Like just about everyone else online, I’ve been following the Kim family saga with much interest. I never knew the Kim s nor even heard of any of them before this ordeal began, but when resucers found Katie Kim and her children, I felt some sense of weird relief. I’m embarrassed to admit that, in some tragic situations, I occasionally find myself hoping for the worst to feed that same macabre part of my brain that likes watching “When Animals Attack” and slows down to see car accidents on the freeway. I have no desire to see anyone hurt, but there’s a strange draw to disaster. In James Kim’s case, however, I found myself not only hoping they would find him OK, but actually genuinely caring and praying he’d turn out OK. So to learn that he died actually struck a small emotional blow.
More than anything, though, I find this whole incident completely confounding. In the days of exploration and discovery, maps were drawn containing as much information as was known. In some unexplored areas where stories and myths had unfurled but not been confirmed, a legendary mark was left on the map: “Here there be monsters.”
In our hyper-connected modern age, it’s rare that I enter an area with no cell phone signal anymore. With OnStar, GPS and any number of gadgets they keep plugging into our lives, the idea of a person finding themselves in an inaccessible bubble in the middle of civilization seems impossible, particularly for a gear geek like Kim. And yet, there they were. It was as if they were adrift on a cold, dark sea even though they were mere miles from modern life. Devastatingly remarkable.
The only real lesson that can be gathered from this, as far as I can see, is that the world still is a scary place and, in some areas - even in a country like the USA - there may still be monsters. I don’t belive the answer is to increase cell phone coverage or further push technology into our lives, but to respect that our technology, though useful and fascinating, still can’t be trusted to always save us. I don’t think this is a lesson James Kim failed - from all accounts, he did what any rational person would do to save his family, and it’s tragic that he wasn’t the one to bring the rescuers to the stranded car. But in watching the story unfold on TV with the constant reminder that he was an editor for C|Net, I think many of us are shocked that none of the gadgets Kim built a career on reviewing and exploring all seemed to fail him in his time of need. Technology is a tool, not a pallative. This is an awful way to be reminded of that.
My prayers and condolensces got to all of James Kim’s family and friends.
