In the Seventies, according to Luke Rhinehart's novel The Dice Man, the favoured method to absolve responsibility was the dice - all you had to do was roll a double six and you'd be heading to Rio on the back of a moped. Times have changed and today, if we want to let to fate determine our actions, we can let technology decide. "Thanks to an array of evolving websites and internet-based communities, we are able to let the internet take the sting out of decision making. In a few months, a new decision-making site, Hunch.com, will launch (although you can sign up for a preview now).
"In a nutshell, Hunch aims to provide answers to problems, concerns or dilemmas, on hundreds of topics. Hunch's responses are based on the collective knowledge of the Hunch community. Users input information and the site software uses that content to make decisions. Content is narrowed down by a specially created algorithm to cater specifically for the likes and preferences of the user, based on a profile of that the user provides. The site is designed so that every time it's used, it learns something new. It aims to save its users 'strenuous cognitive labour'."
It strikes me that the appearance of a website like this shows just how far modern (ie, Western) man has drifted from his roots.
"One of the peculiar sins of the twentieth century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything." - Malcolm Muggeridge
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