On the Other Hand You Can't Bury Someone in an iPad

I want an iPad. Why do I want an iPad? I don't know. What would I do with it? I don't know that either. How does it work? I really don't know that. All I do know is that an iPad is sleek and elegant looking and I really, really want one. Yes folks, I am that shallow. In no more than thirty seconds of staring at a friend's new purchase an iPad has gone from a pointless self indulgence to, well, to a pointless self indulgence that I really really want. I would use it for um... Ok, I would probably use it for a flat surface to put my coffee down on. Some people would say that isn't a particularly good use for an iPad but those people are missing the point.

The point is that an iPad isn't meant to be useful. Oh I grant you people will find uses for it. They may even reach the point where they can't imagine life without it. I have already reached that point and I don't even own one yet. I'm sure an iPad can do all sorts of really useful things. I could probably even find a use for it myself if I owned one for long enough (stable table, door jamb, pet discipliner the list is endless) but this is largely irrelevant. An iPad isn't for using, its for owning. Essentially it is a little decoration to jazz up an otherwise drab and meaningless existence.

It could be argued that this is an appalling waste of resources, that millions are spent on such luxuries while children in the third world starve. All true of course but if that argument had been followed throughout history there would be precious little history. What do we know about ancient civilisations? What is it that catches our breath and inspires us to learn more about them? Their monuments. Even in the crumbling, well past use by date condition they are in today it is the pyramids, the temples, the statues and the art of past civilisations that grabs our attention. Each of these is now and was at the time a pointless waste of resources created for no better reason than the aggrandisement of a particular individual, religion or government system. Not a single starving third world denizen benefited from the painting of the Sistine Chapel or the building of the Taj Mahal (except in so far as some of them may have been employed on the latter) yet I doubt if many people would agree to the demolition of either in return for a well targeted aid programme.

There seems to be a vast difference between the Taj Mahal and an iPad but there isn't really. Each of them serves a purpose that was being taken care of quite efficiently by already existing alternatives. Each of them is a pointless self indulgence that has no value to anyone except the owner and the world would have got along quite well without the creation of either. I very much doubt that anyone would agree to their destruction now that they're here; and if they did the world would be poorer for it.

In actual fact there are two ways an iPad can be considered superior to the Taj Mahal. While I agree that those starving third worlders are unlikely to ever get themselves a Taj Mahal it is at least within the realm of possibility that they might one day own an iPad. Self indulgence is a lot more democratic these days. The other good thing about an iPad is that you don't have to be dead to make use of it.