It's hard to visit a city in the United States nowadays and not see people partaking in a segway tour. In other words, the usual mundanity of sightseeing through a city on foot, with both your hands free to access your camera for spontaneous photography is no longer an issue. Now there is the luxury of paying to look stupid while propelling one's self on a "personal transportation vehicle," a term conceived by Segway's unrepentant marketing team, no doubt, as you gaze to your left or right to take in the sights and try not to crash face first into concrete.
You know what else can be considered a "personal transportation vehicle?" A car. Particularly one driven by an individual looking to transport themselves from one destination to another. Even a motorcycle. Or an electric bicycle.
"Experience the future of personal mobility today" the company encourages, most likely targeting a niche market of gullible consumers. The same ones who spend money on a Comfort Pillow with Built-in Speaker. Or lonely single people who resort to cuddling inanimate objects :
The boyfriend pillow seen above would be really sad if I didn't bother to mention, for the sake of being fair, Japan's dakimakura culture of loving pillows with anime girls emblazoned on them. In the case of Japan's otaku, those who sacrifice their social life for gaming and tech interests should be able to experience relationships just like everyone else, one could argue. It does raise important questions of the philosophical kind, which, it seems, does not occur to those who think up these inventions.
The innovations of the modern age are not genius, they are merely exploitative solutions created for those who are unable to function at society's standards of "normal," but not due to natural issues experienced by everyone, including insecurity and awkwardness. It's a chain of events that the technological age has triggered, spawning a generation of self-handicapped beings who need the world to adapt to their needs, instead of improving themselves to adapt to the world.
As bad ideas continue to be made into saleable products and services by people with a short-sighted view of longterm effects, all for the goal of making a profit off of human weakness, the future looms in a sinister light. With the advent of robots and more technological innovations, human beings won't just depend on electronics to fulfill their needs, but will, and many have, become machines themselves. As José Saramago noted, we will know less and less what it means to be human.
