The other day someone I don't really know 'circled' me on Google+, and while that is not a particularly interesting or attention grabbing way to kick off a blog post, (I must have been absent the day they taught, 'grab their interest early' section in blogging school), I was struck by their tagline, or headline, or whatever the heck it is called on Google+. It reads, simply:
Love, Peace, and Technology.
Kind of unusual, no? I mean the Love and Peace bits, well we've all seen them before, usually listed with Peace before Love I think, but somehow it seems to make more sense having the Love part first I suppose. But the third part about Technology? That is pretty out there. Do a quick Google 'look ahead' type search for Peace, 'Love and...' to see what pops up. 'Peace, Love, and Understanding', the old Elvis Costello song simply owns those results. Way to go Elvis.
A meta 'Metta' reference.
Force the Google search to return hits for 'Love, Peace, and Technology, and the closest thing to interesting that hits on Page 1 of results is a blog called, oddly enough, Peace, Love, and Technology. It appears to be written by a technology teacher, or a teacher interested in technology, but either way, it doesn't seem to be too active, with the last post over four months old.
So it is a little disconcerting to the idea that peace and love and technology can, uh, peacefully co-exist when from what I can tell the definitive blog on the subject seems to have run out of inspiration some months back.
Perhaps it is an indication that the concepts can't really co-exist - that advances in technology can make us more efficient, save money, help us process things faster, better, more accurately and so on, but that technology doesn't really belong in the same conversation with Peace and Love. Technology has traditionally been the domain of the engineer, the builder, the craftsman - not typically the types we'd think were all that preoccupied or even concerned with ideas around love and peace. And of course so much of our most significant technological advances of the last two hundred years or so went toward technologies to help us get better and more efficient at blowing each other up on the battlefield.
The point of all this? Again, a fail on my part from Blogging 101 class.
I suppose I think that I am disappointed that I founde the Google+ user's tagline of Love, Peace, and Technology so striking and unusual. It seemed so contradictory given our typical relationship and experience with technology as cold, efficient, and uncaring. I guess I want something much more meaningful than a well-intentioned but mostly barren teacher's blog to come up on Page 1 when someone Googles 'Love, Peace, and Technology.'
I think technology, and technologists can do better.
I have been thinking of a blog re-branding, maybe I will see of lovepeacetechnology.com is available.