THE TWELVE CLIPS OF CHRISTMAS - DAY 8: THE MILKMAID AND HER PAIL

On this day of eight maids a milking, what could be more appropriate than Aesop's classic fable, The Milkmaid and Her Pail? Of course, there are untold versions of this story on YouTube, but anybody over the age of 30 will instantly feel a twinge of nostalgia once they press play and they'll understand why I chose this particular adaptation.

Talk about auld lang syne. Who of a certain age doesn't remember the pressure of being chosen to run the film strip projector and hoping you didn't somehow miss the little beep indicating it was time to turn the knob and switch to the next picture? Or worse, they had those automatic ones that never worked properly and the teacher would have to step in and try to re-sync the audio with the correct image. Horrible.

Now, some of you young whipper-snappers out there may be rolling your eyes at this ancient tech, but when you can give me a YouTube that doesn't have the occasional buffer issues, then I'll accept your judgment. Besides, keep in mind that one day you'll be old, and all those kids who are having video beamed directly to the chip in their skull will roll their eyes at you and the thought of your antiquated social media sites. Just you wait.

However the technology develops, I hope future generations keep in mind the words of Pope benedict XVI, who wrote in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate...

"Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens our horizon. But human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility. Hence the pressing need for formation in an ethically responsible use of technology. Moving beyond the fascination that technology exerts, we must reappropriate the true meaning of freedom, which is not an intoxication with total autonomy, but a response to the call of being, beginning with our own personal being."

In other words, when developing new tech, don't skip the moral dimension in a rush to get to the end goal, otherwise you might drop the proverbial pail and count your technological chickens before they hatch.