In past writings, I’ve made it somewhat clear my opinion of technology. I don’t spend much time on computers or the internet and I’m not interested by technology unless it can make my guitar sound like Eddie Van Halen’s. I’m not really much for television or books for that matter, so I was fairly hard pressed to find a piece of media dealing with technology. So after a little stretch of time spent searching for such a thing, I gave up and went with my initial idea that only deals partially with technology. I chose the 1992 album “Dehumanizer” by Black Sabbath. This album wasn’t a concept album, so there’s not really a common vein throughout the tracks, but with songs like “Computer God”, “TV Crimes” and “Time Machine” I figured this would be my best bet. The album takes a pretty pessimistic view towards technology and all other subjects the songs cover, for that matter. The ideas portrayed in the songs are also somewhat sensationalized being as that the lyrics were penned by original bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler and post-Ozzy vocalist, Ronnie James Dio, who if you are familiar with any of his work seems to have a penchant for dragons and all things ridiculous, but still somehow awesome when he sings it.
The first lyrics from the first and title track of the album say “Waiting for the revolution. New clear vision- Genocide. Computerize god- it’s the new religion. Program the brain- not the heartbeat.” (much like Jesus, the words of Dio should be written in red) and it gives a pretty good view of what you’re in store for. In this song, Dio is explaining that technology is getting out of control to the point where it now controls the world and that “Man is a mistake, fix it!”. However paranoid this sounds, there is some truth in these insane words. This is the technology age and we are completely obsessed with it. I was only aged five years in 1992, so I don’t really have a recollection of technology or how obsessed people were back then except for my Super Nintendo and the numerous hours at a time I would spend playing Mario and Kirby games.
You can compare the fear of technology from the “Dehumanizer” album to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both deal with making computers more and more powerful and humanlike to the point where they turn on man. Some people actually do share this fear that the future holds robotic overlords and us serving them because robots would need humans for efficiency, right? Anyway, computers have changed the way that we do things. They have deleted (nice computer word) the human touch that we would put on things. E-mail has annihilated the human touch from writing a letter, but damn if it isn’t convenient. You can take this in the direction of music, too. Back in the days, you had to painstakingly record every note you wanted and it had to be executed perfectly, else you had to do the whole take over. Now we have Pro Tools which has sucked the ever-loving life, heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears out of music. I’m no fan of the digital format. I’m of the opinion that iTunes and illegal music downloading have absolutely raped the music industry. I do hate downloading, but I still do it, but that’s because instead of working and making money to buy these beloved albums, I’m wasting my time in a computer class trying to bullshit a thousand words about something I don’t know anything about or care about.
All in all, technology is about convenience and this age certainly offers that, but it is making humans out of touch with other humans and reality as a whole. I don’t see HAL like computers mass murdering for the sake of self preservation and I don’t see computer gods rising in a hostile takeover of mankind, but at the risk of sounding ridiculously cheesy here, I ask the question, “Are we not becoming robots ourselves?”. It actually hurt to type that last sentence.
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