I remember in the 5th grade (I think it was), the teacher rolled in the TV and we watched a small part of the Olympics, because it was “via satellite” for the first time in history. It could be watched in real time. Most of the kids didn’t get what he was saying, they were all adrenalin and childhood enthusiasm and social programming about sports… not about the historic tech, the globe-changing concept of live from around the world.
And today I don’t think very many get it, how sophisticated & complex the web of technology is for doing this sort of thing. (Or how vulnerable, though recent events should have clued in a few of you!)
I remember a story about a 90-something, back in maybe 1990’s, about how she had gone in her lifetime from Conestoga wagon to moon landing, from postal-letters to cell phones, from arithmatic in your head to a hand held computer. It was in the news, but I don’t recall very many folks “getting it.” It was taken more as a cute human interest story (which is to say, that token warm-and-fuzzy throw-away at the end of the news broadcast… back when news was not 24/7, that is).
The problem is that for 1000’s and 1000’s of years, very little changed in how Humans (in their very many variations) have lived on this planet. Millions of years, really. Only in the last few thousand has “progress” of this type become common.
Here’s what’s always been my primary objection to automation / technology: the social response to it. Per my observations, I have watched people take miracles of engineering, production and very sohpisticated physics and just go “ho hum” over them in virtually no time at all. “That’s nice, but what have you done for me today?”
When they treat the stuff without the respect it deserves, we end up with… well, with what we’ve got: the disposable economy(1).
Me, I still treat computers like they’re gifts from <Insert Favorite Supernatural Source here>. 10 billion transistors just in a cell phone… and they throw them away! Gah.
But Olympics, live. What a thing. Appreciate it!
‘T wasn’t that long ago it was impossible.
‘T wasn’t that long ago it was impossible.
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(1) Disposable economy is nothing more than how a corporation keeps its profits going up, by the way (which is artificial profits, not real ones, by the way). At your expense. Also, it’s global warming, toxic land dumps, prescription drugs that end up in your tap water, and many other ugly things.