Okay, this is my "catch up" post. So ...did you here the one about the baby tomato that kept falling behind? His mother stepped on him and said: "Now Ketchup!" Questions, questions, questions. I think for starters I'd like to ask this: Can the created become the creator? More specifically, has technology become an independent force that renders the society that produced it technologically fatalistic (think: "Hard Determinism")? Please indulge me whilst we go back to some basics: God created man. Man created machine. Machine changes the course of human history? Nope sorry, I don't buy it. I embrace the tenets of “free will’ and reason. An inanimate object is the product and agent of the human culture that created it. Technology must follow a necessary path within the structure of that which we label “society”. It must be imagined, discovered, developed, constructed, tested, marketed, distributed, purchased and utilized. (I am sure I missed a few). At every stage of technological development a “human touch”, is necessary to advance it. Why has society become so willing to abdicate its place as first mover? The idea that man has “succumbed” to the panacea feebly advanced as “progress” (read that as technological determinism) is truly beyond me. I can’t accept anything that runs contrary to THE NATURAL DESIGN. “What the hell is he talking about?” I hear you saying (I think). FLASBACK: I am 9 years old. I have seen “2001 A space Oddity” and I am intrigued. I flip on the radio and I hear: “ In the year 2525”. Okay, let me just come out and say it. These fabulous inventions…do we really need them? Do we want them? Do they improve the quality of our lives? I can say with great certainty that young men and women living their lives during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were asking the very same questions. So…Let me ask you: Do you really believe your life is better with today’s technologies, or could you be just as happy living without cellphones and computers in the Hippie Dippy days of 1969? As for me, I have fond memories.