Surrender your Sons

Surrender your sons, originally published on September 26th, 2014.

The symptoms are fever, congestion, cough and sore throat… spreads through offices, schools and homes… it does not matter where we are, it will get to us. Colds and flu are caused by viruses; just like HIV, Ebola, Hepatitis and Herpes. Just as Napoleon, viruses are also small; 100 times smaller than the average bacteria and can only exercise influence on the cells since they do not have a cellular structure, nor have the ability to replicate on their own, viruses are just bundles of DNA or RNA, encapsulated in protein... looking for a cell that can dominate. 

Viruses can infect any living organism, that is why they are so dangerous. The means of infection can be by air (to cough and to sneeze), with carriers such as mosquitoes; and corporal fluids (saliva, blood or semen). Once the virus infects the cell, its mission is to totally seize the host through replicas; the cell host produces more viral material rather than genetic; once finished, the cell will die and the virus will jump to other near cells to repeat the process.

The human body has acquired some mechanisms to defend itself against viruses; these mechanisms are stored and activated through genetic memory; unfortunately the viruses also have their own memory and in many cases they evolve faster. Viruses such as HIV deceives the immunological system, and we already know how it ends for most people.

Official history dictates that the evolutionary development of our ancestors mainly occurred by the search of better climates and diet; but it is also worth mentioning the influence that viruses have had on human evolution, it is necessary to review the historical context of the different interactions between pathogens and society, viruses affected the genetic diversity in the immune system and dictated the degree of genetic mixture between populations, contributed to our expansion outside Africa and the infections of past have been shared through our lineage and will live like adopted elements that regulate our biological functions.

The “boom” in population occurred when technology was used to serve mankind; the advances in medicine contributed to reduce the mortality rate and to increase the life expectancy of the cities/countries that benefited from those technological changes; it is true that all the regions in the planet have not been developed evenly, but there has been a real reduction for all the regions in the planet.

 

“Humans live longer, earn more money, want it all and know nothing”, that is how many companies think.

 
 

Straight razors made in the 1900s were so good, that one just needed a strop and they were good to go, from grandfathers to fathers, to the grandsons and great-grandchildren... 

but it was necessary to sharpen it and that was "a waste of time"… it was necessary to buy shave-soap… 

one needed to be careful, because the edge could be lethal; so, fear came in… and that is when Gillete showed up with its safe blade that eliminated all those inconveniences and fears. Then we got bombarded with disposable pens and tissues, instant coffee , fast food , digital music.

According to “The Kondratieff Theory of the Long Cycles”, (no, it is not a bipolar/lithium thing), we are living in the fifth cycle of economic activity; the era of Knowledge Economy, the age of the computers. Everything has become intangible and has to be available 24/7, everything passes by so fast because of the people's capacity to process and retain information, in most users it is minimal. The technology that we had 7 years ago is an old memory, far distant and long gone!, so is the iOS 6, nothing but a very vague memory for iPhone users. 

In the same way that viruses have shaped human evolution, electronic devices have its own AIDS; and I'm not talking about the one you can get by watching all that porn' I am talking abou the most dangerous of all, Planned Obsolescence. 

 

Each device comes out of factory with an expiration date, the date as such is dictated based on the technological breakthroughs, markets, fashion and trends… or simple digital euthanasia through an operating system with greater demand of resources, as we mentioned in “When we were happy XP”. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as shortening the replacement cycle).

 

Here are some examples related to computers:

Ink Cartridges for Printers (if you have one): most of those cartridges come with a clever chip that disables the cartridge when one of the colors reaches “a low point" determined by the manufacturer, even when there is enough ink to finish the task. In addition, the clever chip forbids to refill the cartridges… and let's not forget about the "timer" inside every printer. 

 

Software: some times it is “incompatible” with certain files or programs, and forces the consumer to update. Although the update also happens when the manufacturer decides to stop supporting "old versions". This software update triggers hardware sales; let's not forget about iPhone 6 -iOS8.

 

Video Games… Xbox to Xbox 360 and Xbox One? Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo64… let's not forget about the infamous Virtual Boy.

Moving away from technology, but following the same path.Automobiles… parts discontinued to avoid repairs, "new models" just because of the aesthetic changes.

 
 

Light Bulbs: up to 2010 there were some functioning light bulbs made by Thomas Edison… our modern energy efficient bulbs last for about 8 thousand hours... even though the technology to make them last longer exists, it is just not a very lucrative idea. 

 

Text books: it is very difficult to have significant changes from one edition to another, specially when this changes happen on a yearly basis. But Publishers have updates all the time, moving information from one page to another, changing the colors in diagrams, perhaps adding a CD-ROM? The problem is that not buying this new edition will make it difficult to follow in class… since some teachers "follow the book"… even the ones with horrendous mistakes.

Blitzkrieg Fashion… Ja!. One day in the 90's, every body was flashing their pacifier necklaces, the following day was troll dolls, then the Livestrong bracelets… should I continue?

 

There must be a balance between the technology as a tool and technology as life itself; the technology that we have in this very moment is died when it touched your hands, according to Moore's Law, we will have something twice as powerful in next 18 to 24 months; but intellectual capacity in humans won't duplicate… nevertheless, the addiction will. The day the iPhone 6 came out was living proof that there is an addiction that affects a great number of people, material addiction, even for the things that we do not understand.
 

Planned Obsolescence jumped to humans and acts in the person in the same way a mental disease does; but collectively speaking, it is a virus that affects all mankind, whatever the product, we buy for compulsive or impulsive reasons; we buy just to fill the void, to forget emptiness… emptiness?  That is a personal quest that each individual most take before the virus fulfills its mission and turns mankind into an Obsolete Species.

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