3 ms·
> We could already communicate with anywhere instantly back with the transatlantic telephone. The rest is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Totally disagree. Yo
by Udik 7y ago
> We could already communicate with anywhere instantly back with the transatlantic telephone. The rest is evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Totally disagree. You could as well say that the transatlantic telephone is only evolutionary with respect to the first telegraphs (first built in 1816)- and you'd probably be more right. The diffusion of computers and computer networks- which are conceptually different from a telephone line- has changed the world to the point of making in unrecognizable. Try to explain to the average person living in 1980 what do you do all day. How you listen to music, talk with friends, read the news, read and edit an encyclopedia, order food, date, watch tv, buy and read books, play, work.
I think that our idea of progress is rooted in the past- we tend to project into the future the current trends and past successes- but progress always follows new paths and constantly changes direction. You wanted supersonic airplanes? Those would have been an incremental progress over the ones we built in the 50s. You wanted flying cars? Again, an incremental progress on that personal mobility revolution that was the car. Exploring other planets? An incremental progress from the age of discoveries, when explorers and adventurers reached and colonized new continents.
And instead what you got are computers so tiny, widespread and networked that I can take an astoundingly powerful one out of my pocket and casually tap its screen to switch on and off a 10 euro connected lightbulb that can be 2 meter or 20000km from here, because the signal goes back and forth from China anyway.
So I don't know what the future has in store, but if I think we'll get petaflop-dust particle-sized computers embedded in our brains I might be wrong. Maybe the next fifty years will be about genetically engineering completely new types of plants, or replacing parts of our bodies as they age, or new economic paradigms... who knows?
- coldtea 7y ago>Totally disagree. You could as well say that the transatlantic telephone is only evolutionary with respect to the first telegraphs (first built in 1816)- and you'd probably be more right. I was about to say that too - I just decided I'll concede to the telephone as well as it could also get in every house (unlike the telegraph) and carry personal conversation. But for 90% of the utility of instantly talking to people in the remote places, yes, the telegraph was already up there compared to everything before (messengers, pony express, smoke signals, etc). >The diffusion of computers and computer networks- which are conceptually different from a telephone line- has changed the world to the point of making in unrecognizable. Try to explain to the average person living in 1980 what do you do all day. How you listen to music, talk with friends, read the news, read and edit an encyclopedia, order food, date, watch tv, buy and read books, play, work. Yes, but not in any special way. Progress has an implied notion of "towards better". We did have progress in the sense of "change" (and of smaller, faster, cheaper, more capable technology). Whether we had much progress in anything we really care about, as people, with all those gizmos and with all the lifestyle changes you describe, I seriously doubt. If anything I believe we've regressed socially in those lifestyle aspects. At least we did better in some other aspects, entirely cultural, like ending segregation in the US, etc. Which of course, progress, doesn't have to do with modern gizmos, and predates them... As for the social effects of modern gizmos, well, we have office workers burnout, factory worker unemployment, always present bosses (through mobile, Slack, sms, etc), mass surveillance, faux-experts ("I've read it on Wikipedia so I know as much as you"), loneliness epidemic, fake news, click-baiting, outrage culture, and several other things besides...