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Not so long ago, the average citizen (if there is such a person) scoffed at the idea that someone would be interested in their mostly mundane life.
Think again.
Now that almost anyone can be tracked through internet connections, we are told to be careful before putting what appears to be insignificant information about ourselves on Facebook and other such programs.
And we understand that we need to protect identification numbers such as Social Security, passport or driver’s license information, and any other personal information that could be misused to gain access to our financial and other affairs.
Why not take these cute quizzes – the ones that ask you where you’ve traveled or a list for you to tick off some not-so-smart activities you may have done in your youth? Or maybe it’s a list of likes and dislikes to check out. What harm can result from it?
Our likes or dislikes are tracked for the marketing of products, or for political advantage and other research reasons when we use the different versions of the electronic media available to us.
I am not advocating fear of these handy tools, but a conscious awareness of how certain readily available information can be abused and misused to create mischief by people with a program or by thieves looking for it. opportunities.
What an amazing time to be alive, to see the possibilities of communication now open to people all over the world. This week I watched a few Olympic competitions and saw testimonials of the years of training and wrestling that contributed to their achievements.
But communication can only go so far as helping to build a better world that allows all groups of people, and the individuals within those groups, to work to become the best in themselves.
As the Information Age progresses, sometimes we may want to run for the silence of a cave. It is the modernist Gertrude Stein, in her Reflection on the Atomic Bomb, who said: “Everyone receives so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. “
Most of us today understand exactly what she means. The moral decline and subsequent collapse of American cities testify to his statement.
Benjamin Franklin is not disconnected as he witnessed the birth of hope in a new nation with this observation: “A lapse of foot that you may soon recover, but a slippage of the tongue that you will not overcome maybe never. ” (Poor Richards Almanac)
General Omar Bradley said 73 years ago in a speech in Boston: “The world has reached brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. “
We are gaining unparalleled means of destruction and advancing beyond Earth into space, all aided by new knowledge that continues to lead to wonderful inventions.
So where is our incredible communication headed today?
What do we really have to say that God allows us to preach pompous and even fratricidal paternalism within our own cities?
The human desire to create gods who obey our orders is an ancient practice that never ends well. It will be even worse with today’s “enlightened†attempts to refurbish old failed government lies such as Marxism, which still kills millions of people. It’s just another form of autocratic terror rule that the self-proclaimed elites fund to pretend goodwill by promising to make the elite poor.
Ask the Cubans how it’s going today. Carefully read the Bible prophets: “… Thus righteousness is rejected, and righteousness is kept at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. (Isaiah 59:14 NIV)
Beth Pratt retired after 25 years as a religious editor of the Avalanche-Journal.
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