half way dyspepsia

I'm watching an article on CNN about the phone operators and emergency service dispatchers who had to deal with calls from people, sometimes children, asking for help, sometimes asking that there nearest be informed of their deaths. In other words the same things were happening as happened during the attacks of September 11th.

For all the technology that seems to have been bought by the Department of Homeland Security and the high tech soldiery beloved by Donald Rumsfeld and the Neocons it still comes down to boots in the water and a lot of pain when people have to be helped.

Similarly most of the really valuable media coverage comes from people who go and look not from satellite views or the CNN Situation Room (cringe).

As far as I can see the major contribution down to the internet is a set of scams aimed at relieving kind hearted people of their money through dodgy emails and web sites. And you thought people couldn't sink any lower, well there you are technology can help.

I suppose I'm feeling disenchanted. But is our dependence on technology like using the emperor's new clothes to prevent frost bite? Do we believe that a phone really is a defense against mugging rather than an invitation to it? If there is a private/public/whatever space we take with us tied to our iPods, then how disastrous will it be when that secret place is invaded or just dissappears? We start using implants, and what happens – no power or a terrorist electromagnetic pulse attack, it won't just kill those with pacemakers?

Then again do we just adapt backwards and dump the tech ... or buy some new stuff?