A Thoreauly Appealing Idea

Henry David Thoreau, eat your heart out. A PC magazine editor plans to go native:

I'm writing this quickly because I'm about to embark on an experiment. At the urging of my editor-in-chief, Jim Louderback, and Vicki Jacobson, the executive editor who regularly edits this column, I'm going wild—literally. Beginning today at 5 p.m. (it's around 3:30 as I write this), I will leave all technology behind and head north to spend four weeks in a remote cabin in upstate New York.

Jim and Vicki cooked up the idea a few weeks ago and are convinced that my experiences, which I'll record with pen and paper, will make a great series of columns about "Learning to Live Without Technology." The concept sounds crazy, but apparently, the thought is high on the minds of many deep thinkers. Sudden changes in our global climate and the looming bird-flu pandemic have some believing that chaos is around the corner, and that figuring out how to function without technology may soon be just as important as learning how to live with it.

Preparing to go tech-free is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, I've had to prepare family, friends, and coworkers and make sure they have all they need from me before I go. Consumer Electronics Senior Editor Dan Costa has agreed to drive me upstate to Cranberry Lake. He'll be leaving me at the cabin with simple bedding, a flashlight, a week's worth of food rations and water, 60 notebooks, and 40 pens. The cabin is outfitted with a cot and desk. That's it!

While we've all fantasized about this idea (some of of still do, obessively)--and the idea has had no small amount of appeal for basically the same reasons since the 1960s (at least)--I do have to throw a flag here and raise the question: what exactly is "technology"? And is it even possible for one live without "technology"? Or is it only some technologies he's trying to live without?

There always seems to be the assumption that "technology" is something new, and while it surely includes new "gadgets and gizmos," it also includes old gadgets and gizmos--and basically anything that has helped create Western civilization. The word "technology" itself comes from the Greek technologia ("systematic treatment") and was coined in the 17th century (so much for it being some new thing). I would argue that anything that has been invented is technology, no matter how old it is, going back to the beginning of human civilization--heck, the invention of the plow was (literally) cutting-edge technology at the time.

So let's look at what this guy is going to have with him. How is a flashlight not technology? Is a flashlight found growing wild in nature? Unless his "flashlight" is some kind of Flintstones-like jar of fireflies, he's not escaping technology. (But even then--the jar: glass manufacture would be, technically, technology.)

Notebooks--ever been to a paper mill? The modern papermaking process may date from the early 19th century (and papermaking from wood pulp even more recently), but is indeed technology. After all, someone had to invent paper. (This also applies to, ahem, any other kind of paper he may need to take along on this adventure.)

Pens: The ballpoint pen (invented in 1938) is a more recent invention than the typewriter--or even the computer. And "modern" ballpoint pens utililize highly advanced design, engineering, and manufacturing processes. Just because something isn't electronic doesn't mean it's not "technology."

The food and rations he's got: since he's not hunting (with a gun? Hmmm...sounds like technology of a sort) or farming, the food was produced by some kind of modern food manufacturing process--utilizing, no doubt, the latest technology. If it doesn't go bad in a day or two, it's probably got some kind of preservatives. I dare say, technology yet again.

I could go on and on--what kind of bedding? Presumably it was manufactured. And I also assume that this guy has been inoculated against a variety of illnesses--technology. Does he wear glasses? Any dental work? Any dental hygiene at all? Is he in general good health otherwise? Thank advances in medicine and water and sewage treatment and public utilities that developed over the course of the 20th century. (The science-fiction author Charles Stross once commented that, when asked what period other than now he would like to live, he replied "none," since given that he has a certain congenital medical condition that has only recently been combatted successfully, he'd be dead in any era other than the current one. Food for thought when we rail against "technology.")

Look, no one gets more annoyed by computers and cellphones and iPods and MS Office and all the other trappings of "modern technology" than I do, but people have cursed "technology" in just about every era, and there have always been those who dreamed of escaping it and living a "simpler" life. People reacted adversely to the technological advances that led to the Industrial Revolution (whence the original Luddites), and I would imagine that thousands of years ago, you could probably just as easily find some farmer out in his field, cursing his plow, wishing he could go back to the simple days of being a hunter-gatherer. And so it goes.

But I would argue that living in a cabin in the woods and having to hunt, fish, grow things, and deal with nature, is hardly simpler. (And, hey, I've been camping.) I suppose it could be argued that there is a kind of purity in that kind of life, but if you're going to live that way, then you'll need to throw off all the conveniences of modern life, like plumbing, electricity, clean water, medicine, etc. Say what you will about modern technology, it does keep most of us from dying by age 40. Or smelling really bad.

And say what you will about cellphones, but on 9/11, wasn't it passengers with cellphones who found out what was happening and ultimately prevented Flight 93 from hitting a fourth target? I grudgingly score 1 for cellphones.

If we're that worried about being so reliant on gadgets and gizmos, why do we have to go live in the woods? All we have to do is just shut the damn things off once in a while! I find nothing so pleasant on a sunny Sunday afternoon than to turn off the computer, turn off the iPod, turn off the TV and CD player, deactivate all my robotic manservants, and just sit on the couch and read a book. Yes, the book was produced using the latest desktop publishing and printing technology, but I think I can handle that.