I lived in Fengxian District, where was far away from the downtown area. So I had to take a special express bus to the railway station. The special express bus was built one or two years ago, which freed countryside people from spending plenty of time waiting for a regular bus that leaved every 40 minutes. However, to enter the bus station, you have to either show your transport card or buy a ticket with cash. No online payment is allowed. Last week I went to school to attend my class but was prevented from the station, because my transport card had run out of money, and I did not bring cash for I had been so used to make online payment. Suddenly, it came to my mind that Apple wallet now began to support public transportation as long as you bind your transport card to your phone. Then I tried, frustrated again. I had to first bind a credit card to my iphone first. But I did not bring a credit card. At last, I had no choice but turned to other people for help. Believe it or not, nobody brought cash. Due to the limited time, I chose to call a taxi, which was quite more expensive than taking a bus.
To my surprise, I felt extremely anxious and angry with the “backward countryside infrastructure”, because it did not support online payment. I had an urge to promote it with advanced technology at that time. If people was able to make online payment, everything would be perfect, I thought.
However, later I realized that something went wrong. Why did I automatically blame everything on the inconvenience and a not smart enough city? We are so spoiled by technology that they want to find a solution for everything from it. If things are not good enough, it is because the technology is not advanced enough.
Technology does not only improve our way of life, making changes to our habits, but also take control over our life. If you do not follow its rule, you had no choice but being get rid of an advanced civilization. A smart city understand our needs, because it cut our autonomy into pieces and give it to technology in order for its dominance. The smarter it is, the more we rely on it to survive, the more power we hand in.
When everybody is looking forward to a smarter and smarter city, it is crucial to be on the alert.
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