Wow, what a snappy blog title. I should write for the Post.
Disclaimer: I own a 20gig Ipod and Digital Camera
I just finished leafing through what is to be my last issue of Wired magazine, the mega-techno-hip self proclaimed geek magazine with a mainstream edge, just to be edgy. Throughout the copy there are all kinds of lines dropped to ‘promote’ environmentally responsible behavior, e.g. ‘carpool in the hybrid to the New Year’s Eve party and recycle those champagne bottles.’ Also, I think Al Gore’s An Inconvient Truth is referenced a few times. You get the idea.
Now, I like their position of reporting on new technology that uses different sources of energy and promote those changes – good, great. However, the December ‘Holiday-Buying-Guide-Issue’ is about four inches thick with advertising for electronic gadgets and toys that, I believe, the publik is growing tired of. There is an ‘Andy-Rooneyness’ to this rant, but please bear with me. But what about all the tech crap they are hawking on ever other page of this magazine? Maybe a little self-restraint would go further then relying on new-better inventions and buying a hybrid vehicle, a better and more efficient model of which is coming out next and every year? How about not buying so much which will eventually get thrown away?
Wired still, I believe, has a section called ‘fetish’ where they highlight a few of the newest in electronics. Ok, at least they are honest about it. And they feel somewhat bad, guilty, whatever for getting a hard-on for these e-consumer goods when they have the intelligence to know that these material desires are fleeting. So the purge their lust at the church of environmentalism, which preaches simplicity and harmony with their surroundings. Now, I’m a follower of many of these tenants, mainly because there are great freedoms that come with it. (Creating your own Christmas gifts? Priceless. Literally.) But I am skeptical of any ideology that says to behave in a certain way “for the greater good.” Slippery slope.
Again, at least Wired is honest about its frenzy for fleeting, ever-changing electronic material goods which it knows itself will be only replace by something new, but the same, next year. As a pittance for this, it says, “Drive a hybrid, go green and be carbon neutral.” With all the junk you want me to buy printed in ads next to those words? How does that work? I’m really glad this is my last issue. Because this debate, that wages in my own head, doesn’t need more mixed messages.
