Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Technology

(Both of these videos are a little long - but are worth watching!)

Is technology making things better?



Or worse?



I don't know that I necessarily have an answer to that - but I do know it's making things all the more complicated and difficult - and I do know this is one of the reasons I question even having a child/children at all. Apart from my interest in adopting - things like this honestly scare me to the point that I'm not sure I want to have children. Am I making this world a better place that when I have children - the world they live in will be better than mine? Or will their world be more difficult, more compounded and will their life be harder than mine?

Yes, technology makes it easier and easier for me to access information, keep in touch with friends and family around the world, take care of business and so on and so forth - but it also requires more knowledge, more study, more money and more time to learn how to live with it. It also prevents people from learning other basic skills. Simple things like learning to read are clearly falling through the cracks, because we also have to make sure all of the students know how to use a computer. I would be willing to bet very few of my kiddos in my youth group have read any of "the classics" - not to mention that there are hundreds I haven't read, but that I want to read. But when I do "read" them - will I read them online, will I listen to them in my car while I'm driving to work, or will I listen to them on my ipod while I'm running with my dog? How many kids know where their food comes from, or how to plant a garden? With the cost of food going up - are we just asking for a famine because no one knows how to plant and/or care for a family garden, but that is what we will all be turning to eventually? How many people know how to use a hammer - or do we all rely on 3M Command hooks to hang things on our wall? How many kids have ever worked an actual hard long day in their life? How many kids understand a "labor" job in the sense that the clock doesn't determine when you are finished working - rather that you are finished when the job is finished? How many of our kids even remember how to do long division? Or how many of us as adults even remember that? Who remembers how to play kick the can or pick up sticks? Or jacks - or solitaire? How many kids can say they've ever been on a LONG car ride WITHOUT a DVD player and had to rely on things like the alphabet game and the "sign" game?

Is technology making lives better - or worse?

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Intention

If I hit you on the arm - Do you get to decide if it hurts - or, do I?

If I call you a name - Do you get to decide if that was offensive, or do I?

If I speak to you in a certain way - Do you get to decide if it is offensive, or do I?

If I hit you on the other arm - Do you get to decide if your arm hurts - or, do I?