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by Fronzie
2529 days ago
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That missed the semiconductor revolution which brought us GPS, internet and pocket mainframes. Weather forecasts have improved tremendously, giving tornado warnings which are useful. Knowledge is instantly available instead of just hoping that the local library has a book on the topic. The house might look the same now as in the 50s, but life has really changed a lot. |
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Up until about the mid-90s, when computers and the Internet started to become consumer commodities, technology was The Future. When you bought an 8-bit micro to learn BASIC you weren't buying a nearly-useless blob of circuitry that crawled along so slowly you could barely do anything with it - you were buying The Future. It was the same Future that Apollo, Star Trek, electronic hobby culture, and
Around 2000 - in fact around 9/11 - that Future disappeared and was replaced by a reversion to idiot tribalism. A few elements continued - notably gender and identity politics - but the last product that came from The Future was the iPhone. And that turned out to be a kind of shrink-wrapped version that turned you into a passive consumer of The Future instead of someone who could help build it.
Life has changed in that it's now far more backward looking, and there's no optimistic Future to build and look forward to. The Future is just as likely to be corporate, brutally oppressive, manipulative, inhumane, systemically dishonest, psychopathic, disempowering, and dystopian as it is to be a positive sun-filled utopia full of incredibly bright, competent, and creative people doing amazing things.
This will probably change again at some point in the future, but humanity seems to be going through one of its depressive self-destructive phases at the moment, and it's going to take a while to find that collective sense of optimism, possibility, and adventure.