McLuhan's Wake

SATELLITE

1. Satellites have enhanced many human traits. The main traits they have enhanced are the eyes and ears. It extends these systems for the society as a whole. They have allowed us to see the earth as a whole and nearly any point on the planet at any time we need it. They have also enabled people to communicate with and from nearly any point on earth. Even in the most out of the way places a satellite connection can usually be made. Bill Gates was recently in Antarctica and was still Tweeting and updating his blog. Satellites were originally developed for military applications but are now used for everything from TV broadcasting to cellphones.

2. Satellites obsolesce all sorts of older technologies. Everything from maps to boredom. It doesn't completely banish many of them, it just has given much simpler ways to deal with them. They have allowed people to beam TV into their car and get directions to anywhere on the fly. Maps obviously haven't disappeared but if you have a gps navigation unit, you don't need one anymore. They haven't gotten rid of books that someone may have used to occupy themselves in an RV but they have made it so less people have to use them.

3. I can't think of anything that the satellite has revived. I may be being ignorant towards something, but i am somewhat lost on this one.

4. Satellites have made anonymity nearly impossible. Someone with the right technology can track down nearly anyone. They allow for people to be located by the gps in their phone or watched by the "eye in the sky". They have given us a birds eye view of the environment, allowing us to see what we are doing, or have already done to it in real time. They also allow us to track temperatures and observe ice caps and wild fires.

I feel like these ideas are amazingly relevant to today. I felt like i was listening to someone speak about the present and the idea that these ideas were coming out of the 1960s is astounding. I am amazed that i had never heard of him before. I guess he was just much to ahead of his time. The quote "life can only looked at backwards, but only lived forwards" i think is one of the most true things i have heard in a long time. This is very important to us today, thank you for showing it to us.