We went shopping the other day for my friend who needed a computer system. We all have the same feeling that if you stopped going to the tech stores and went back a year later, you would be shocked by how NEW things became. Just like when I went back to China last spring, I couldn't recognize any of the cell phones for sale. But I used to be an expert on fansy phones!
It happened again that day when we walked in to a Circuitcity store. I suddenlt noticed something's not right about a new LCD TV, or HDTV. I came closer to the TV and watched more attentivelty, and I realize that there's nothing wrong with it, just tooooo clear. Its high resolution display makes everything in the movie so detailed that it takes some time to form a complete image in your mind. What's the trick? A sleek super-slim Blue-Ray DVD.
I was standing there, thinking, until my friend inspired me about what I was trying to express: this thing is surreal, it's even clearer and brighter than reality! Yeah, for a long time, things beyond reality are besieging us, but nothing "blows" me away like this. Fundamentally, we are living in a world where more and more things are not real, above real, repressing real. Why? Because all these excessive technology created by Capitalism.
HDTV is pouring more detailed info than human eyes can catch. Windows Vista is more complicated but less convenient than XP. An 24'' LCD for my PC makes my head shake hundreds times a day! Our phone is no longer a phone, buy a information center which provides us with everything from weather to GPS. Make no mistakes, I love Apple Air, but I am just wondering are we using our talent and resource in the right direction? Can Capitalism give people a break and let them think about what they really need and what's not? What's more real than reality? Are we happier in a virtual reality? Is it better to stay in a movie threatre for a visual pageantry or travel in a world of forestry? Which green is greener: a tree outside your window or a picture in your computer? Which fortune is more solid, salary from work or investment in margins?
In a world full of great modern technologies and poisoned by poverty and misery, I am confused more than ever. It is said that Capitalism is the most efficient system to allocate resource, but for whom? Looking closely, it is the most efficient system to reduce cost in micro economics, but definitely not the one for macro perspective. The waste and squandering are driven by teh greed of human nature. Postmodern capitalism is watering and feeding that desire relentlessly.
Creative destruction. I have seen its work in the rise of America and China, and the collapse of the Chinese and American capital market. How powerful!
Should I be hopeful of a higher virtuality?
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