July 22, 2009

That Way Madness Lies...

The modern world is one obsessed with technogadgets. That is something we all have to accept, along with the dangers of such an obsession. Record players and even old-fashioned radios have fallen by the wayside- soon to follow may be those things we used to have, made of paper, what are they called again? Oh, yes. Books.

But even scarier than the total domination of the newest gadgets and iGadgets in the marketplace is the total domination such technological advances can have over our lives. Take, for example, an Internet-obsessed teenager (and there are many, not excluding present company), or a grown man wearing out his thumbs on the newest full-keypad phone even during important business meetings (I know quite a few of those, too). These people can waste their time away staring at tiny screens without realizing that important things are happening in the world around them.

However, this interest in up-to-date technology is reasonable, or at least acceptable, to a point. But where is that point?

Case in point, Sun Danyong, a twenty-five-year-old (now-ex-)employee of Apple, or more specifically Foxconn, the company that manufactures Apple's ultra-popular iPhones. Danyong was responsible for sixteen prototype iPhones. Something happened- no one seems to know exactly what- and one of the precious sixteen went missing.

On July 16th, 2009, Sun Danyong committed suicide.

Reports vary, but most sources seem pretty certain that a few Foxconn security guards visited Danyong after he reported the gadget missing on July 13, and possibly "interrogated" him (it's very sad but possibly not too far of a conclusion to leap to that my mind immediately jumps to the thought of torture). At any rate, Danyong is dead by twelve-story fall, and Apple is facing inquiries about their incredibly secretive procedures.

It's up to us to decide just how far we'd like to take our obsession with technology. But if we're reaching the point where young people are committing suicide because of the loss of a technogadget- albeit a very expensive technogadget- don't we have a problem?


1 comment:

  1. The insinuation of torture/murder is a bit much, don't you think? Did he leave a suicide note?

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