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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Luddite Holiday

Had a break of five long days. Five days without a computer, bliss and no posts. Over the last year, I've developed a persistent neck pain from too much computer time. Rounds of physio didn't help, and neither did a neck manipulation. A five day break was needed, and, hence, the enforced luddism. For more on luddism, go here for a host of links.

My computer is trying to kill me.

Hopefully, the new job (three days to go) will mean less computer time. I am so stoked about this new job, for the first time in my life I'm actually excited about a job. I get to run a campaign (as a social activist for an organisation that strongly encourages membership in a trade union) to save the environment.

Well, to be correct, the environment can't be destroyed (barring the complete obliteration of the planet), but the kind of environment human beings could happily live in is under threat. I'll admit that wiping out the human species is a pretty hard thing to do--we can raise the global temperature, flood the coasts, chop down rainforests, kill of species by the thousands, overfish every inch of seas, and still the species will stumble on, living off tofu and algae I guess--but that's not the point. The point is that we are changing the environment in ways that are contrary to our interests. It is in our interests to have oceans with fish, coastal areas above water, rainforests, old growth timber. A world without these things (replaced, one would imagine, by concrete and monoculture) seems like a world less worth living in. And, for that reason alone (and barring any thoughts about intrinsic rights of other creatures) we should change our present course. No one else is going to do, there will be no god to bail us out.

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