Here is the REALLY sad thing... I do not even know half of what these dang features on my phone mean. I could have my phone set to something that it should not be set to, that I do not even know about. That scares me. I am not a stupid person but I am also not tech savvy in the least. All as I do with this phone is email every now and then, text a lot, talk on the phone and access the internet. That is it. I feel like this stuff is way more technical than it needs to be. Why can't these companies just have a phone that is a lot more user friendly for people who are not as smart as the kids these days, and these techy types of people. I have tried to learn a lot of this stuff and there is just way too much to follow and understand. I am highly misguided and wish that there were a website for people like myself (as stupid as it sounds), who is a smart person but just not when it comes to technical gadgets that a person has to have on a daily basis. I have no idea how I lived without this thing in the 80's without breaking down on the freeway and having nobody to call. Or, how I got through school without it either. However, I have no idea what half of these features even mean. Whenever I give it to a kid who can help me out with it, they simply try to look through all of my stuff... I then have to rip it out of their hands immediately. I do know that I try to set EVERYTHING to private. I am pretty convinced that there is never going to be enough privacy, or there is something that I missed setting to private due to there being so many things that a person has to set to private. This thing is on the verge of making me paranoid. ;-) Why can't there be a simple online class/instructions for each brand of phone out there (Iphone, Smartphone, etc...) that shows a person how to use every single feature, or at least shows what it does or is used for. I am sure that I am speaking for many of us middle aged and older people out there too. This stuff can really get to be a difficult mess if you aren't careful. Well... Even if you are careful. I actually know of people who will not even have a cellphone due to the difficulty they have just using a computer. It's such a difficult mess for them. Unfortunately, they are some of the people who need a cellphone the most too. It would be nice if they made a phone with huge buttons that you could read too. That way our older generation can use these too. Just my rant for the day. Thank you for those of you who actually read this. I did not mean for it to become a novel.
I am 55 y.o. I got my first smartphone about four years ago. It was a Samsung Galaxy S3. Looking back, that was a pretty sophisticated smartphone for a newcomer to these devices. Shortly after delving into that phone, but for hours on end and out of my obsession with, what is basically acomputer with phone and international communication capacities with persons from all over the world in real time. Than, I knew that this invention was going to change the world. At the time, I thought this was going to result in a powerful advancement in the positive connection between people, both on the political level and also that it would generate unity, plus a great sense that we were all inhabitants of this beautiful earth that we shared.
I thought that there would be a collective elevation in global consciousness and that people would finally really come together to realize our collective concerns. I thought that the coming changes would be revolutionary as we recognized our commonality. Then we would overthrow the brutal regimes of the world, like China.
Alot of these thoughts and feelings came from the recent Arab Spring - which for a brief moment gave me the hope that the People of of the earth, or "the masses," if you will, would push back to restore democracy and democratic ideals back to the countries of the world. I thought that the Arab Spring might catch and spread like a wildfire back to the rest of the world and maybe even to the US so We took back the power that had been systematically stripped over the decades. But, alas the Arab Spring was crushed. It was likely just another cynical maneuver to oust leaders the fascist elite and US govt . decided were done, and all of those shenanigans, ad nauseum.
I actually really thought that this amazing mobile communication device/computer would enable/empower the people into galvanize against the universal oppressors, finally.
I thought all of this because, at that time, I thought that people, in general, were inherently good; that they sought to progress if given the chance by nature. If given the means and opportunity the "people" would seek to the betterment of mankind as a whole.
When I first saw the Google busses come to my city, I excitedly thought profound positive change was to come. These busses symbolized, so I thought, the coming social advances in the concepts of community and community building. Exciting new concepts, like community based ride shares entered into my town with Lyft, Sidecar and so forth. Small, lean new startups, like Republic Mobilephone were offering the new business model with fewer employees - as they were lean w little overhead and prices that beat out the giant monster, greedy corporate hegemony of ATT, Verizon, et al. These new socially conscious companies would surely out compete the giants, bringing back small business by wresting the power away from the Corporations. The power could shift back to the people! This couldn't come sooner, I thought with a renewed sense of hope!
My idea was that the new technology would bring very good things. That it would restore balance and bring the country back to the representative govt it was intended -as the people were empowered by the new phones and the tech revolution that was exploding in San Francisco.
San Francisco - the one city that was the cutting edge of everything in the world, or at least in the US; the avant of everything that I considered progressive and good. Things that were true to my ideals - like freedom of expression, tolerance, educational and spiritual enlightenment and all knowledge.. It was the cutting edge for the advancement of philosophy, literature and the arts. San Francisco was the home of the gay movement, the women's liberation movement, the Black Panthers, etc..
Boy, was I wrong. The mobile phone or the "smartphone" w all of its concomitant technologies was just used against humanity - and for nefarious data gathering purposes that resulted in the absolute destruction of personal liberty, social freedom and personal privacy. Its been deployed to track, monitor, persecute and even, in my opinion finally destroy the the individual by stripping him or her of innate "humanity" or "personhood," if you will.
This phone along w the technology rapidly reduced the "human being" into a "thing" and to "use value".
Humanity just crashed hard, while our political process usurped by the govt and the corporate, techno overlords in a deep marriage against the civilian population - just within the last four years, brutally force fed all of us the predestined techno-fascist future they envisioned eons ago. (And while we were sleeping and fighting their wars).
The rich are even richer, while the rest sorely struggle just to barely make it, at all. While the youthful tech-elite workers enjoy their brief bask in their special sun of heightened status and wealth, the globalist agenda inevitably will cream them too. Their jobs are already in the crosshairs of the globalists agenda in which Obama recently signed off the H1 work visa for non citizen foreigners, who gladly accept half of American grade wages, to replace citizens for cheaper labor. We had "outsourcing" in which our jobs went overseas to cheaper labor. This is "in-sourcing," in which now they just come in and take your job right from you. The American tech worker has to train the Pakistani who replaced him. This actually happened at Disney Corporation already. The US is being reduced to another tortured third world Brazilian Favella..
Then those now wining and dining elite techie workers will later join the welfare line along w the rest of us discarded to the useless scrapheap of all work that is no longer valued or needed. I hope some of them look pretty chagrined by then for all of their self satisfied snobbery towards their less fortunate fellows...
I've not more to say, but that the whole thing has been a terrible disapointment. I was very naive. Everything that could have been for the greater good just went right to the rich - do not pass go.
The "People" as it turned out are abysmally selfish and ignorant. They showed themselves as petty and nasty; reducing themselves to tearing each other apart for the few crumbs scattered about before them by the Zueckerbergs and Schmidt's of this day.
People proved to be mean, more selfish and apolitical then ever. I observed that "People" tend towards lashing out at eachother, rather than recogniing their common oppressor and uniting in their best interests. The great economic demise, that really took off in 2008 was only greased by people's indifference and lassitude both politically and towards one another.
I am so depressed about how it's all turned out. These phones are now our enemy. Because they are the sheer strength and power behind the State and the Oligarchic chokehold of control. We are worse off than ever before! These phones are the death knell of democracy. Of humanity, even. And the death of my once beloved city. This place was my heart's home for 53 years. This San Francisco.
I left my heart in San Francisco, not because I visited and left her. But for that sweet magical city that I loved, died. Technology came and was the bane. Not the hope for humanity, that I once imagined.
Now, mostly I feel afraid when I use my phone. I only really like listening to music, now on my ZTE PRO MAX. I know that cannot hurt me too much. But, yeah, we're all pretty much toast - since pretty much no one really gives a ****. And then they happily sold the next guy down the river...
Only God can do what we cannot seem to do for ourselves. Which is, to think and act for ourselves as a collective - that is with all of our best interests at heart. It is all about heart. Whether or not a person has heart is what is important. Most people are without heart nor do they possess character - they are not worth mentioning.
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