Life Without Technology?
Most of us are so used to the technology we use in our modern life that we don’t even think about it. A room is well lit at the flick of a switch, we can talk to anyone in the world immediately and see news as it happens around the globe, food is kept fresh in refridgerators or mass produced sealed packages, clothes are mass produced and available to buy in air conditioned shopping malls, and our waste products are either flushed down the drain or collected and carted away.Most of us are dependent on this technology—we can’t imagine life without it. And the stories we read of life before it was developed doesn’t make it sound pleasant! Chamber pots, the long drop, trying to read by candlelight, or having to grow and prepare all our own food, none of them seem that appealing.
And yet, does it need to be this way? What would life be like now, without electricity for example? Would we be instantly transported back to life a hundred years ago?
I don’t believe so. While most of our current lifestyle is dependent on electricity, there is also a lot of research put into alternative technologies.
Composting toilets are an efficient, odour free method of dealing with waste that requires no electricity. We’ve learnt a lot about preserving food through safe canning or drying methods. And you can find plenty of plans for making solar ovens, that cook your food using only the sun’s heat. Pinterest is full of excellent tutorials on how you can sew your own clothes without complex patterns or huge sewing knowledge. Given time to prepare, and the information we have available now, living without electricity can be a lot more enjoyable than we imagine.
The characters in my novel, Reckless Rescue, had to learn to live without electricity and other modern conveniences when they had to flee their planet when it was destroyed by a meteor impact. Luckily they were able to print out many resources from their databases before they lost power. Being rather resourceful, they’ve managed to make life on their barren planet as pleasant as it can be. Except for the anysogen pollution, which means that most of the population is unable to reproduce.
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Thanks,
Rinelle, for this glimpse into the world you created for your novel.
This is right up my alley ~love stories of colonization and what life
would be like in post-apoc0lyptia! Best of luck to you.
14 comments:
The world is certainly a lot different as to when I was a child. Even in the 15 years since my husband passed away pcs have changed also the cell phones. He would have been in his element at today's advancements.
Yvonne.
Hi Tina and Rinelle - certainly your novel has addressed some interesting points .. and sounds a very good thought provoking read .. an different take .. sounds really fun.
One thing I've recently realised is that water is the finite resource and we waste so much .. we wash our fruit and veg, we waste water growing it, we waste water transporting it and then we waste water when we throw food away ...
Great read - and your story sounds a fascinating read .. cheers Hilary
Thanks for having me here today. Nice visiting the A to Z blog for a change.
Yvonne - It has changed so much hasn't it? I'm amazed by it so much.
Hillary - Yes! Water is another big one. I wonder how people would cope if it stopped coming into their house automatically? We're very reliant on it, to the point that we don't have any other way to access it.
Rinelle you have covered a lot of great points here. Technology has accelerated at a dizzying pace over the last 100 years. We have a difficult time thinking of when tablets and cell phones were not so ubiquitous. We would be okay, but would have to do things a lot different.
I would really recommend Rinelle's book, it is a good read.
I was w/o power for 4 days after a blizzard in Feb and I was so close to despair that I cried my eyes out when the power came back on. I'm so not meant to live w/o modern conveniences. I had a melt down the other day when my computer wouldn't reboot too. lol
We live in such a different world than I did growing up. I mean, the microwave was the biggest invention during my childhood. My kids cannot even begin to comprehend the stories I tell them about pay phones, and phones without call waiting and caller ID.
Dobson - I still remember before tablets quite clearly! Although how I'd live without mine now is another matter!
Thanks Rosie!
JoJo - I lived without power for several years when I was a kid, when we moved to a very isolated property. I have to admit, I don't think I could do it now though I enjoyed it at the time. Now I hate it when my ipad is out of batteries!
Melisa - Yep, microwaves were huge back then. And dishwashers! Seems so long ago.
Rinelle, thanks again for being here! You've certainly generated a good discussion. We do waste water, and that's always bothered me. We've lived without electricity before, in a way, because the power was out, but then not really because The Engineer just hooked up one of his inverters to the solar panel charged batteries (he has large collection of deep storage batteries that we take camping, and have ready for emergencies like this.) But not everyone is married to the mad inventor...
Tina @ Life is Good
Tina - Being married to a mad inventor sounds useful! My dad used to find lots of creative ways of getting by without electricity (or getting some) when I was a kid.
Blackouts here in Brisbane, Australia never seem to last long. We think it's awful if we're without power for most of a night! Probably because we don't have things like snow to hinder line repair. We did have a bad storm/flooding recently that left a lot of people without power for up to 3 days, which caused a lot of chaos! Our biggest problem without power is that our pump for our water tanks doesn't work!
Most of us have become quite dependent on technology, and freak out a bit when we lose it for a short time during a power outage, loss of Internet, etc. But I also like to think that most of us are also capable of adapting, if need be, in the name of survival. Hopefully, we haven't become total incompetents.
Your book sounds intriguing, Rinelle. Good luck with it.
I agree Susan. I think humans have adapted to so much already, I find it hard to believe we couldn't adapt to life without technology.
I can't even imagine what life would be like without electricity... the idea frightens the life out of me ;)
I keep thinking how different my kids are growing up than when I did. We didn't have IPods or Kindles or anything like that. We just had bikes and outside. :) I think I could adapt to life without electricity, but it kind of freaks me out too ... :)
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