Caught in the net

I relocated my family down from Atlanta to Mexico City a couple weeks ago. We're living in a beautiful neighborhood, in a flat. And we love it here (Condesa) -- it's amazing in practically every way imaginable. As I was reading the linked article, it struck me that one of the reasons that we are enjoying our honeymoon period is that we are less isolated in this urban setting than we were in our suburban "cabin in the woods" in Georgia. We stroll outside, and meet the neighbors and enjoy the plentiful street cafes. And Tacos!

It also struck me that one of the main sources of stress and arguments since moving here is that our internet provider, who is selling us 300MBps fiber service, installed their router/wifi access point in one of the bedrooms, surrounded by glass and thick concrete walls, meaning that the signal did not propagate to the rest of the apartment very well. We have literally moved countries, and are not proficient in the language or culture, and the main thing that has pissed everyone off (myself included, no doubt) is that we Facebook videos stutter or don't work at all while we're sitting on the toilet.

Don't fret about us though! Yesterday, I finally had some network technicians over and put in a fine new set of wireless access points. One in the back of the apartment, and one in the front. Cutting-edge technology, and now we can get 200+ MBps connections practically anywhere in our flat. Even the toilet.

A man is teaching his friend's son the finer points of the Queen's Indian Defense. Three teenagers are planning a camping trip, scouring every detail of the map to find the perfect site. Two old friends reminisce about their days in the navy. A young girl hears Maisky playing Bach's Cello Suite No.1 and starts to wonder where she can get a cello from. A Syrian man is learning how to say "I love you" in German.

What are all these zombies doing, staring at their phones?

The thing is all of them probably think its a good idea to do what they are doing.

That is probably so cause it worked for them, one way or the other.

So in conclusion all will stay the same until something better comes around and shows it is better. Technological progress.

Even the best conversationalists of yore would be hard-pressed to provide temporally scalable entertainment on demand 24x7x365 with personalized attentiveness, then momentarily fold down in to a pocket-sized container when no longer required.

It's no wonder that mobile devices are harvesting brain time ... people on the whole are still mentally weak, predictable, ego-first primates seeking the next neurotransmitter hit: anarchist theory be damned.