The God of Technology

I wondered what that might involve: going back to being the noble savage? (The ignoble savage would,of course,be running after animals with spears,in search of lunch.) Living in caves,painting on the walls,eating grass and leaves and wearing clothes made of the same? (Never wear a Speedo or bikini made of fig leaves,they have these fine,itchy hair all over) But yes,technology would kill us all,just you wait.

Um,I would have been dead if it had not been for technology, I admitted. I have a pacemaker and was once on a heart-lung machine for almost an hour thats pretty hi-tech.

There was a deathly silence. I didnt dare go on to add that not only did I have a pacemaker but the prototypes of the damn thing had most likely been tested on innocent chimpanzees and dogs to whom I owe my life too. Nowadays,of course,what with laptops,tablets and smartphones and all kinds of berries,without which no environmentalist can save the world or get a grant,high tech is accepted as a necessary evil. But it still makes many bristle: they just cant see the beauty in something that has been as perfectly machined as any work of art (like a Formula One racing car engine,for example),or the marvellous magic that takes place so that you can talk across the world on your cell-phone about global warming (though usually,youre talking to the person standing right next to you about who said what to whom and why). I still go gaga when I watch a factory production line at work time and motion in perfection the way those bottles fill up with beer and are capped and march on,hup-two-three-four-hup-two-three-four. And I still stare with my mouth open every time I see something as cumbersome as a 747 lift off gracefully,or touch down like a super-heavyweight ballerina.

Hi-tech is beautiful. And who do you think is the main sponsor and chief perpetrator and patron of hi-tech? The God of All Technology? Nature,of course. Shes behind it all. I needed a hi-tech battery powered pacemaker only because my own even higher-tech natural pacemaker had gotten irrevocably damaged. Till recently,we couldnt understand how insects flew now that we do (well,mostly),weve developed our own robot insects which try to fly the same way. A dragonfly has over 28,000 individual lenses in each eye and presumably sees perfectly (and never needs contact lenses or cataract operations). As for destructive technology can we beat what the sun can do,or even when theres an earthquake or cloudburst? Sure we can destroy the whole world with a push of the button,but nature thought of it first. Whatever we can think of,shes already thought of and if shes found a need for it developed far beyond our capabilities.

A lot of good people get hot under the collar when you mention nuclear energy or say,GM foods. Dirty,dangerous,exploitative,theyll be the death of us no point furthering research in them,ban them,ban thinking about them. The trouble is,no matter what we discover or do,there will always be plenty of scope for abuse and misuse. Theres destructive potential in everything. Its for us to make the right choices. But thats no reason to stop trying to develop and discover newer and higher technologies. Thats no excuse to shut down our brains and go back to chasing animals with spears for lunch. Besides,the human brain is probably the highest-tech entity that we know of yet. That,of course,and the technology that makes a furiously wriggling tadpole head-butt a little ball and boom make yet another little baby.