Soul stealing devices indeed!
While the Gaia-über-alles set screams for a carbon tax, they miss the largest cost to society. Simply put the cost of photographic technology is too low. Now any derelict finding himself in the odd situation of not having spent all his ready cash on corn-syruped food items and methamphetamine, runs to the local emporium for a image capturing device. Add to this menace the proliferation of high-speed internet access, and we have terabytes of photos by loons performing all things stupid, lewd and most often, pointless.
Let us perform a thought experiment to probe the depths of this malady, shall we? You are attending a rally headlined by the most photographed human on the planet. He comes in your direction. What do you do? Do you shake his hand? Do you give a brief word of encouragement or note of disappointment? Do you revel in the moment of your interaction with an important figure changing the course of the lives of billions?
Obviously the most common answer to that particular situation is to take a badly framed, flash ridden and blurred picture to show to your illiterate, inbred and annoying acquaintances. Note that this is not one idiot in a sea of normalcy. This is the common reaction. What sort of idiot is man? Doomed, doomed we are.
