Hawks Pass

To all who have found their way to this site, I extend my greetings.

This is my initial blog post, and seeing my new book Hawks Pass will be available shortly, I think it only makes sense to write about something related to the story. I don’t want to venture too far into the contents of the book, but I think it is safe to say the setting represents one of the many possible results of technological dependence. This condition is not new to society at large—think of what happens whenever the power goes out—but internet-based services have taken technological dependency to another level.

Companies and institutions not only assume everyone has easy and reliable access to the internet, but that we all have phones capable of scanning the barcodes they insist on using to replace basic information. I have recently encountered scenarios where the barcode was the only way to continue the activity in question, and in one such scenario, I was using my laptop and did not have my phone on hand. I find it hard to believe this practice would hold up in court if challenged, but I am not a lawyer and have neither the time nor the patience to search out that rabbit hole and squeeze myself into it.

Is this technology necessary? Is it actually more convenient than clicking on a web address or, God forbid, typing one in?

The barcodes are a symptom of a larger issue, one that is far too deep and multifaceted to cover in a single blog post, though technological dependency is at the heart of it. For now, let’s keep it simple. A character in Hawks Pass poses the following question to his readership in the years before the events of the story take place: If society elects to give itself entirely over to technology, what will happen when that technology fails?

Well, that depends, but whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to be a good one.

I mentioned power outages above, and for all the things that could potentially go wrong with web-based systems and networks—and there are many—we might pay a thought to the foundation the entire infrastructure was built on. It won’t matter how advanced and impenetrable a building’s security systems are if an earthquake takes out the ground beneath it. That building will still come crashing down. If you can’t power your phone on, you won’t be able to scan the barcodes, nor will you be able to access your digital currencies, your web-based bank accounts, your cloud-stored content, and so on.

Yet the powers-that-be seem increasingly willing to tie all aspects of daily life, from the arbitrary to the critical, to technological and web-based systems that will only function when the servers supporting them are adequately powered (not to mention operating properly). Is this going to benefit society in the long run? And more importantly, is it safe?

It the setting Hawks Pass takes place in, the answer is no, it was not.

Until next time,

Cal