A track on
Nitin Sawhney's album
Prophesy. Features a recording of
Jeff Jacobs, a cab driver from
Chicago, relating his views about technology over a "heavy funk backbeat".
Part One
"They've incorporated their culture and their values into the city and they've enriched the city, both
like, from a work ethic and you know, the restaurants and the music, and it's really a diverse city.
I mean, you walk down the Vany Avenue, you know, you go through Korean neighbourhoods, Old
Jewish neighbourhoods, Arabic neighbourhoods, Pakistani-Indian neighbourhoods. It's incredible. The intensity...
"I think, yeah, development has pushed us away from other people.
You know, a lot of times people are rude because they want, like, immediate access or immediate information.
You know, some things in life can't be immediate, sometimes you just gotta wait and let things happen.
People are, like, are increasingly rude. Like, someone will get in a cab, and I'll say I'll get 'em there in 5 minutes,
and they'll say, 'Well, it should only take 3.' Now who gives a shit if it takes 5 minutes or 3 minutes? Who cares?
At the end of your life nobody's gonna put on your tombstone, 'shit, I got there in a cab in fucking seven minutes instead of three.'
It doesn't matter.
"Technology has made us slaves to time.
A lot of people that uh, really have technical jobs - they're slaves to time.
Time is the essence of life, it seems like, and they're basically, like, losing it.
They're losing the essence of their life because, you know, their life is just going away and they're not enjoying it because they're just so engrossed in efficiency and productivity and shit like that.
It's almost sad. They all come here from somewhere else seeking their fame and fortune or
their top jobs and their career. You know, in their...in their industries.
They get very engrossed in it, and they get into these, you know, these cell phones and computers, and I think the real important things in life are you know, people and your family.
I think you don't realise that. A lot of people don't realise that until they're older.
I think there's going to be a backlash against technology."
Part Two
"You know, I don't know what's gonna cause it. I hope it won't be any environmental disaster shit, you know, for sure, I want for my kids to live a better life.
Not so much materially, but I want a peaceful life.
You know, sometimes it's good just to go in the woods and just go hiking and get back in touch with yourself and nature. Then you come back here and you realise that this is like, ludicrous, all this emphasis on technology and 50 different internet devices, shit internet devices you can put in your pocket.
"Sometimes I feel threatened by it but you know, that's the future and I am a man of the past.
You know, I'm a low-tech man in a high-tech world. I mean it's a fact, man. I'm a low-tech man in a high-tech world and there ain't shit I can do about it because,
you know, the world's changing and I'm not and you know, maybe I don't wanna change.
Maybe the people I associate with are like me. You know, what's going on, we can't use our brains?
It's being a person, you know. It's being a fucking person, man."