Vision
What will the future bring? Man has been trying to peer into the great wide open since the dawn of time. Mythology is filled with seers and prophets who have warned of dire consequences or foretold of great victories. Man has been writing fiction about their visions of the future and when cinema became the visual media of choice, we had movies that showed their path to tomorrow. But what will the future bring?
If you look at the advances since the beginning of the 20th century, it becomes apparent that technology is a driving factor in the view of the future. We started out with the gasoline engine and the automobile. The Wright brothers launched aviation into the forefront. We have computers, lasers, Velcro, cell phones and digital everything and we are driven ever forward by the desire to stay on top of the next best thing. Are we chasing technology to make our lives easier or is technology chasing us to narrow our ability to adapt to a changing world?
My brother-in-law has some wonderful insights into the world of technology. His view is that the only truly original ideas in the last 40 years are the string trimmer and the microchip. The microchip revolutionized how we manage our lives. Entertainment, work, and leisure are all driven by the little chips that reside inside almost every device currently made. The string trimmer revolutionized that tedious chore of grooming the lawn. For the yard Nazis that run around my neighborhood, it must have been akin to changing from banging two stones together to make fire to using disposable butane lighters.
What will the future bring? I am not the Oracle of Delphi but I know that we are heading for a major change in the way we use resources. Whether it is a non-renewable one like petroleum, a recyclable one like metal, or a renewable one like timber, we have got to change our attitude toward replacing with the next best thing. There has to be a way to effectively utilize the current infrastructure of our lives and upgrade instead of replace. I am not visionary enough to see how that can be done but as the push to use a diminishing pool of raw material, we will do what man does best; innovate. The 20th century is a testament to that.
Icool
Cobb
If you look at the advances since the beginning of the 20th century, it becomes apparent that technology is a driving factor in the view of the future. We started out with the gasoline engine and the automobile. The Wright brothers launched aviation into the forefront. We have computers, lasers, Velcro, cell phones and digital everything and we are driven ever forward by the desire to stay on top of the next best thing. Are we chasing technology to make our lives easier or is technology chasing us to narrow our ability to adapt to a changing world?
My brother-in-law has some wonderful insights into the world of technology. His view is that the only truly original ideas in the last 40 years are the string trimmer and the microchip. The microchip revolutionized how we manage our lives. Entertainment, work, and leisure are all driven by the little chips that reside inside almost every device currently made. The string trimmer revolutionized that tedious chore of grooming the lawn. For the yard Nazis that run around my neighborhood, it must have been akin to changing from banging two stones together to make fire to using disposable butane lighters.
What will the future bring? I am not the Oracle of Delphi but I know that we are heading for a major change in the way we use resources. Whether it is a non-renewable one like petroleum, a recyclable one like metal, or a renewable one like timber, we have got to change our attitude toward replacing with the next best thing. There has to be a way to effectively utilize the current infrastructure of our lives and upgrade instead of replace. I am not visionary enough to see how that can be done but as the push to use a diminishing pool of raw material, we will do what man does best; innovate. The 20th century is a testament to that.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
6:58 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home