Louis CK shows us what is up with technology

A few weeks ago, a comedian named Louis CK was on the Conan O’Brien show and created a lot of buzz on many a blog when he went into an impromptu routine about technology. The video clip has appeared in many sites everywhere, including Kevin Kelly’s Technium.

Granted, Louis CK’s little tirade on technology was probably more a product of a routine that he has performed several times than actual on-the-spot inspiration. If you don’t have four or so minutes to spare to watch it here, I’ll give you the highlights.

This little bit’s unofficial title is called Everything’s amazing, but nobody’s happy. Louis CK talks about how he can remember using a rotary phone, and how slow it was back then. I grew up in a home that had one of these spark-powered dialers, and it took a while before we adapted. I remember one time when one of my friends came over, and he had never even seen a rotary phone.

There was a time when we used technology like rotary phones, old-school IBM Personal Computers and televisions, and we simply understood that they had some shortcomings. I remember our family’s first PC from when we purchased it back in 1985. It took over fifteen minutes to properly boot up, and most of the programs were on floppy disks that really were floppy in their five and a quarter inch glory.

We’ve gone from using that technology to complaining about it. Today, it is all about being fast and furious with tech. It isn’t enough to have a phone that can go on the Internet, unless it can perform this function right away.

Louis CK goes on to say how he can’t stand to see young girls complain about their cell phones. Come on, it’s calling space. Give it some time. He then goes on to talk about how he was on an airplane with Wi-Fi, and how the passenger next to him was upset when it was down. Like the world owes him something that he just discovered ten minutes ago.

I agree with Louis CK’s basic assumption that we have ceased to be amazed by phones that communicate via satellite, or wireless Internet while in the air. In fact, we really should be amazed that we even have air travel, but we aren’t. If anything, we want it to be faster and more efficient.

In short, we have become a society that has become spoiled by technology. We’ve come so accustomed to the latest technology, that we are prepared for our gear to be dated on the day we buy it. As a result, we don’t see how much technology is meeting our needs, but only see the flaws.

Can you imagine the time where we’re at Star Trek levels with our technology? Man, it would be awesome to have transporters, faster-than-light spaceships, food synthesizers, and force fields. However, I know it will get real old, real fast. Even the holodeck, with that awesome ability to create matter from energy, will utterly cease to amaze us.