Technology?
The stone axe is 'technology'. We are tool-making apes: the %-difference between a Republicrat and a chimpanzee is IIRC <0.1% in the DNA coding (and lots of that contains junk-nodes, so the differences might be smaller yet). What we do is 'make things' -- most often without much concern for the "unintended consequences". Technology is just a fancy name for a Much Larger Way of making useful/not-so-useful/destructive things, none of which much change the meat-aspect at all:
we're herd animals and pack animals.. with always a small assortment of odd ones who refuse to join any organization as would Take.. people like them.
If you had imagined that 1984 had anything much to do with technology (except as theatre decoration), then it's not even a question: you missed it. All of it.
I will grant that you are more aware of that which you don't know - than many, and I offer Brownie points for your forthrightness. I haven't walked in your moccasins or experienced the early conditioning of your parents, so I can't guess whether your current disinterest in what-you-call politics is inborn - or? a result of rather too-few hours of being read to and possibly.. having been ensconced in front of a Tee Vee for many hours - this in lieu of sincere adult Attention and efforts to wake you up, and keep you awake.
But there's always hope. 'Politics' is supposed to be about ~ every aspect of the "social contract" we are born into, yet - Can Change - if, and when 'we' (enough of 'us') see a need to. To be not-interested in "how you live" / the rules and their effects - as determine all options available to you: is to freely surrender your voice along with the chances which you might have helped create for yourself and for others.
Those books, which you have also found to be of little interest, are the means by which we are able to evade mistakes - for learning just how many and what kind were already made - it's a great time and energy saver, you see? And it's never too late to begin catching up. And since this IS America, the land of Disneyland Dreams Tee Vee and large noise-background all the time: it wouldn't be long before you surpassed the experience of many of your contemporaries. So.. "catching up" really isn't all that hard.
There are many libraries (for a while yet) and librarians are a special breed: they love to answer sincere queries and point people to decent short-cuts to catching up - whatever the topic. Librarians are among the more underappreciated people around, especially in this now post-literate era.
Still and all - no one can supply Interest. That comes from inside or it doesn't. There are no 'shoulds' about that, though. Simply, those who do have Interests find the perpetually disinterested to be - boring at best. This may be why groups form around Interests. And the others go to chat rooms to say everything about nothing.
A member of one group will not be very comfortable in the other, but people are generally more than happy whenever a person "wants to change groups?" - it implies that something is Alive there. The snide remarks cease, under such circumstances :-)
Lastly, as to 'books' - [link|http://www.classicnote.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/fahrenheit/| Fahrenheit 451] (the kindling temperature of newsprint) may give you an idea of the appreciation for books in a situation which -- seems eerily close-to where we seem to be heading. It's available in a superb movie or best of all: in print by the author. It's a rollicking good tale, in any case - but as always: you have to supply its 'meaning'.
Bon appetit,
Ashton
who once.. had read neither 1984 nor Fahrenheit 451. Too.
