Paper to Silicon

2013-04986

Reaction Paper

"Time Enough at Last"

Now that the monopoly of nuclear weapons is a thing of the past, testing weapons of mass destruction is in a worldwide spread. More and more countries develop and advance their own military force to provide an arsenal of genocidal technology. ‘Twilight Zone’ might be successful in sending its message during its time but not in this more advanced and information-based society.

I could not understand the context of the episode unless our professor didn't say so or Google didn’t feed me the information. The story revolves around militarization and anti-intellectualism. Development of technology is a taboo during the post-war America; in this case, the tools close to gaining knowledge are the books and newspaper. To this day, most of us would not bother searching for a book that is not even in its proper shelf in the library or search for a newspaper that only talks about lives of people we don’t even care about. The trend now is data in a silicon chip.

                       If I would do a remake of the movie, I would set it up around a teenager’s life: a teenager who knows how to repair gadgets, build computer, and create software of his own, all learnt by just watching YouTube videos. A life surrounded by computers, gadgets and many other electronic devices connected to an invisible web of information, wherever he wants it, whenever he wants it. Except that, the people around him see it as a hindrance for their personal relationships and he is also constantly being snatched away from his precious silicon friends. Then, the unexpected happens. Everybody is gone, left with the scrapped wires, unlimited computer parts and TIME: no school, no parents, just all the things he wanted before. Soon, he will realize there’s no electricity. Power plants are damaged. With this version of the Twilight Zone’s episode, they will realize how important to not support nuclear technology and promote also the knowledge accumulation to further develop one’s potential.