Life As Performance Art 135

Nothing is free. I was just reminded of that this morning when I tried to go onto Google maps only to find that the words "For development purposes only" are still printed all over the image. So I did the right clicks (left, actually), got Java Scripts installed, or reinstalled, as I was instructed, and went back onto the map and it is still for development purposes only. Then I made some more appropriate clicks only to find out that among other things, they wanted billing installed, which is to say that participating in the nations Online maps is no longer a free service and that Uncle Google and his associate greedy swine simply want more money. Those douchebags are already richer than Croesus, I am struggling on a low income and those bastards are getting nothing from me. I don't need to depend on their dumb interactive maps, anyway. I have something called an imagination, and it does serve me rather well, methinks. Sometimes too well! Even neo-Luddite little old me is becoming a little bit too dependent on this technology. But I still have my limits. I used to have an employment counsellor, a German egghead, but still a very nice and helpful lady, who during the infancy of the internet in around 2001 or 2002, or so, was trying to get me interested in digital art. She couldn't seem to quite fathom the concept that art is something that I would want to do with my hands, all by myself, without any electronic help or interference. It is for the same reason I still do all my math calculations in my head instead of going to the computer to do the adding, subtracting and dividing for me. It is the mental exercise, yes, but it is also because we are evolutionarily wired to be physical and tactile with the way that we interact with the world. Millions of years of this kind of wiring is not going to be changed overnight by artificial intelligence. Our human need to work with our hands as well as our minds is too deeply ingrained a need, and we are already beginning to see some real pushback against this huge dependence on artificial intelligence that threatens to engulf our species and transform us into completely useless and totally dependent borgs. I still believe in using AI, up to a point. For example, when I was doing my series of drawings of fire opals. it was Uncle Google that provided me the images. I simply did a wee little serch,scrolled a bit, and found exactly what i was looking for. Then I got out my pencil crayons and sketchbook and did the rest. And that is how I am drawing my limits with Google. We have to really start distancing ourselves from all these clever technologies before they swallow us alive and completely rob us of our humanity. It is sad, seeing how many people easily become slaves to technologies that should only exist to serve us and for no other reason. But humans have n innate tendency towards enslaving themselves. This also is a very deep aspect of our brief, but bitter history on this earth. I think it's also why we are so susceptible to addiction.