The post-industrial
nations of today are rightly very concerned about the public good
regards the cleanliness of the air for all. CO2 and the various
harmful trace elements within 'Nox' have - even with the EA 189
engine VW scandal – been radically reduced by car-makers from even
10 years ago.
Here then at least the
world is on a road to an improved future.
However, whilst
technology can help better our lives, 'progress' is not all good, nor
to the public good. Especially so when deployed for harmful ends in
society.
The mobile phone and
smart phone has brought a new world of communications, information
and entertainment possibility. Yet with it also, via inbuilt
capabilities and the plethora of applications, opportunities for
social good and social harm.
Whilst smart phone
video has gone far beyond the its initial jokey uses amongst families
and friends, it seems that the sound recording function is being put
to ever more pernicious use.
Such technology is, as
well known, almost the everyday preserve of the young who have grown
up with it, and view it as literally 'second nature', so
unfortunately its pernicious use seems especially prevalent amongst
that demographic; so 'natural' that it is used in such a way as part
of the everyday.
Yesterday, on a
suburban (329) London bus (at about 4.00pm), two older female
teenagers (17/18) used one of their phones to record the real-time
short phone conversation of a separate lone school-girl (15/16) sat
opposite them. Then so as to intimidate or provoke, the offender
played it back to the schoolgirl.
So as not to be
intimidated, she got up and sat next to them, and played with the
screen of her phone to demonstrate that she would not be belittled
and could easily do the same. Thereafter their ordinary conversation
stopped entirely.
“Good for you” young lady!
“Good for you” young lady!
This is Britain and
elsewhere today, wherein it seems that the disdainful behaviour of
some in childhood is further enabled by forms of technology and taken
far too normally into supposed adulthood; the ease of the process
itself and increased social normality degrading the very public space
we inhabit.
For those who have had
to endure such subtle but powerful bullying, the public space becomes a
weary realm. And obviously, if endured over years, it becomes a distrusted sphere.
Indeed (as said here for some years) invention of the smart-phone, together with increased awareness of the mind's psychological constructs, means that the tactics of old Eastern Europe's Stasi have been put into the hands of those who themselves appear to be the modern-day equals to Victorian London's “Fagin Gang”.
As seen by the rapid rise in psychologically damaged teenagers, bullying has become far too prolific, with the focus cyber-space seemingly taking precedence over the far harsher effects of everyday physical space.
Indeed (as said here for some years) invention of the smart-phone, together with increased awareness of the mind's psychological constructs, means that the tactics of old Eastern Europe's Stasi have been put into the hands of those who themselves appear to be the modern-day equals to Victorian London's “Fagin Gang”.
As seen by the rapid rise in psychologically damaged teenagers, bullying has become far too prolific, with the focus cyber-space seemingly taking precedence over the far harsher effects of everyday physical space.
It is perhaps a truism
that the moral youth of today, forced to mix with the repugnant, will
maintain a desire for their own private transport.
The city car as we
know it is ripe for revolutionary re-invention, the Japanese Kei car regulations setting the template, Daimler having led the way in the west, and with Gordon Murray's T-series expanding the proposition.
The car is reportedly dead.... “ long live the 'people's car' ”
