We live in a fast paced, technologically fascinating world. When you think about it, it's really incredible how far we've advanced in some ways (I'm talking about technology here) and how much of that advancement has occurred in the relatively near past. If you think about it, a human being's day to day life didn't really change that much between pre-Egytpian days and about the late 1800s. I'm talking about the down and dirty details of day to day living. If you took a person from 1500 b.c. and 1500 a.d they both lived a short life span, were probably dirty most of the time, defecated in a hole in the ground, had a good chance of dying from a plethora of diseases which have been eradicated today, didn't get enough to eat, were probably exploited by some government, chuch or both...well, you get the picture. The details of their lives just were that much different.
Now in the past 100 and some odd years, things are amazingly different in many ways. In 1902 the average lifespan of an American male was 49 years. The industrial revolution brought lots of new technologies which changed things indoor plumbing, clean water, ways to insure that there were healthy crop yields, transportation, aviation, quantum physics...it's really amazing.
What's really amazing to me though is how much we take these things (and new ones) for granted. The human being is so adaptable that some pretty astounding things become pretty common in our conciousness pretty quickly. Here's a few of the things I often think about that leave me shaking my head:
- When I'm driving down an interstate, perhaps noticing the hilly rises where clearing was done to make way for the highway, I often just imagine the total absence of the road, any other roads, the cars, houses, everything. Then I think about what it would be like to be a native American standing in that spot, surrounded by wilderness (and quiet), and figuring out how to actually live and thrive.
-Whenever I fly (which is not too often...I hate flying for a variety of reasons) it absolutely astounds me, when I stop to really think about it, that I'm inside of a big piece of metal hurtling through the sky. Not only that, but when I get at Cleveland airport or wherever I've gone, I've travelled further in a few hours than the pioneers could have in a year, and done it a lot more comfortably with far fewer hardships. Don't even get me started about fighter jets!
- So it's 1998 (I think) and I'm standing in my mother's living room watching CNN. They are broadcasting live (LIVE!!!) images from the Mars rovers which have just landed. I can hardly breathe. I'm looking at the surface of fucking Mars 90 minutes hence. Now, years later, the rovers, which had been designed to last something like 90 days are STILL working and sending back valuable scientific data. And you never hear anybody mention it. HELLOOOOOOO!!!!
- I can sit down at my computer at home, fire up my original iSight camera, fire up iChat (or use the comparable hardware and software for a non-mac platform) and video conference with my cousin in Tokyo. Okay, I don't have a cousin in Tokyo, but you get what I mean. I remember when I was a kid, all of the futurist exhibitions always had a video telephone. I remember when I was an older kid, AT&T prototyped them in some areas. They could never get them to work (which I think really means that they could never figure out how to screw consumers enough on it to make it worth their while). Obviously, this is just one of the benefits of the Web. Really, what do you think DaVinci would think if we could pop him into present time and showed him the web (after he was treated in a rubber room for a few years, that is) ???
- I go to the office softball game, slide into second and break my leg. I go to the hospital and get an Xray -- A PICTURE OF MY BONES!!!! Later, after I heal, I'm having trouble with my back and I get an MRI -- A PICTURE OF MY INSIDES!!!! What are you, kidding?!?!? It wasn't that long ago that doctors were sawing off legs with no anesthesia or performing frontal lobotomies (though I sometimes think that some of them still would if they could get away with it). And now they can do an MRI, get a 3D image of my heart, isolate it, and if they want, pull a chunk out of the image and look at it in cross section!! And we don't even think twice about it. I'm 50 years old, and even after I was out of high school in the mid-70s if you had explained to a laymen like myself that in the near future there would be a machine called an MRI and described what it would do, I would told you to lay off the saki....
Anyway, you get the idea. My point is not so much about technology as it is that we should try to think more about taking things and even more importantly, people for granted. It's very easy to do.
Now in the past 100 and some odd years, things are amazingly different in many ways. In 1902 the average lifespan of an American male was 49 years. The industrial revolution brought lots of new technologies which changed things indoor plumbing, clean water, ways to insure that there were healthy crop yields, transportation, aviation, quantum physics...it's really amazing.
What's really amazing to me though is how much we take these things (and new ones) for granted. The human being is so adaptable that some pretty astounding things become pretty common in our conciousness pretty quickly. Here's a few of the things I often think about that leave me shaking my head:
- When I'm driving down an interstate, perhaps noticing the hilly rises where clearing was done to make way for the highway, I often just imagine the total absence of the road, any other roads, the cars, houses, everything. Then I think about what it would be like to be a native American standing in that spot, surrounded by wilderness (and quiet), and figuring out how to actually live and thrive.
-Whenever I fly (which is not too often...I hate flying for a variety of reasons) it absolutely astounds me, when I stop to really think about it, that I'm inside of a big piece of metal hurtling through the sky. Not only that, but when I get at Cleveland airport or wherever I've gone, I've travelled further in a few hours than the pioneers could have in a year, and done it a lot more comfortably with far fewer hardships. Don't even get me started about fighter jets!
- So it's 1998 (I think) and I'm standing in my mother's living room watching CNN. They are broadcasting live (LIVE!!!) images from the Mars rovers which have just landed. I can hardly breathe. I'm looking at the surface of fucking Mars 90 minutes hence. Now, years later, the rovers, which had been designed to last something like 90 days are STILL working and sending back valuable scientific data. And you never hear anybody mention it. HELLOOOOOOO!!!!
- I can sit down at my computer at home, fire up my original iSight camera, fire up iChat (or use the comparable hardware and software for a non-mac platform) and video conference with my cousin in Tokyo. Okay, I don't have a cousin in Tokyo, but you get what I mean. I remember when I was a kid, all of the futurist exhibitions always had a video telephone. I remember when I was an older kid, AT&T prototyped them in some areas. They could never get them to work (which I think really means that they could never figure out how to screw consumers enough on it to make it worth their while). Obviously, this is just one of the benefits of the Web. Really, what do you think DaVinci would think if we could pop him into present time and showed him the web (after he was treated in a rubber room for a few years, that is) ???
- I go to the office softball game, slide into second and break my leg. I go to the hospital and get an Xray -- A PICTURE OF MY BONES!!!! Later, after I heal, I'm having trouble with my back and I get an MRI -- A PICTURE OF MY INSIDES!!!! What are you, kidding?!?!? It wasn't that long ago that doctors were sawing off legs with no anesthesia or performing frontal lobotomies (though I sometimes think that some of them still would if they could get away with it). And now they can do an MRI, get a 3D image of my heart, isolate it, and if they want, pull a chunk out of the image and look at it in cross section!! And we don't even think twice about it. I'm 50 years old, and even after I was out of high school in the mid-70s if you had explained to a laymen like myself that in the near future there would be a machine called an MRI and described what it would do, I would told you to lay off the saki....
Anyway, you get the idea. My point is not so much about technology as it is that we should try to think more about taking things and even more importantly, people for granted. It's very easy to do.
Comments
20 years ago we couldn't this stuff so small -- it would have cost thousands of dollars for a larger version. Amazing.
Now think that in probably less than a year they will both be thrown into the trash, probably still working, replaced by something else that caught the buyer's whimsy.
I think these things should cost MORE than $10 so people can think about their value.
And did you hear that Esquire will have eInk for the cover of their October issues? It reported cost Ford (the sponsor) 6 figures in development costs (they needed to make a smaller battery). Amazing! Only to be thrown out the next month when the new issues arrives.