Trickle-Down Theory of Technology
Trickle-Down Theory of Technology
by Dirk Michener
Rich people get the newest in technology
Poor people get the oldest
Then later, Rich people also get the oldest
Poor people get the not quite as old
Then later, Poor people get the almost newest
But not the Most New
Only Rich people get that
Also the very oldest
Only Rich people get that too
Poor people get shuffled around
Rich people get everything
Then later, Poor people get everything
But it’s shuffled around
So they forget that they have everything
But Rich people always remember
They have everything
Poor people forget
Poor kids and Rich kids
Like watching Betamax
Rich kids like watching poor kid movies
Poor kid like richie rich movies
Rich kid like lars von treier
Poor kid like jeff Foxworthy
Jeff Foxworthy had everything
But didn’t know it
Jeff Foxworthy had a Betamax player in his basement
But didn’t know it
Lars Von Treier had a Betamax in his guest bedroom
And he would sneak up there at night,
After his wife would fall asleep
And watch “The Prince and the Pauperâ€
Until the scene where they were found out
Then later, “The Parent Trapâ€
The original version
Not the remake version
Poor people movies made by Rich people
Everyone loves those best
Nobody likes John Waters
It’s where I first found out what “Emasculation†meant
John Waters Betamax tapes go for a lot of money
A Dike got her post-op sex-change penis emasculated
By her weirdo Mortville lover
In Mortville everything is backwards
Externally
Just watched John Waters “This Filthy World”. The world doesn’t need people like him in the same way locks don’t need keys.
We are lucky to have technology in the same way we are lucky to have natural disasters. It is a self-perpetuating source of conflict for the species that craves it. We’ve eaten all the predators that used to supply it for us. It’s the race to not fall behind that corrals us into retaining our herd mentality now.
Would there be rich or poor without the advantage wealth brings? The only advantage is access to technology. Strange it is in the way technology streams from the hands of those most desperate to escape the race by innovating new ways of solving old problems. Detached interest in the race only seems to produce poets, artists, and other perverts. All they invent are purposeless studied autopsies of emerging devils- really just solutions looking for problems.
Well put. I also enjoy that hazy area before something becomes an antiquity of value while it is still just more-or-less garbage and the factors which dictate therein.
I like Shane’s comment almost as much as I like this poem.
Yay! This is a good one.
DM, this is simply superb. Stylistically, it reminds me of Donald Rumsfield’s infamous “Known knowns, Known Unknowns, Unknown knowns, and Unknown Unknowns” and yet it also has a hint of that Vonneguttian irony too. A very strong piece.