they have an app for that

Recently I was reading this book, Savaging the civilized (like very recently, like just finished the book and came on here, that recently). Its about this English man, Verrier Elwin, who had majority of his life spent in India among almost every tribe on the craziest tribal spectrum you can think of. Drinking round the clock kinda Tribals? Check. Orgying round the clock kinda tribals? Check. Puritan tribals? Check. All of these combined into one kinda Tribals? Check that too.

His life is so interesting that he faced in total something like around five to six mid-life crises. But one thing that really interested me about this interesting man’s interesting life is — he tried to keep the tribals, he was working with, as far away from religion as he could (which is saying something, given that he had a degree in theology or some shit and was an ordained priest for a few years).

It feels as if he was not sure how his tribals could cope with religion. Lets leave poor old Elwin alone with his tribals for a minute and think about this crazy little thing called religion. For a while now, this idea has been brewing in my head, this idea which has something to do with apps and something to do religion and something to do with religion and apps.

Think about how little a large chunk of people know about the working of an app. Like I don’t even know which environments are used to code these up and what kind of libraries are used to code them and how are they deployed and where they are hosted and much more. If you also don’t know this stuff, well surprise, I am not talking about you, I am not even talking about myself. I am talking about those who don’t even comprehend words like environment and host and deploy in the context of an app. That is a large chunk and they are still using these apps fine.

Now think about how little a large chunk of people know about the working of religion. There are things like morality and spirituality and ethics and the conflict between facts and values of which, there are chances, that me and you are equally oblivious. I think you know what I am going say, I am not talking about you and me. I am talking about those who don’t even comprehend these ideas is the context of religion.

But religion has been in this game for a long long time, the apps they build have now coalesced into bulky programs, which take years on end to install/indoctrinate (okay I will stop with the cheesy analogies, this one was too good to let go though). The only problem is that the places where these apps and programs are available have stopped using the whole programs and selectively picked the buggy ones which have help them, instead of the user.

It would be simplifying things to a ridiculous extent to say that this might be the future of technology and I think there’s this cool Carl Sagan quote which is somewhat related(at least in my head) to this .

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

Going back to Elwin and his tribes, he did not want his tribals to be served religion in bits and pieces by the Hindu and Christian Missionaries which they ultimately seem to have got. Maybe he was right, quoting from the book,

“Had Elwin seen Bastar today he would have wept.”