Kim du Toit offers some trenchant thoughts about the impact of drastic events upon earlier human societies and culture, and applies that to today's "Information Revolution". I'm not going to steal his thunder by quoting large chunks of his essay, which I find very apposite: I'm simply going to recommend that you click over there and read it for yourself.
Here's how he concludes:
I have no idea how much the Information Revolution is going to change society. All I know is that it will. However, if I want to see how we will be affected by the next overturning of society, and get an idea of the misery we will endure, I just have to re-read Les Misérables and Loss Of Eden.
This time, Shakespeare’s “bare ruin’d choirs” will not be in our buildings, but in our souls.
A gloomy conclusion, but from what I see all around me, I fear it may end up that way. It's for us who care about the higher aspects of human society to fight against that, tooth and nail, to preserve what we can of the best that came before us.
Peter
5 comments:
The Information Revolution isn't going to change society....it already has. In massive ways we still can't fully understand. And it isn't done changing things.
Reading the linked article and preparing my reply I saw this reply TO the article.'
We now have generations that have grown up with these little portable computers. Children with access to infinite information, without wisdom, without maturity, without compassion. Lord of the Flies, at the speed of the internet.
Bread and circuses, human nature does not change. Flop on the couch, flip on the sports channel and check the score–Lions 5, Christians 0.
All I can add to this may God's grace be upon us because Man's Government doesn't have any.
I think Dan is correct, and yes, Kim did a great job with that one!
There is a book called the Next Hundred Years - we are in a period of termoil and adjustment. Currently the financial system is set up to keep the majority of people as debt slaves. What happens when AI and Additive Manufacturing team up? Productivity has increased 2% for 50 years, we would be working 20 hours a week and not 40 or more.
I'm reading an interesting article from "A Midwestern Doctor" talking about how more people are asking their doctor about the root causes of their chronic illenss (diet, exercise, over medication) We are adjusting. There will always be those who get it wrong, but I believe there is hope.
Word is beginning to get out on decades of studies showing diet is the root cause of health issues. I think, eventually hand made furniture will once again be a status symbol. We may even go for Japanese minimalism, but what litle you have is hand made, and potentially even by yourself.
People are waking up to the green energy scam. You want a green refrigerator, have one built to last 20 years so you don't have to replace and dispose of the old one.
Mike Rowe is getting people to recognize college and its attendant debt are not the issue. Trump is bringing jobs back to America. These trends have barely begun but need to be encouraged.
We'll muddle through. Learning is hard, people only learn via pain. I think there is a lot of potential and us old timers need to cheerlead in the right direction. No one listens to chicken little, but they might follow us to where the sun is brighter.
We're not too far off from a slower version of the "VR Apocalypse" from "The Unincorporated Man". The survivors of that story passed down a generational hatred and fear of anything with a screen. Even text-only displays were viewed with a healthy suspicion, and children were banned from using them.
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