A campaign to “JUST SAY NO!” to further technological advance that threatens human existence, such as artificial intelligence, must be a collective effort for the entire human race, but begins with our own personal individual choices in limiting technological use, i.e. Ellul argued, “The simple fact that I carry a camera [cell phone] prevents me from grasping everything in an overall perception.”{30} The camera like the cell phone preoccupies its users, creating distance between himself and friends. The Chicago School of Media Theory. TV, computer and most recently the cell phone, these technologies never appeared as necessities but convenience, but now they are irresistible necessities. Truth is always a synthesis or combination between God’s no in judgment on sin and His yes in grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Professor of Communications John L. Locke noted that “Intimate talking, the social call of humans, is on the endangered species list.”{25} People prefer to text, or phone. The rich young ruler did not follow Christ because he could not imagine life without his wealth, the security, comfort and power it bestowed was greater than the promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ. 28. Dr. Lawrence Terlizzese uncovers a disturbing new view of technology: not as neutral, but a way of life that objectifies everything, including people. Islam is accepted as a religion of peace and compatible with Western democracies, yet no proof is ever offered to support this claim from the history of Islam. Plato’s fear of the simulacrum as described by Michael Camille is based on the distortion of real experience that the convincing image causes. . The simulacrum uses our experience of reality against us, creating a false likeness that reproduces so exactly our visual experience with the real that we cannot discern the falseness of the imitation. “We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). All those who worship idols become like them (Psalms 115). 25. “I use it because it is easy” is hardly a thought-out moral defense for one’s action! Sight brings only doubt; despite popular opinion seeing is not believing, but unbelief. I see trees of green, red roses, too, To believe as Transhumanists do that death can be overcome through technological enhancement can only result in abomination. 2. . Media images in general – in advertising, for example – signify the excess of wealth that we as citizens of the West have the prerogative of partaking in. But no writer today can succeed in his craft if he does not learn to become a more or less skillful machine operator first.” (“Digital Enthusiasm” in Chronicles [June 2014, 38.6], 33). As liquid metal conforms itself to everything it touches, it destroys the original. As evidence he provides the example of psychosomatic disorders, conditions whose surfaces are complete likenesses of real disorders yet are untreatable using standard medical techniques. Note the drift in social media from glorified email responses on Facebook to the forced shrinkage of the word to 120 characters on Twitter, to finally pictures only on Tumblr, and Instagram. Ellul, The Technological Society, xxxi. Already the Disney Corporation has changed the name of The Family Channel to Free Form, an ominous precursor to the dissolution of meaning to the sacred word family in American popular culture and its reprobate legal system. The devaluation of human life pays for the technology that is developed for the sake of expanding the frontiers of knowledge and exploration rather than creating the condition of freedom. Speaking directly to Baudrillard’s concerns, the film leaves the viewer uncertain as to when the characters are in a virtual world (see: virtuality) and when they are experiencing the real. I see friends shaking hands, sayin’, “How do you do?” The computer does not dominate the will of humanity, enforcing universal peace through fear of annihilation as in the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), but assimilates humanity digitally and recreates it in its own image or highest ideal. Under these circumstances, it is understandable that the Bible so often relates sight to sin. When it [mass media] uses a loudspeaker and crushes others with its powerful equipment, when the television set speaks, the word is no longer involved, since no dialogue is possible. Idols reduce God to the false image which then further reduces worshipers. The film follows the first experience of a bodyguard uninitiated in the world of virtual reality videogames with a new product created by the videogame designed he was hired to protect. The Neutrality View Most people take a…, The voices of some educated, thoughtful people are starting to raise questions about just how human we can remain in the face of developing technology. Mimesis replaces the traditional social environment with a technological one, an imitation or mimicry (simulacra). In world religions Buddhism stands as the most rational in its beliefs of simple universal truths leading to practical moral behavior (Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, suffering is caused by selfish desire, suffering is alleviated by limiting selfish desire, curb selfish desire through the practical application of the Eightfold Path). People are owned by their possessions, must work harder for their technology and have been reduced to cogs in the wheel of progress rather than individuals with inherent value made in the image of God. Mimesis eradicates all protest and opposition to the prevailing technological normalcy and silences all conscientious objections to the obvious or self-evident benefits (taken for granted) and blessings of technological progress. The computer atrophies human intelligence, logic, and thinking (creative and problem solving skills); through societal dependence on the computer people have forgotten how to think for themselves, and solve problems in any other way. Pilots and astronauts now train in flight simulators before taking to the air. All total systems subvert ends to means in their revolutionary beginning, such as the Napoleonic empire, fascism and communism. . Baudrillard discusses the empty functionalism of such an approach to technologies – he calls these tech objects ‘machin’ (or ‘gizmo’). Your email address will not be published. Those born into servitude accept it as normal. For Deleuze, the simulation raises the work of art beyond representation to a level where it is on equal footing with the original, and hence the original is destroyed. Critical reason is never allowed to assert differences; extremes are normalized so that everything is accepted. 22. Iconoclasm is the central liberation mission of the church in its declaration of the gospel. In the second order of language, ethics are grounded in personal choices as a product of rational criticism, which allows for meaningful differences of opinion and the free creation of values. When the work of art is viewed in such a way the consequences are not negative, on the model of Baudrillard’s dread at the impending death of the real, but instead reveal new possibilities of interpretation in a critical realm where sensation is the focus instead of meaning. Media transmits collective values directly to the social body by passing the individual consciousness. Iconoclasm then becomes the mission of the church as it proclaims the gospel and demolishes spiritual strong holds which is the battle for the mind “destroying speculations . 17. Media Theory Reading List — Jenifer Schadlick, Media Theory Reading List — Joanna Slotkin, Media Theory Reading Lists — Bernie Geoghegan, Media Theory Reading Lists — Harper Montgomery, Media Theory Reading Lists — Kasia Houlihan. The image is everywhere, but now we bestow dignity, authenticity and spiritual truth on it. 29. The lie is the devil’s (devil means liar) only weapon, always made from a position of inferiority and weakness (Revelation 20:3, 8). The failure to distinguish between reality and hyperreality constitutes the greatest dangers of the technological simulacra. . What philosopher Martin Heidegger called Dasein, “being there,” (embodiment or incarnation) is absent. “O LORD . Aerosmith, Eat the Rich, “Livin’ on the Edge,” Sony, 1993. The power of the media is everywhere in sight. According to Baudrillard, what is simulated is what is mediated and vice versa. 3. In terms of an ethic of technology biblical truth translates as limit before use or law before license. Dissent is never allowed in any total system by definition, otherwise it would not be total. In line with Baudrillard thesis on the orders of simulacra, popular cell phone use, namely texting, demonstrates regressive effects of the latter stage of simulacra: metastasis or reversal of effects. 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