Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Axcelis

"Brilliant minds. Bold science. A powerhouse portfolio of tools: ion implantation, rapid thermal processing, curing, cleaning. Axcelis Technologies. We make semiconductor manufacturing more productive every day."

Most of my projects are ordered by Axcelis so one way to look at my job is that I'm manufacturing cutting edge components. The world is powered by semiconductors and that's where these cables are going. Why don't I feel proud? It's because the dirty secret behind this technology is that it's impossible to do cleanly. They're implanting ions! Does that sound safe? Or to put it another way, we're sacrificing today's environment on the premise that one day machines will run so efficiently that people won't do manual labor. What planet are these brilliant minds living on? You think we're gonna lay around like the Jetsons and watch reality tv? No. We'll be the future Pakistani trash pickers who dig through land fills for precious metals we moronically used to power toy Star Trek replica phasers!
Oh, wait, it won't be us. It'll be someone else. So that makes it alright. That's how a brilliant mind works.

Do questionable labor saving gadgets justify widespread pollution?No chance does this recklessness pay off in some high tech utopia. That's as insane as believing my living in the van will inspire people to live more simply. I don't believe my van life will change anything but then I won't give up either. Join the resistance! Defend Humanity!
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.