Apple has announced a new iPhone so it’s time to have a very serious discussion about how bad all this technology is in the most over-the-top manner possible. Fortunately, The Chicago Tribune’s Steve Chapman is on it.

“The iPhone X proves the Unabomber was right.” (Tip o’ the antlers to @JonyIveParody and Jc.)

Really. That seems… not right at all. But let’s hear the man out because… well, it’ll probably be funny is about the only reason the Macalope can think of.

The introduction of the new iPhone X… appears to be a minor event in the advance of technology. But it’s an excellent illustration of something that has long gone unrecognized: The Unabomber had a point.

From “right” to “had a point” in two sentences.

“Mussolini had a point! The trains should run on time! Hahahahaha! Ahhhhhhh. … Of course, he was a monster.”

Not about blowing people up in an effort to advance his social goals.

Oh.

Oh.

Ohhhhhhh.

[quietly slides bomb makings into drawer]

Ah, so, then, the title is just a delightful play on the ideals of the Unabomber in which we throw out the worst of them in order to make it seem like the introduction of a new iPhone would want to make us blow things up but, in reality, we are just being jerks in order to make a bombastic point instead of actual bombs.

Got it.

Ted Kaczynski’s campaign to kill and maim chosen victims with explosives was horrific in the extreme and beyond forgiveness.

But…

But his 35,000-word manifesto, published in 1995, provided a glimpse of the future we inhabit, and his foresight is a bit unsettling.

Maybe it’s just the Macalope but it seems like this point could be made without aggrandizing a terrorist. But he’s probably wrong. It’s probably the case that you have to find the worst person possible who also made that point and take their side. That’s probably true. Sure.

We went from “you can have a portable communication device” to “you must have a portable communication device” practically overnight.

No. We went to “you simply aren’t going to want to go out without a portable communication device” because the conveniences they provide are freakin’ amazing.

These devices have gone from servants to masters.

Indoor plumbing is making us lazy! Sure, our ancient ancestors were often eaten by bears who were also pooping in the woods, but they got more exercise.

A commentator in The New York Times complained 90 years ago that the proliferation of books was bad for society so the Macalope supposes it was The Chicago Tribune’s turn this century.

In his book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” Yuval Noah Harari argues that the agricultural revolution that took place 10,000 years ago was “history’s biggest fraud.”

Well, until the iPhone X, sure.

In the preceding 2.5 million years, when our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers they worked less, “spent their time in more stimulating and varied ways, and were less in danger of starvation and disease” than afterward.

The Macalope can sit at his desk and call up pretty much any music from all of recorded time but, sure, he’s never gotten to participate in driving buffalo over a cliff or watch love ones die in childbirth.

Few of us would be willing to give up modern shelter, food, clothing, medicine, entertainment or transportation. Most of us would say the trade-offs are more than worth it.

Yeah, dunno, not dying in our 20s does seem pretty great but maybe weighed against feeling like you have to check Twitter all the time it’s not that great after all?

New technology does bring problems and concerns. But we usually embrace it because we want it and, overall, it’s beneficial. It doesn’t always work right but, personally, the Macalope is happy for things like iPhones, penicillin and vast quantities of commercially available alfalfa.