Prophecy of the Ages

A tale of two prophecies:

1) One prophecy is an old one. It says that in humanity's attempt to create a better and more secure society, the idea of human or civil rights will slowly subside. No one can condemn the state because the state is good. No one can fight back, because fighting back would be an endangerment of other people's security. And that state can monitor all sedition and overwhelm the dissident. This prophecy is best illustrated in George Orwell's book, 1984.

2) The other prophecy is a new one. It says that the true nature of humanity, human touch, and human relationality will slowly erode because of our laziness and obsession with the moving image: television, internet, and movies. We will all be so tempted and taken in by screens that it becomes our whole life. We define self by social networking sites that counterintuitively do the opposite of what they were created to do. We may be networked, but we're more lonely. We spend hours in front of boxes that satiate our most base desires. This is a new prophecy, and it is best illustrated in the movie Wall E.

And the prophecies meet each other slowly. Video becomes the way we do most interaction. Nothing is sacred anymore. All is televised, put on video, and loaded to the internet on youtube for all to see. And eventually, we all become Big Brother, monitoring video of others, taking away privacy (See my post on "sexting" last week). Our culture is headed down a dangerous road.

Don't believe me? Then check out this BBC news piece. Street cameras are being installed in 25 UK cities for live public consumption. Big brother and a video-dominated culture are not that far away. And sadly, I don't see a way of stopping it from heading further down the tracks. So in sadness I say: be warned.