Back in the twentieth century, I used to dream of the technological advances that could make our lives easier. What about a dirty clothes hamper that automatically sorts clothes and when full, washes, dries, and folds them? What about a floor that automatically repels dirt, or that has vacuum troughs at the edges that each night, suck away the grime? What about windows that wash themselves and that when a bird approaches, turn opaque so that the bird doesn’t run into the glass? I could go on and on.
It is the twenty-first century, and what do we have? A society of people who can’t turn on a light because they’ve abdicated that duty to technology, and not just technology contained in the home, but technology dependent upon a connection to the Internet and to one of the largest corporations in the world.
Turning things on and off. It is sad to see that that’s one of the big technological advancements to date. It is even sadder to see that during Google's recent outage, Mr. Brown was unable to turn on a light himself. He should rethink things. A lot of things.