remember when I received my first Nigerian scam letter – it certainly wasn’t while I was living there – but once the first had arrived, they flew by air mail fast and furious.
Now, of course, you don’t get to collect new Nigerian stamps as the method of delivery has gotten so much faster: by e-mail. As the scam, and all its wonderful lottery derivatives, is basically a numbers game, e-mail could not be a more perfect delivery scheme. That people still fall for them is quite unbelievable to me: it shows that there is an innate greed in humans.
How do I know people still fall for it? Because the e-mails would stop coming if they were failing to work on some tiny percentage of returns. There is even a site listing 542 different scam letters that have been found over the years! It doesn’t seem to matter which country the hostaged millions of dollars are supposed to be in, the letters still come predominantly from West Africa.
If you have time on your hands get yourself a generic e-mail address and waste the scammers’ time. Scambaiting is an art form, and these folks at 419eater are happy to offer tips. (419 is the section number of the Nigerian legal code covering such scams.)
So, technology has aided these scam artists, to our detriment. Has it done anything else to reduce our standard of life?
Cell phones have to be right up there, of course. They have become synonymous with, at best, impolite behavior and in many cases users are just downright rude. Handheld use is also responsible for some outright dangerous driving as well. Since legislation was passed in California in 2006, it joins some other States on July 1, 2008 in banning handheld cell phone use while driving. It is interesting how many States totally ban cell phone use by school bus drivers; if they know it’s unsafe for our children, why don’t they accept it’s unsafe for adults as well?
Also, how long will it be, do you think, when you will be totally unable to check in for an airplane flight without using one of those annoying touch-screen terminals? Don’t the airline staff realize that their jobs are going away because of them? The same at grocery and discount stores: the self-check aisle with x number of scanning machines can be manned by a single employee. That's real job security...
For me, however, the worst technology for modern living lies in the machines that end up with a pair of ear pods. People have excluded themselves from the real world by hiding from it with their incessant music. Even the Pope has been gifted one - an iPod Nano - loaded with spiritual output from Vatican Radio plus Classical music. He can also listen to the radio station’s daily podcasts.
But what a mean gift. They had the iPod engraved (so the Vatican lost property department would know who to return it to?) but they only gave the poor man 2 Gbyte. How humbling.
Many more dubious technology advantages could no doubt be pointed to. The refrigerator complete with digital TV screen inset. The washing machine that will e-mail you when the spin cycle has completed. Luddites unite! Share your thoughts for what’s most egregious right now, or what’s ominously next to come, on our blog.
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