day 1213: Siren Servers

"Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home."

Jaron Lanier, the Author of "Who Owns the Future" and "You Are Not a Gadget" calls out the "Siren Server" as the evil of technology that is corrupting civilization.  In an interview with San Francisco Magazine he said this about the Siren Server: "It's the biggest and best computer on a particular network.  They almost always have evil consequences, even though they're rarely designed with evil intent. A great San Francisco example is Craiglist. Craig is genuinely a sweet guy (something I can personally attest to as well), but even so, Craigslist is destroying newspaper revenues and harming local journalism. The most damaging siren servers are the ones that deal with money.  When you cross a siren server with finance, as happened in the housing bubble, you get the meltdown of the market, "too big to fail," austerity, and jobless recovery."  Lanier's definition of a Siren Server does not have to be just applied to the large-scale.  As each of us become more aware and able to use big-data to disrupt and upend one thing, let's remember that there is a law of unintended consequences that will create reactions that without long thought, could be more damaging than good.

We must all watch out for the "Siren Servers" in our own lives.  We all have them.  They are the stored up possessions, desires, and longings that are of this world, but not of the Kingdom. On the surface, they are not bad, but when they become the priority, they too can turn into areas of our lives that distance us from Christ and our relationship with Him.  Today, we head back to work after the long weekend.  As we look at "why" we do what we do, then let's be sure that we have sirens in check and not taking control or overly influencing who we are what we do.

Reference: Luke 16:9 (New Living Translation)