Mahavishnu

Now, you may wonder if in the process of outsourcing my thinking I am losing my individuality. Not so. My preferences are more narrow and individualistic than ever. It’s merely my autonomy that I’m losing.

I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind.

-Bobo Brooks

Wow, man. Whoa. And, like. This whole solar system might be, just, like, one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being.

Folks, I am obviously no opponent of recreational drug use. Indeed, I recommend it. On the other hand, I've got precious little patience with those who make claims under the banner of, "It expands your mind, man." You know the sort. They believe that their cannabinoids, their tryptamines, their lysergic acid diethylamide don't simply jigger with the brain chemistry in interesting, unusual, sometimes frightening, sometimes eye-opening ways, but that these chemicals actually "break open the head," in the famous phrase, and expose the mind to the springs of the source of all understanding. In other words, they confuse the amusement park for the library, and therefore fully benefit from neither. I have had many revelations, I'll tell you, while smoking pot, and not-a-one of them held up in the harsher light of sobriety. That isn't an insult. I love me some roller coasters. But I accede to the transcendental limits of the experience.

I bring this up because similarly transcendental claims are often made by technologists. Glenn Reynolds and his squad of undersexed transhumanists indulge such fantasies, as do many writers of science fiction, people who use the term "singularity," and gadget enthusiasts like Brooks for whom technology is essentially magic--who look at a television, say, or worse an iPod as sui generis, impenetrable, and, to use the popular word, transformative. They could just as easily convince themselves that the path to enlightenment involved going to Africa and chewing on some iboga. Futurism and primitivism are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.