Bit by Bit - Chapter 10, Part 12

Trey Smith

As long as men in high places covet knowledge and are without the Way, the world will be in great confusion. How do I know this is so? Knowledge enables men to fashion bows, crossbows, nets, stringed arrows, and like contraptions, but when this happens the birds flee in confusion to the sky. Knowledge enables men to fashion fishhooks, lures, seines, dragnets, trawls, and weirs, but when this happens the fish flee in confusion to the depths of the water. Knowledge enables men to fashion pitfalls, snares, cages, traps, and gins, but when this happens the beasts flee in confusion to the swamps. And the flood of rhetoric that enables men to invent wily schemes and poisonous slanders, the glib gabble of "hard" and "white," the foul fustian of "same" and "different" bewilder the understanding of common men. So the world is dulled and darkened by great confusion. The blame lies in this coveting of knowledge.
~ Burton Watson translation ~

Modern society has become a hostage to technology. The other day there was a brief power outage in town. At the grocery store, none of the items I wished to purchase could be rung up because all of the prices are IN the computer. The clerks had no idea of the purchase price of ANY of the items. Not. One. Of. Them.

At some stores, because of the ubiquitous use of scanners, sales personnel no longer know how to ring up purchases manually. Many no longer know how to figure the difference between the money you give them and the amount they are to give back to you. They simply look at you blankly!

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