You probably won’t confuse James Cameron for Nostradamus but some in Grand Forks – myself included – experienced one of the themes of his film The Terminator last Wednesday.
No, we weren’t chased around by an endoskeletoned, leather-clad, sunglasses wearing Arnold Schwarzenegger, rather we became handcuffed by technology, or lack thereof.
With Shaw Cable’s switch to digital, there were some who lost their television feed and Internet access last Wednesday.
It wouldn’t seem like a big deal to some but it pretty much limited what I could do.
Without access to the online realm, I couldn’t check my email, do research for stories, put stories from that week’s issue on The Gazette website and I wasn’t even able to scan all the current sports headlines on espn.com and tsn.ca at lunch – I also couldn’t put a story on the website about the lack of Internet and television service that day.
Cameron was involved with The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and those action flicks – about a cyborg sent back in time to prevent the birth of John Connor, the leader of the future human resistance – were intended to entertain but there are some lessons we can pluck from the Sci-fi storylines.
Humans in the movie had begun to rely heavily on computers and technology and created an artificial intelligence Skynet, which became omniscient, set off the world’s nuclear weapons and created an army of robot and machines intent on exterminating humankind.
The segment of the population that survived the holocaust would be forced to fight without relying too much on technology, as Skynet controlled machines.
The third sequel of the film even had the John Connor character avoiding technology altogether as he wanted to stay off the so-called “grid.”
Staying off the grid or avoiding technology altogether is too extreme of a reaction as technology isn’t bad per se but there is a danger of using it so much that you become dependent on it.
The Internet, Facebook and Twitter aren’t bad but there might be a better way to spend your waking hours than just being online.
Technology is intended to make life easier but there’s something wrong with wanting to make your life too easy.
As they say, everything in moderation.