Global positioning systems. GPS.
GPS is great, isn't it?
You don't have to think anymore.
All you have to do is look at the little screen, or listen to the seductive voice, and hey presto!- You have arrived at your destination.
Sounds perfect.
You don't have to worry yourself with pesky thinking.
You only have follow instructions from a computer.
You don't need to know where you are...
Circumstances of my life means that I have never used a GPS system. (it was just coming in as a new technology when I was doing my taxi driving work in London).
By choice I have never used a GPS system.
Why not, you ask?
I like to know where I am.
Call it the traveler in me, but I enjoy being lost, and I like find my way.
I like the feeling of obtaining knowledge through my own senses. It's a fun puzzle to be solved.
I know London, Hong kong, LA, and numerous other places - and know these places like the back of my hand if I were to revisit where I have previously lived before.
Still there, sat in my memory ( I do have a very good recall on places where I once lived. But that is because I spent the _effort _ to navigate my way around.
(with the weird exception of anywhere in southern hemisphere.
My sense of direction is very good. In the southern hemisphere however - I have no sense of direction.
I'm not sure why, but I put it down to the liquids in my inner ear changing direction..... or something.)
People I have talked to using GPS (who drive for a living), have told me they never really know where they are anymore. They just listen and drive, and arrive where they are supposed to be.
This is all very good. Very efficient. Computer like efficiency.
That's right, you are following instructions from a computer.
It helps you get to where you are gong, to it doesn't help you understand where you are.
It doesn't give you a sense of your environment.
It does you no favors except to be more efficient, make more money, and pay more tax.....
…. And it really introduces you to a cyber reality. A reality that tells you that AI 'knows best'.....
I wonder as to the motivations of GPS being so quickly adopted.
Mere efficiency?
Or a trojan horse to acclimatize the population to accepting technology being your boss...?
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images google