What You Need to Understand About Modern Technology and You, and the Past By Pardon R K Gumbo

In one of my previous articles, I hinted that modern technology is somewhat becoming indistinguishable from magic, and that there are many people today who also share this view with me, it is not a new view; so much has already been said about it.

From the beginning of time, man has struggled to understand his environment, but without much success even today. Man found himself naked on earth against the harsh elements of nature. Cold weather made him aware of the need to clothe himself and make a fire to warm himself and build a shelter. A grumbling stomach made him realise he needed to look for food, thirsty made him look for water. So far so good, but then came a whole host of problems he could not explain. Thunder and lightning, disease and death. Gradually, however, some other men managed, in a small way, to control some of these diseases by strange ways and trickery. Their techniques could only be explained as magic. For thousands of years the belief in magic and witchcraft was very strong among the ancient communities. And even today nothing can eliminate it completely; there are still communities in some parts of the world who still practice it with varying degrees of success.

Religions came at a later stage, with Christianity trying to eliminate the belief in magic and witchcraft with a more coherent set of beliefs based on the concept of an Almighty God who is responsible for all things on earth since he is the creator. Other religions enhanced the beliefs in magic and witchcraft. And still other religions quickly merged with magic and witchcraft to the extent that they became indistinguishable. But still so many questions remained unanswered, so many issues still needed to be explained.

In an effort to answer most of the questions that could not be explained by religions and magic, science emerged and went through various stages of evolvement until it reached the stages it is today, the stages which are now merging modern digital technologies with ancient magic and witchcraft. So we can safely ask; is modern technology moving forwards or backwards? Are ancient magic and witchcraft the most advanced forms of science? And, by implication, is society and civilisation also sliding unconsciously backwards with technology? Is technology trying to get us back to where we were before? I have heard people talk about the Lost Civilisation.

There seems to be always more questions than answers.

Whatever the case may be, I suppose we have no control over it, let us therefore make the best of what is within our scope and forget the rest.