The Anchoress
In the classic film “Desk Set,” Spencer Tracey’s engineer asks Katharine Hepburn’s librarian if she’d ever seen a demonstration of IBM’s new “electric brain”:
RICHARD SUMNER: (Tracey)
Did you ever see one of these electronic brains work?
BUNNY WATSON: (Hepburn)
Just this morning, as a matter of fact, I saw a demonstration at IBM.
SUMNER
Oh? Did you see it translate Russian into Chinese?
WATSON
Yeah. I saw it do everything. Frightening. Gave me the feeling that maybe, just maybe, people were a little bit outmoded.
SUMNER
Mmm. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they stopped making them.
I’m feeling a little bit like Bunny Watson after viewing this demonstration. Technology is certainly affecting our brains, and it is weakening our ability to focus, and scattering our thoughts like buckshot, but here we see a stunning potential for the permanent blurring of reality for those (and they will be many) who want it blurred.
Sippican Cottage says, for God’s sake, please go outside!
UPDATE I:
Via a tweet by Allahpundit, a robot officiates at a Japanese wedding…while Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, and Ave Maria play in the background.
I need to “process” this, a little.
UPDATE II:
Speaking of “reality,” get a load of the “reality” Woody Allen lives in. I guess when you are as insulated as he is, and as “permanently wealthy” as he is and as used to getting your own spoiled way about everything, the idea of dictatorship is attractive. Get all those commoners, who don’t live your charmed life, in line!
I am so weary of these stuck-up, entitled, trend-sucking, bratfaced baby-boomers.
UPDATE III:
Reality: It’s whatever they say it is
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