I intentionally skipped the Touchy Topic for today. I had been asked to touch on a relationship oriented topic but a post on CNN this morning tied in with a topic I had been discussing with my mum last night and I felt obligated to share it.
We live in a age where technology has become such that cameras once hefty and needed to be wound between shots, have now been implanted into almost every phone and a number of other gadgets. It is now easy to snap a photo of any unsuspecting person or event - and I am guilty of doing such on numerous occasions.
Me, like many others armed and dangerous with a blackberry or other device, hopes to perhaps capture some random historic event that will get me paid greatly, since the internet has made it easy to find wealth and fame with the right photo. With my flair for finding drama, I often hope I do not capture a crime in progress or any such other unfortunate scenario that will land me in the center of trouble.
The trend of snapping photos (and sharing them on social sites) has become so noticeably out of hand that persons have lost touch with their sympathetic and empathetic sides where photos are concerned. If a person falls in the middle of the street, anyone in the area with a camera rushes to take the photo first and help as an after thought.
The latest in this trend was a freelance photographer who snapped a photo of a man pushed into the path of an oncoming train and submit the photo to a highly recognized newspaper. Weather it was his right to take the photo or not, I don't know, I don't think taking photos of a person's impending death is against the law.
Did he have time to help? From the CNN story it seems that neither him or anyone in closer proximity to the man could have saved him, perhaps without risk of being pulled onto the track with him. Incidents such as these occur so quickly, panic and confusion blur the fabric of time and thought. My thought is such that if I saw a man screaming for help in the path of an oncoming train, I would either rush in his direction even though aide may be futile, or I would have paused dead in my tracks in the horror of what I was about to witness. I suppose a trained photographer already armed with a camera wold have the habitual reflex of camera up to the eye.
I am not particularly upset the photographer snapped the shot. I, however, feel quite uneasy that the photographer tried to defend himself when the story became controversial by claiming he had hoped to capture the attention of the oncoming train with the flash from his camera.
Had I snapped the shot I would have had a great moral debate with myself before thinking of submitting it to a newspaper for money. Was the paper right to splay this on the front page?
This is not a man who by some means of folly on his own part fell onto the tracks and would thereby serve as a warning for folly doers everywhere - this was a man with a wife and child who was intentionally shoved onto the tracks after getting into an argument with another man and here his last moments are displayed for all to see.
Why not display the face of the man who pushed him there? I will bet he will be protected by some souped up criminal law, while the other man's family is left to mourn.
By now you might have been too engrossed in my ranting to remember the title of this blog and wonder what any of what I have said has to do with heralding the age of the robot. But if you are a smart reader you will have figured it out by now.
See how technological advances can connect us to people from all around the world but disconnect us from the people right in front of our faces? How many times has someone paused a conversation with you to type a message in their Blackberry to someone perhaps miles and miles away. Blatantly ignoring someone in front of you is no longer seen as a lack of respect. Photos such as the one spoken of here today are no longer seen as a lack of empathy.
We are making way for an age where robots will walk among us and be programmed to do the things that humans no longer care to do.
Im my minds eye I see a robot rushing onto the tracks to snatch that man from impending doom while humans stand idly by. They will clap and cheer and then go on with their lives, if they even clap or cheer or notice he was on the tracks at all.
This is what our society is becoming.
Bisous!!xoxo
You can read the CNN story here - http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/us/new-york-subway-death/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
You can read the CNN story here - http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/04/us/new-york-subway-death/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
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