Luddite

[Hawkman]

We live in a world that bleeps at us,
things warble, ping and tweet at us,
although we haven’t any notion
why they do,
the need for them is screamed at you
by adverts on the television, day and night,
regardless of financial plight.

Why do I need a telephone that takes a fuzzy picture,
urges me to send a text that bastardises English, yet.
I need to wear my glasses just to see the keys
and pressing them needs nano-fingers
something like a flea’s.
I don’t want to watch a movie on it,
surf the net or shoot a film upon it:
A bloody gadget that can do all that
just leaves me flat.

A phone’s supposed to be a thing
that lets you talk to people when it rings.
But though I may be tempted by its glossy sheen,
I call someone, and wind up talking to machines!
When I’m at home the wretched phone
will burble its insistent call -
I answer it to find that there’s no one there at all;
just some miracle of science
which mindlessly assumes compliance,
just because I picked it up
thinking that a friend was calling offering to share a cup,
a computer tries to sell me stuff.
Honestly, I’ve had enough!

Devices are supposed to serve,
not govern those who don’t deserve
to be treated like commodities.
Folks like me must be anti-techno-oddities,
Every day,
some smart-arse seems to find a way
to make my life a little worse,
and in the process raid my purse.
So I’m a modern Luddite
and upon the hour of midnight
I will smash the beeping rubbish that I hate.
I only hope it’s not too late.

[hillwalker]

I know exactly how you feel, Hawk.

An amusing poem but with a message that makes us look more closely at how technology (our supposed slave) is actually emancipating no one.

I'm reminded of a few days I stopped in a B+B (in Shieldaig some 20-odd years ago). One night in the dining room, with some flashy guy and his lady friend sitting at the next table, his watch started buzzing and bleeping and he couldn't get it to stop for ages. Finally the dear old waitress came up to him with a smile on her face and said 'That's a very busy watch you have there, sir. Does it tell the time as well?'

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

But this is rather as if some literate monk, some six centuries ago, wrote a book decrying the folly of Guttenberg's invention. Or did you in fact write this by hand on some paper and let the aether carry it here to me, to us?

[Hawkman]

thanks hill, glad you approve :D

Hi, Prince, I beleive printed bibles were tolerated when they were printed in latin, but there was hell to pay when people started printing them in English :D Besides, bibles don't ring you up 3 or 4 times a day and play you recorded messages designed to induce you to part with money, despite your subscribing to a preference service which is designed to prevent this kind of intrusion. I don't want a wii, or a playstation or an Xbox or any number of similar items of techno junk. I'd rather sit down with a good book. Even my telly won't let me select the correct aspect ratio for a TV programme. It decides for me and always gets it wrong. Vertically compressed and laterally expanded dancers I can do without. My old telly used to let me override the automation, but not this one - lol. And then there's the digital revolution over here, where we now have digital TV which gives us 200 channels of total garbage over insufficient bandwidth, so even if I want to watch a good old repeat, in the wrong aspect ratio, the picture quality is so poor that it's just about unwatchable.

Progress? - Schmogress

live and be well, H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Were you ever a fan of "Fawlty Towers"? (But of course you must have been.) Your last message reminds me of the episode when a health inspector comes to look over their kitchen and then, as Basil listens, standing ramrod erect, the inspector runs down a very lengthy list of the problems he's discovered, after which Basil responds through a badly restricted throat:

"Everything else all right?"

[Hawkman]

Strange that you should mention watery fowls 'cause there was a programme on the Dave channel last night entirely devoted to it. the moment you mention was one of the selected highlights. However, I can't help feeling that my little rant is more akin to one of Victor Meldrew's tirades from, "One Foot in the Grave". :D

[PrinceMyshkin]

Strange that you should mention watery fowls 'cause there was a programme on the Dave channel last night entirely devoted to it. the moment you mention was one of the selected highlights. However, I can't help feeling that my little rant is more akin to one of Victor Meldrew's tirades from, "One Foot in the Grave". :D

Not familiar with the programme you mentioned but have had my love affairs with a number of British sitcoms, e.g. "To the Manor Born," "Good Neighbours," "May-December" (preferably before they changed the female half) and what's that one with Judy Dent and Geoffrey Palmer? Oh yes, "As Time Goes By... And there was a wickedly funny Australian one called, I think, "Mother and Son" (From this distance, you understand, Great Britain and Austrailia appear to be practically cheek by jowl).

[Delta40]

anti-techno-oddities! witty with splashes of anger and frustration.

[blank|verse]

I'm with you on this one, Hawk, so am willing to overlook that rhyme about the flea... :)

The rather shambolic style works well, capturing the ranting, spontaneous nature of the narrator.

It does have a rhetorical quality to it, so I thought an address to the reader at the end might have worked well: 'So who's with me? At midnight, let's smash the beeping rubbish...' or whatever. You know, a bit like Delia Smith. (Prince will have no idea about who she is either. Sorry Prince! - But as for Victor Meldrew, image an older, more mainstream version of Larry David, and you're not far wrong....) :)

[Hawkman]

Thanks Delta. B/V Thank you too. I was never quite happy with the ending and you have shown me the way. I'm going to give this a little polish and post a revision.

Live long and Prosper - H

[Hawkman]

Here's my revision of -

Luddite.

We live in a world that bleeps at us,
things warble, ping and tweet at us,
although we haven’t any notion
why they do,
the need for them is screamed at you
by adverts on the television, day and night,
regardless of financial plight.

Why do I need a telephone that takes a fuzzy picture,
urges me to send a text that bastardises English, yet.
I need to wear my glasses just to see the keys
and pressing them needs nano-fingers
something like a flea’s.
I don’t want to watch a movie on it,
surf the net or shoot a film upon it:
A bloody gadget that can do all that
just leaves me flat.

A phone’s supposed to be a thing
that lets you talk to people when it rings.
But though I may be tempted by its glossy sheen,
I call someone, and wind up talking to machines!
When I’m at home the wretched phone
will burble its insistent call -
then when I answer it I find that there’s no one there at all;
just some miracle of modern science
which mindlessly assumes compliance,
just because I picked it up
thinking that a friend was calling offering a cup,
a damn computer tries to sell me stuff.
Honestly, I’ve had enough!

Devices are supposed to serve,
not govern those who don’t deserve
to be treated like commodities.
Can it be that folks like me are anti-techno-oddities?
Every day,
some smart-arse seems to find a way
to make my life a little worse,
and in the process raid my purse.
We must halt this march of progress
and free ourselves with boldness
from the electronic tyranny of things,
not let them rule us with their animated smiley grins.
So be a modern Luddite
and join with me at midnight
when we'll smash the beeping rubbish that we hate.
I only hope it’s not too late.

[AuntShecky]

This is a cute one. A little cranky, perhaps, but humorous just the same. It reflects the frustration many of us feel when we don't have the technical expertise -- or the finances, for that matter -- to keep up with the latest trends. It really doesn't have anything to do with age, by the way. Some grandmas can be wonky whizzes with these items while some teenagers may try to work a basic cellphone and find themselves completely asea. (mixed metaphor.)

Hey, your speaker is lucky when he makes a call and gets a machine. Sometimes yours fooly can't even get past "Press '1' for English"!

Here's my favorite part of this verse:





Folks like me must be anti-techno-oddities,
Every day,
some smart-arse seems to find a way
to make my life a little worse,
and in the process raid my purse.

[Hawkman]

Hi Auntie. It's not that I can't work the wretched stuff - I just don't want all the extra gadgets. And yes, I'm fed up to the back teeth with being phoned up 3 or 4 times a day by a machine which just plays me a recorded message. It's infuriating. Have pitchfork - will travel....

Best, H

[Haunted]

Hawk, I remember the original version poking fun at the aspect ratio and it had me LOL'd. To watch 16:9 programming on my widescreen tv I have to change it to 4:3, because my 16:9 tv reads all 16:9 programming as 4:3 and stretches everything out. Surprisingly most widescreen tvs have stretched faces and people don't even noticed it. They must think that's how people look. What have the world come to, we can't watch 16:9 shows on our 16:9 tvs without distortion!

[Hawkman]

Hi Haunted, I don't think that was in the poem, it was in a reply to Prince. Because of the digital switch over here, people with old analog TV's like my brother have to use a separate digital reciever. He'd got it set up wrongly. His digibox thought he had a 4:3 tv. consequently 16:9 programmes appeared in 4:3 letterbox format in the middle of the screen. To make it fit the wide screen he'd been using the zoom function. Consequently he got a fuzzy picture with visible gaps between the scan lines. At least I was able to sort that out for him. But he'd got so used to watching it the old way he didn't like it!

cheers H

[Transmodernism]

But this is rather as if some literate monk, some six centuries ago, wrote a book decrying the folly of Guttenberg's invention. Or did you in fact write this by hand on some paper and let the aether carry it here to me, to us?

Good point, PrinceMyshkin.

This poem is in the same conversation with Sir Arthur Clark's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which deals with the relationship between humans and technology. In that book technology comes solely from aliens. This is a dubious premise, but it makes for good science fiction.

I think I agree with Clark's thesis about technology, not that it comes from aliens, but that it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be of great benefit to humanity; on the other hand, it can be destructive or, as in this poem, even annoying.

Anyway, I like poems that deal with contemporary issues, like iPods and such.

[Hawkman]

Hello Transmodernism, and if you've already been greeted here I extend a personal welcome.

I think I'm with Azimov when it comes to the quest for ever more self-determining artificial intelligence. If we make machines with artificial intelligence, sooner or later the machine will be, or think it is, smarter than its creator and either exterminate or enslave us. It begs the question; where should science stop?

It is interesting to note that before the first atomic bomb test, reputable scientisits postulated that the detonation might ignite the atmosphere and incenerate the planet. They detonated it anyway, just to see what would happen. :D

So who do you trust - lol.

Live and be well, H

[Transmodernism]

where should science stop?

It is interesting to note that before the first atomic bomb test, reputable scientisits postulated that the detonation might ignite the atmosphere and incenerate the planet. They detonated it anyway, just to see what would happen. :D

So who do you trust - lol.



Thanks for the welcome :)

I've never heard that about the atomic bomb test before, but it doesn't surprise me. There's something darkly amusing and, perhaps, inevitable, about that. It's the curiosity-killed-the-cat syndrome. When scientific curiosity becomes a cardinal virtue, lots of cats die.

[Hawkman]

You're welcome for the welcome :D

With regard to science and cats: this is ground I have covered before - lol

Check this out...

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=850245&postcount=1

Enjoy! H