The Interconnectivity of Things, or "How the Hell Did THAT Happen?"

Well, it has been quite some time since I added anything to my blog. Actually, it has been quite some time since I wrote anything at all! Unless maybe you count my recovery journal, but that was only for a month or three. And the occasional post over in the Paganism group, I guess. But anyway, as this is my first attempt at writing something interesting in a while, I expect it to be all over the place and probably not as "tight" as some of my other essays and works of madness. But I will get back into the groove soon enough!

So, I was giving this some thought the other day..........famous fucking last words there, huh? Anyway, have you ever REALLY given some thought to how everything is so interconnected? I mean, things are so dependent on each other and I was trying to figure out just HOW that came about. Sort of like a "chicken and the egg" kind of thing. But I was on my way to work the other morning, driving my 2007 Jeep, and I passed this guy in an old-ass Model T. He was on a side street, waiting to cross the main street I was on, but I thought to myself "That is pretty fucking cool!" I have a solid appreciation for well-preserved things like cars and whatnot.

A short time later, I noticed I needed some gas, so I stopped and had the pump going, and I started thinking about the tech involved in the automobile, from the Model T to what I was in. Now, it is certainly no secret that the original auto was not fueled by gasoline. Steam and even electricity showed up on the scene, which is somewhat understandable. Certainly, petroleum was known and used for a wide variety of things, including as a fuel, stretching far back into the dim mists of time. But how and why in the hell did some fucking guy think, "WOW! If I can figure out a way to refine this black bubbly tarry shit, I can totally figure out a way to develop an entirely new technology concerning internal combustion, whatever that is. I can force it into a cast piece of iron at JUST the right moment, set it on fire and let it explode, then harness that force somehow and make it perform work. Of course, I will have to figure out things like camshafts and valves and timing and cooling and a hundred other things. I will have to adapt existing tech in ways never thought of and create entirely new tech as I go." "But what the hell, I have a few hours to kill!"

We take shit like this for granted now. Nobody gives a thought to the process, the getting from the very first concept to the 2019 SUV or family car. Nobody ever considers that as the tech behind refining fuel got better and better the vehicles could get more and more advanced as well. Or the logical progression between gasoline and diesel. If you can use fuel in a gas engine with an octane rating in the 85 to 100 range, you get FAR better performance and economy as well as allowing the use of a far smaller engine to get that performance and economy, than you do if your fuel has a 30 or 40 octane rating.

But once we had an internal combustion engine and the ability to refine fuel, we exploded. Land, air, sea, rail......there was no stopping forward progress. Now we have turbines and jets and rockets, and we branched out in our fuels to nuclear isotopes. We power things with storage batteries made from lithium and other exotic minerals. We use the wind and the sea and the Sun for power. All because some dude way back in the dim mists of time had a thought "Wonder what would happen if I touched this black bubbly tarry shit with some fire?"

But that's not all! Have you ever thought about all of the bullshit that went into that box of Mac and Cheese you are eating? Or that bar of soap you washed your smelly ass with? ANYTHING made of plastic? The chemistry involved in processing food, using ingredients and additives to enhance the perceived and subjective satisfaction of the masses who you hope like hell will pay their hard-earned money for your product, the chemical art of turning a hydrocarbon and some polymers into a fucking plastic fork that will not degrade for a thousand years? And this is relatively simple shit! Don't even try and think about some of the twisted, warped, unreal poisonous compounds from those folks at Monsanto. All the shit they came up with to spray on the jungle in Vietnam. All the shit they come up with to spray the coca fields in Columbia. All the shit they try and dump in out of the way places because it is so fucking poisonous it will last a thousand years too.

It all starts with some guy having a thought. And when you get to today, things are so interconnected so (relatively) quickly that nobody even thinks about it anymore. It just is.

Think about sports and entertainment. Used to be, you wanted to watch baseball, you went to a game. But because some guy thought "It sure would be nice to be able to communicate with someone farther away than I can yell", we eventually ended up with radio. Then some dude thought "I bet that if I broadcast this game on this radio thingy, people would listen". I could create an entirely new tech and revolutionize an existing tech by convincing people that other people would listen. And if they listen, I could convince them to buy your shit. And you could pay me for that." Then some guy thought "Hell, if they will listen to the radio, just think of what they would be willing to pay if they could watch it on this little tiny fucking box IN THEIR OWN GODDAMN HOUSE!" Hell, now we have a multi-hour sporting event that millions watch just for the shit being sold at half-time and TV's that have so much high def that your brain can't process it all and that are so big you need a special room in your house just for the fucking TV.

How did we get from some guy having a thought about cement to buildings that are a mile fucking tall? From walking across a log on the river to bridges that can carry thousands of cars and trucks and trains and millions of pounds? From scratching something in the mud to Microsoft Word? Who in the HELL had the first thought about building a box out of shit that is heavier than water and then pushing that fucker out into the ocean with someone inside, just to see if it would float. And then....."Fuck! It floats! Lets see if we can make one that sails UNDER the water! And lets go REALLY deep too!" Or from a Chinese guy having a thought about mixing these three totally different things together to see if they explode to fireworks to "This rocket is PERFECTLY safe! Just get in, strap down, and you will be on THE FUCKING MOON in no time" to thinking that diving into a Black Fucking Hole will get you across the known universe in record time?

"Houston, we have a problem"

I'm 57 years old. I remember a time when there were no computers. No cell phones. No microwaves. No non-stick teflon coatings, no dishwashers, and when internal combustion engines were powered by something called a "carburator". I remember when we were still confined to our own planet and our greatest achievement as a species was a basketball-sized object in the sky that beeped. No quantum anything. TV'S were all smaller than 27 inches, weighed 30 pounds and had cathode ray tubes. Wrigley Field and the Cubs only playing day games because there was no lights on the field.

I remember when Americans were welcomed everywhere, and when people said "the Americans are coming" it wasn't a curse. I remember when only hippies and jazz musicians smoked weed and everyone knew it was a gateway drug that led directly to heroin. I remember when Gloria convinced a generation of women to burn their bras and stand up to demand equal treatment. When guys wore makeup and tight clothes and huge hair and played rock and roll. Hell, I remember when Bob Dylan and Kieth Richards were young!

I remember a time before HIV, AIDS, and HEP C. Before MRSA. Before meth. Before RC's. I even remember when weed was considered to be the best shit ever at 5 to 7% THC!

I'm rambling a bit now, I now. But my point is that I have lived through some of the inter-connectivity we all take for granted today. I remember Gates and Jobs and people saying they were crazy and to invest any money would be like throwing it away. I remember the slow but steady progression from wall mounted phones to desk phones to pagers (remember those!) to satellite phones, to flip phones to smart phones. The time when microwaves started showing up in convenience stores and finally in homes. I remember sitting in front of a console TV that was all of 19 inches with my mom and dad, and watching comedies and westerns and cartoons. One 3 1/2 inch speaker in front. It had a record player AND a reel to reel tape machine as part of the console! Going from records to 8 track to cassette to CD to DVD. VHS and betamax tapes.

Makes me kind of wonder what is next. What can I hope to see in my next 50 years? Will the inter-connectivity become so advanced that we somehow all become one? Maybe we decide on going digital as a species and download consciousness into some kind of universal matrix. Maybe some guy gets a common cold and has a thought......I wonder what would happen if I genetically modified this to only attack people with a certain racial characteristic. Or can I make it infect only Democrats and Liberals"?

"What the hell, I have a few hours....."

Drug:

• Alcohol