Wednesday, March 21, 2001
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Wednesday, March 21, 2001 |
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They live among us, these robots By BILLY MURPHY There is a conspiracy afoot. Someone is turning the human race into robots. I would either guess it is the government or big-corporate America, but since they have merged, I guess that is a moot point. Nevertheless, everyday I see more and more of these "robot people" replacing what used to be flesh-and-blood people. If you are like me, you have spent the last few years trying to figure out what is amiss in our society. Why does it seem so many people have so few feelings and emotions and seem to be made of cold steel? The answer is simple there are a heck of a lot of robots out there. They have been formed from the inside out by a world gone "cost effective," "policy driven," and "prepackaged perfection." A lot of people have become nothing more than "clinking, clanking, clattering collections of collagenous junk!" The question is, Am I one? Are you? Though we have long thought that your typical, futuristic robot would resemble C3PO or spout lines like, "Warning, Will Robinson, danger, danger!", the Dr. Frankensteins of our day have taken their lesson from the devil himself and made these androids as soft and attractive as the girl next door. So, how do I know that we, the homo sapiens nation, are becoming robots? I offer this evidence: 1. Our love affair with machines. How else do you explain our passion for technology and machinery, except that we are becoming a nation of robots. We communicate better with battery powered devices than with humans. Our key rings can't even just hold our keys anymore. They open our garage, they let us in our car and they set its five-star alarm system. We can't drive a mile without reaching for our cell phone. We can't watch our TV without our control center remote at our side. We can't watch a sporting event without recording it to video. We are slowly replacing our pets with Poochis and Meowchis and Chirpchis, designed to do all the same things, but just not all the fuss of flowing blood or convergent emotions. Are the children next? Kidchi anyone? Oh, and did I even need to mention the computer? Heck, even pro wrestling is being replaced with "Battle Bots." 2. Our loss of emotions. For the longest time, I have become more and more frustrated as a customer, feeling, "Why do these people who run the register, or cash my checks, or get my stamps, seem to hate me so much?" Then I figured it out: They don't hate me, they just don't care. They are indifferent to my situation. They are robots created by the policies for whom they work. The one thing science has never been able to insert in a robot is emotions. And today, this is proof positive robots are serving us and not real people. I went to my bank the other day to get money out of the ATM (mine is cute, about 5-feet-2-inches and bilingual). It was not working. Rain was pouring down, so I drove to the drive-in teller to get some money. She couldn't give me any cash because it was against policy to send a check out through the drive-in window. So she indifferently told me I would have to run in through the pouring rain to get a counter check. That is indifference. I won't tell you the bank name but it rhymes with BunCrust and it, like all banks, has simply made robots out of its workers. What really makes a person a robot is what is missing. There seems to be no creativity, personality or desire for connection anymore. Maybe we CAN blame it on the companies that employ and send out nothing more than drones that must follow policy or risk being "unplugged." Yet, it's time we became men and women again and listen to the advice of the Wizard of Oz, "for all you lack, my dear friend, is a heart." [Visit Billy Murphy on the Internet at http://www.ebilly.net.]
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