This past week was supposed to be my productive period of the month to post on this site, but my internet has been down while I wait for a new connection… high-speed satellite at 12 MB per second. I’m barely able to squeeze out this post through my neighbor’s week signal which I’m using by permission.

No, I’m not a Luddite by any means. Technology has a place in society if it’s used properly, but like so many other things in a capitalist system, the profit motive distorts and perverts everything. And of course too much automation is not a good thing in an age of declining net energy and a poisoned biosphere. Take for instance the overuse of unnecessary medical procedures. It’s not so much the lawsuit trap as it is the fact that many doctors in America no longer know how to properly diagnose illnesses or pathology from clinical and physical evaluation of the patient. Instead they use a shotgun approach and order every medical exam they can think of, radiating the patient with countless cat scan exams which are negative an overwhelming majority of the time. And for-profit hospitals don’t mind this because they can bill for these services. This is why going to a hospital these days can turn out to be a serious blow to not only your wallet, but also your health.

I’ll have to cut this post short due to the excruciatingly slow internet connection.