TheMatrix

To the Editor,

To Stephen Whitty, Ray Bradbury, and the other adults who don't "grok" The Matrix, the big question is: (drumroll please) what separates me from my technology, and which part (me or my technology) is going to survive the ever more rapidly approaching apolcalypse?

To "kids" who met their spouses on internet chat rooms (there are MANY), who see their video game skills actually applicable to realtime war (and we all thought The Last Starfighter was ridiculous), who are afraid to let their children play outside in the UV-rays, high-traffic areas, and non-adult supervised neihborhoods, these are not hypothetical questions.

The experience of re-entering messy real life after being lost on the net for hours at a time is nearly ubiquitous these days, and it can be nearly as jarring as Neo waking up in a tub full of goo.

In a world where we are so wonderfully isolated from each other physically, a moment with a live person who actually loves you in an elevator can seem unbelievably liberating, and belongs in a place called Zion.

As for the apocalypse, we are long past the protesting fervor of our parents' generation. We will do our part to stave off the inevitable -- recycling, turning off extra lights, watering our lawn on even days only, buying fair trade products -- but we know it will eventually come, as unpredictably and uncontrollably as the weather: the nuclear/chemical/biological jihad, the submersion of New York, LA and Singapore in melted ice caps, cancer of the skin, breast, and prostate.

Or worse: endless imprisonment in the technology of our own making. After all, is depression really wishing you were dead, or knowing that you are not living?

What we want to know is, what comes next in the evolutionary chain? Who will the be fittest to survive this cataclysm? Will it be human or machine? Will we know? Will we care?

I think the immersive special effects of The Matrix do not mask the absence of a story, but are an integral part of the meta-story.

In order to write this hasty letter, I have plopped two children in front of the video babysitter after taking a break to change a poopy diaper. All my friends and associates complain that I am not connected enough. Think about it.

I recommend Sherry Turkels's Life on the Screen (1995, Simon and Schuster), though dated, to those who don't think that people really can get confused about what is them and what is their technology.

Amy W. O'Connell %%%Writer about science, technology, and society %%%and mother of two %%%Somerville, NJ

P.S. To Ray Bradbury: You are my hero. Thank you for Dandelion Wine.

(Amy is my oldest -- JimScarver)