I wrote this on January 24th, 2011 for a humanities class. It was about Technology and Society. I found it very interesting and the story you are about to read was when we were speaking on nano-technology and how it might affect culture. This was a response to another essay we wrote called The Machine Stops. I haven’t read it in quite a while and I may expand the story line a bit and make a 2nd version. Anyways, enough backstory. Enjoy.
All Natural
The year was 2111. My house, as well as everyone else’s, was not only made completely of recycled material, but also completely self-sufficient. The water recycled itself. We can now harness the power of the sun like never before, negating the need for electrical power grids. There was no more trash, as everything now was recyclable waste. We finally did it. Earth and the nations in it reached a sustainability level that allowed us to be the most earth-friendly era ever. But, it came with a heavy cost to humanity. In an effort to save the earth, we may have lost ourselves.
Shawn and I would get together regularly and discuss the latest advancements and his lectures at the university. We had been friends for many years, but had our disagreements, often about sustainability and the latest updates in the nanoworld. Instead of becoming slave to machines like many predicted, we are slaves to trees, plants, recycling factories, and nanotechnology. Technology has advanced and when that happens, things usually become smaller. So small in fact, that electrical chips were implanted into humans as a standard practice. They had got chips for everything. Were your children misbehaving, you could just adjust their mood with your parent module. Were you having aches? Adjust your hormones for “natural” pain killing with your life module. But, I refused to be regulated by such machines.
I was one of the last few who have resisted the urge to assimilate to our nanoculture. It had become regulation for doctors to implant liquid metal with nanochips into infants at the age of 1 month. Scientists have found ways to intercept, interpret, and change what electronic signals in our bodies do. It was possible for someone to be controlled by a remote. With our bodies being regulated so carefully, more attention was given to the planet and global sustainability. All communication lines were wireless. Using wires had become obsolete except for the making of the insides of components. But usage was still radically reduced with the introduction of nanotechnology. Forests were completely protected. Forestry was heavily regulated so that the consumption stayed below the rate of growth. So, in essence, earth is gaining her forests back one tree at a time. Animal protection was at an all time high and was highly regulated as well. Animals that were used for food had become organic and all natural. Almost all metals used were recyclable. Almost, the exception is the metal used in our nanotechnology. A new element had been fabricated allowing liquid metal to run in people’s veins. This liquid metal then carries the microscopic circuit chips to regulate the body. I saw it as humans who are now robots, just without all the other wires and metal rods. Shawn did not see it this way.
Shawn constantly told me about how great he felt. He regarded my robot analogy as ridiculous. He argued that we were just better at regulating our bodies now.
“Shawn, you have a remote control to tell your body how to feel. If you don’t like it then you hit a button and it changes. You’re exactly like a robot.”
“But robots don’t have hearts.”
“So you’re telling me, we know how to regulate body functions better than the body itself? I don’t buy it Shawn. What’s to keep people from completely abusing the system and using it to force others to do their bidding?”
“Quit being cynical, that won’t happen.” I wondered. But Shawn refused to even consider this possibility. I sure hoped he was right.
Shawn had not seen a doctor since 2081. That was when he assimilated. He is now 50 and will probably live to be about 130 or so. The only active doctors now were for emergencies or assimilation. People would get check-ups every 20 years to ensure their body was handing the technology well and that things are working properly. I had to see a “specialist,” who used old technologies such as x-ray machines, defibrillators, and even medicine, because I was all natural. It was very expensive though because those methods were difficult to keep up to date and medicine was hard to come by. Shawn would remind me, “at least you are eating all natural food.”
I always thought that there should have been a compromise, but it was all or nothing for the rest of the world. I tried to keep my farms organic and used earth friendly equipment for keeping them up. I had 40 acres of corn that I grew. I sold most of it to the fuel industry. Some of it went to the food district. Before the regulations, I would grow as much as I wanted to. After sustainability had been achieved there was plenty of corn produced globally, so I had been severely restricted to not overproduce. The majority of my produce was used locally. It kept logistics to a minimum. This sounded ideal, from one perspective. Then there was my neighbor John. His farm was completely retrograded. With an abundance of corn being produced around the world, his farm was shut down by regulations. He was told he could grow something else; he was given a list. So, he is trying his hand at growing algae as it is now used in multiple fields of manufacturing, various products, and energy. He hated it though. He was one who was not assimilated either.
We met in a group weekly. There were a few thousand of us left worldwide. There were about 30 in our local community. We called ourselves “The Naturals.” We shared advice that we had gathered from the doctors we had visited.
Penny, my daughter, thought I was pigheaded and old-fashioned. She assimilated. She also did not know what she believed. We had seen it time and time again. Over the past 15 years, people have become more and more zombie-like. Everything is 9 to 5 for her. She would wake up, eat breakfast, go to her job, and return home. For exercise she would run. She hated running when she was growing up. She used to love gymnastics and dance. When she became ‘infected’, she stopped. She said it was more efficient to run.
When I asked if she even enjoyed running, she would sigh, “Dad, running is just better okay? Dance was just kid stuff and my nanocells get more benefits from running. And besides, dancing requires taking classes and learning some steps that never serve a purpose.”
“But you loved it.”
“I’m not that person anymore dad.”
That was one thing we agreed on. I remember watching her dance. It was beautiful, emotional, and passionate. But the joy that she used to have was gone. She was not the only one who was affected like this. Many of my friends who were musicians and had loved to make music no longer did. Instruments are becoming obsolete, as they were considered a waste environmental resources. If one wanted to make music, it was synthesized on a computer. The passion of being alive was leaving us. Creativity had all but left us. Life was now about being efficient, treating the earth right, and sustaining humanity. As the earth was becoming all natural, the human race was becoming more machine-like.
Then it happened, rather suddenly. As if the mainframes for our nanoworld just took over. The 30 of us who are still all natural were not affected of course. There seemed to be a control issue. My daughter began behaving oddly, as well as our neighbors. But it was much larger than that. It had become a global crisis. There were reports of people becoming intoxicated with their own hormones. Others had become very violent. Some had fallen into deep depression. The nanosystems began to fail.
I took Penny to my personal doctor. He was able to drain the liquid metal and the nanochips in her system. Once she recovered from the operation, she opened her eyes as if for the first time, like she had been reborn. She began to gradually change back into someone I had once known, someone who once loved to dance. As time passed, she adjusted to being without the technology in her system. One day, I played an old song from the days of instruments and it seemed to move her. She felt something. The urge to move came over her and step-by-step, she danced again. She did a twirl and tripped. As I went to help her up, I saw something that had been absent for too many years. Tears of joy ran down her cheeks as she laughed and smiled. Her passion had returned to her and what made her human had been restored. She got her soul back.
" Photo Credit: seanbjack (Flickr Creative Commons)
