The Inventors
The Inventors is a series of illustrations that I started a few years back to celebrate the world’s greatest inventors and their “children”. The series also presents a warning about the unwieldy effects that technology can have when it is taken to the extremes, adopted, exploited, and morphed by corporate or political greed. It is interesting to me that all of these great inventors saw their inventions grow in the public eye, and expressed disappointment with how their technology ended up being used. Today, we can easily look back and see the incredible benefits and changes that these inventions have brought to society. We can also look back and see some unknown side effects, where the technology has reared its monstrous head.
“Alex, your telephone is a menace.”
The next time you sit down for dinner and the phone rings, get up and throw it out the window. You’ll feel much better about yourself, and you’ll soon realize that 90% of those annoyances were not necessary for you existence.
If you insist on keeping the thing, you must do everything in your power to disconnect it from evil. I’ve heard there’s a way to remove your name from the devil’s list, but I’ve never figured out how to do it.
If you carry one of these monsters around in your pocket, you may soon find yourself enslaved to the device, it now roams free, unchained and waiting for the chance to control you. After you’ve read this, spend a moment and think about how you can defeat the monster. It never stops thinking about how it can defeat you.
“Tommy, would you please turn out the lights?”
It used to be that when it got dark, people would go to bed. When it got light in the morning, people would wake up. That seems pretty natural, and a normal thing to do. If you are anything like me, I can’t remember the last time I went to bed with the sun.
There’s no question the light bulb is an amazing invention, it has changed the world in many ways, both for good and for bad. If you question the bad, take a drive far away from city lights on a clear night, look up towards the heavens and you’ll see what this clever little monster has taken away.
There are probably people living in cities who have never seen the stars in their full glory. To live life disconnected from the night-time heavens would be a travesty of humanity.
“Philo, turn off that damn tv!”
You only have to imagine for a moment, millions of people gathered around a projection device to begin to comprehend this little monsters influence. Images and video of every type and quality constantly occupy the minds of millions.
The television is easily defeated. Modern technology has made it possible to defeat the television by the simple press of a button. I encourage you to defeat yours today. I know you have one, and chances are it is on right this moment.
We need not question the positive aspects which the television has brought us, but it can do no harm to question the negative.
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Excellent work. Would love to see you do Nikola Tesla, an oft-overlooked genius and rival of Edison’s, by far the better inventor. We really owe the modern world to him and his brilliant invention of alternating current.
These are fantastic!