All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace

[Teio]

I've been seeing on these forums a good deal of remorse that, since we cannot physically feel any sort of Eywa, we will never know the sort of connectedness and peace of the Na'Vi. At the same time, there is controversy here about technology being counterintuitive to the "green" Na'Vi lifestyle. It has all brought to mind this poem. Humans are not, as a whole, going to abandon technology anytime too soon. But just maybe...

All Watched Over
by Machines of Loving Grace
by Richard Brautigan


I'd like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
  (right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
  (it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.



Idealized? Yes. It isn, however, a nice thought for those of us who hug our cell phones almost as tightly as trees. At the same, time however, it gives off a slightly big-brotherish feel. Machines will never behave as something organic, but I like the thought. Do you think it is possible for there to be ecological balance between natural orgainsims and humans, facilitated by Technology? I guess that comes back to the whole green tech debate...

[Wendell890]

We already have artificial intelligence that has ways of making the robot "think for itself" but not actually think for itself. As in, it will only think within what you've set it to think within. As for organic movement, more motors equal more fluid motions. And the Tsahaylu could actually mean that you had to grow your hair out like theirs, and then get the neural implant that has a cord and a sort of plug at the end.