The Godfather: Peter Corris on how things work

After listening to a radio program about innovations in the world of information technology, I was struck by how little I could understand of what was said. Whole sentences spoken by the presenters were incomprehensible to me. It set me thinking. Here is a list of some of the things the workings of which I do not understand:  

Gravity

Magnetism

Electricity

Magnification

Refrigeration

Radio

The telephone

Clocks and watches

Television

Microwaves

Lasers

Algorithms

Computers

The internet

The internal combustion engine

Heavier-than-air flight

Nuclear fission

Photography

Solar power

Here’s a list of some of the things the working of which I do understand:

Bicycles

Musical instruments

Mechanical lawnmowers

Hand-operated eggbeaters

Roller skates

Kites

Bows and arrows

Slingshots

Typewriters

Hill’s hoists

Exercise machines

There are noticeably many more items in the ‘don’t understand’ list than in the ‘do understand’. Also, apart from musical instruments, bicycles, roller skates (albeit much modified) and exercise machines, the things in the shorter list are all pretty well redundant. Elizabeth’s, a second-hand bookshop in Newtown, displays a typewriter as a curiosity. Slingshots or shanghais, or ‘gings’ as we used to call them, went out two generations ago. When I was young and there were open spaces within suburbs, we flew home-made kites for fun. Now, kite flying is virtually confined to organised, structured events. The things in the long list, however, are forces that control and shape our lives.  Impossible to imagine a world without computers, uncomfortable to imagine one without microwave ovens; boring to think of life without radio or television. This points clearly to the enormous change that has come over our lives, at least in the developed world, since, say, the Second World War.  Before then, most people could understand the workings of the things they used. Motorcars might be considered an exception but not necessarily. My father, with no specific training, could repair an old car and keep it running. And I’m sure he was not alone in this. Now car maintenance is a matter for specialists, and how much more so is that true when it comes to computers and TV sets? In the past things were repaired – blunt lawnmower blades were sharpened with a file; I can remember the collapsed side of a toaster being propped up and the toaster continuing to toast in that way until someone got around to replacing the spring. All an ice chest ever needed to keep working was a new block of ice. Now, many of the items essential to our lives are thrown out when they break down. Walking the back streets and lanes of Newtown, I see TV sets, computers and computer monitors, microwave ovens and refrigerators dumped. Presumably destined for landfill. It saddens me but there’s no stopping it. I’m sure that the benefits of modern technology, especially in the field of medicine, far outweigh the demerits. I’m just glad that I remember the earlier time. I remember how the horse-drawn cart used to carry the blocks of ice, which the iceman plonked into the ice chest, having carried it wrapped in hessian. And I remember how we were instructed to rush out with spade to pick up the horse-shit as fertiliser for the veggie garden.

Tags: Elizabeth's Bookshop, modern technology