The Evilution of Technology

Think technology is evil? Sure, we all do. There is no doubt that the cellphone is the work of Satan (I was nearly rear-ended again yesterday by another cellphone zombie driver--I tell you, these clowns are making agoraphobia sound more and more appealing).

Anyway, Wired looks at the history of evil and technology:

Early last century, the Mark of the Beast was your Social Security card, which presumably was encoded into the Computer Punch Card of the Beast and fed into Satan's Mainframe.

After that, the Mark of the Beast was your credit card, and in the '70s the UPC symbol was the new Mark, presumably because of the passage in Revelations stating, "And the mark was placed upon the Wonder Bread, both white and the kind they call wheat, even though it's basically a slightly more tan version of the white stuff."

Now, of course, the Mark of the Beast is RFID chips. It's not enough that they might get your purchases tracked or your identity stolen, they might also get you booked into the Hotel Inferno for all eternity. Thanks, Wal-Mart! Totally worth it for discount cotton balls!

And, as a public service, they map the very Handbook of Evil (that is, The Book of Revelation) to modern technology and find that St. John was even more Divine than we thought.

"And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind."

This is obviously a reference to file sharing. The "stars" in question are the hard-working entertainers of the world, "falling to earth" because of the "casting" of their works to and fro like figs (figs were the main form of entertainment in the ancient world) by a "mighty wind." A mighty wind? Like a "torrent," perhaps?

"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains."

Clearly the "hiding" is the anonymity provided by "dens" of personal web spaces like LiveJournal and MySpace. The rocks are friends lists or something, I'm still working that one out. Once the mighty men start joining MySpace, we're screwed. Don't do it, mighty men!

"And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

Frankly, I can't think of anyone more bitter than political bloggers. The "waters" are the blogosphere, and Wormwood is probably a misreading of WordPress. They have several of the same letters!

"And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."

That's pretty much how I feel after a few minutes looking at homemade music videos on YouTube.

Personally, I think these passages foretell the looming Robot Holocaust, but I could be wrong. Though I'm not.