I think our locations influence our perceptions of whether we regard the advances you mention/propose as being beneficial or not. From where I am (surrounded by bushland, listening to the birds, watching wallabies bound by, hearing a possum nestling in the roof, being disturbed by geckos scrabbling through the leaves) a world filled by drones and talking vending machines managed by faceless, unaccountable corporations seems like a nightmare.
The internet has changed the world - no doubt - but I don't think it has been as positive as we thought (pornification of everything, cult of celebrity, the bias for information over knowledge, trolling). Certainly Tim Berners Lee isn't too happy. Sure we need 'internet money'....but then Peter Thiel set up PayPal (what a scam eh!), so now he's set up BitPay (as The Who said, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss").
As for 'kiddie scripters' -- I heard an interesting story recently: there are script camps being set up in the UK to try and get people to learn scripting and programming because there is actually a shortage now and a predicted massive skill shortage in the next 10/15 years in these areas of expertise. Extrapolated, scripting is actually becoming the preserve of the well-educated or advantaged (yes, there are always going to be exceptions), while the masses (those in state-schools) are not being given the basic tools (maths, science) or exposure or equipment to learn or develop an interest in these areas. Doesn't sound egalitarian to me. In fact, the picture you paint sounds like a nightmare, bad for physical and mental health but great for controlling large numbers of people in bondage.
As for books being quaint. There's been a lot of interesting research done in Scandy with regard to cognitive function when interacting with screens or books - in summary, you appear to retain more when interacting with a book due to the physical and affective relationships you form with a 'real' text. Books won't become extinct, they'll just become a luxury for the rich, the educated and the powerful. Which, when you think about Martin Luther, William Caxton and all the others who struggled to bring texts to the masses, is a real shame.
I'll have a look at the links you provided later but have to go out and 'hunt' right now.
peace
I hear what you are saying.....however..
Technology is a double edged sword... as is "progress" while progress should not be, "progress" is.. and has been for a considerable amount of time/human history, and often involves two steps forward one step back.
We already fall victim to "technological progress" outstripping the speed at which we can legislate
or adapt or learn as a society or to adapt to the changes it brings with it (this includes things like the slow uptake of educating the younger masses to code, or dealing with the consequences of losing traditional "book" learning, the dwindling areas of natural beauty, legislating against powerful technologies) There are challenges no doubt.
It would be very wise (for mankind) to start to cherry pick from technology/progress... there is no denying that, that is a skill, a behaviour, that needs to be developed by humanity...and more so as technology become more and more powerful.
However I would counter some of your points... and I also would say that things need to get worse before they get better...
In terms of script kiddies, I would still put it to you that the internet, and modern times is bringing more information to peoples fingertips than ever before in human history and in more parts of the world, imagine if as in your example Martin Luthur could have spread his message via the internet for example as well as the way he already did... or any of the greats, and it is not as if those very books written over the ages were not controlled in their distribution...the printing press was the internet of its time... and was controlled and censored too, and still is in fact.
The same is true for script kiddies, the more readily available this information becomes (and has become) in a free decentralised manner the more people "worldwide" are, and are going to continue to be able to benefit from it, not just children in sunny suburbs of north London in private or comprehensive/public school education, with their nice (costly) freshly printed text books... the information (text books) that as a child, I and every child (or rather their parents) had to buy, or our schools had to buy, and then buy again the books for the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, while again the younger children (their parents) that are following years or two behind, also had to purchase newer updated versions of published books, the same information printed centuries ago, for example Newton’s laws, has been bought and paid for millions of times over by parents (or the schools) around the globe for how long? The giant publishing corporations reaping the benefit of this process, year after year... whilst also no doubt also prescribing to and following strict editorial content controls, i.e censorship, doesn't sound egalitarian to me either...this information now should be a matter of public domain and be freely available via the internet for all.
There are not enough people YET that can code,
but there will be there has always been times in history when the government, especially of the UK has looked, into
their glass ball, and decided that there is going to be a shortfall of certain skill set, not so long ago reading was one of them.. (And disturbingly may be again that would be that "progress") However the freedom of information IS there... and living in the UK I can tell you, that there are more script kiddies, more script adults here than ever before, certainly more than when the internet was born... and not just in the UK, worldwide
and the process has to start somewhere (Technology, is one thing, and then there is society which is another, the tools are there, and becoming available, the will from society to use them, and in the correct fashion is another thing all on its own)
Talking of talking of Martin Luthur, and the topic of books, or print... or mass printing shall we say.. And with it the ability to disseminate information to the masses in written form. The printing press was at its time powerful technology, Gutenberg is credited with inventing the first movable type mass printing machine, though there was printing before him of course, but that was sometime around 1436/40.. much of the world, and by this I mean the masses , and even here in the UK , took up to 450 years or more to catch up and get to the point where it could be said that mass illiteracy had been eradicated.. 450 years! that is 450 years of books printed, where most of the people, unless rich, and educated could not actually read them, much less write them. Illiteracy is still a global problem with around 17%-20% of the world still being illiterate, this is set to decline to around 1% by 2060.. and this is going to be in part because of technology, and the internet, even in this day and age there are still around 1.5 billion people on the planet that cannot read and write... we need to get to them first before we start the mission to add scripting to the list of languages that people can read and write...
My point being, like I said the change may take longer than people have expected, but due to the
exponential rate at which technology is growing, many of the problems that we have are rapidly going to find solutions within the coming decades.. I still believe that the internet is going to continue to be a powerful and beneficial tool for the world as a whole, and I am not just talking about westerners.. fact is even public school students, in the west have every
opportunity available to themselves to educate themselves and use the system in place and the internet to educate themselves
if they so choose and the internet plays a
massive part in offering this opportunity
to those willing to learn And in schools in this country, coupled with the internet, every child, with the will to learn can learn... and I believe technology is going to
continue to reduce the cost of providing fair and equal resources to all children, everywhere, getting rid of those text books is a good place to start, a computer for
every child is another... these things cannot all happen at once... but as they do, more and more children and adults in more and more places , some of whom are more disadvantaged than north london public shools (if you can imagine) will have the opportunity to learn.
(by the way, by folded bits of paper in folded bits of cow , I was not talking about books, I LOVE a good book , made of paper, I was talking about wallets and bank notes)
"From where I am (surrounded by bush land, listening to the birds, watching wallabies bound by, hearing a possum nestling in the roof, being disturbed by geckos scrabbling through the leaves) then London, New York, Tokyo seems like a nightmare" FTFY
Again I hear you, and I do not think one needs to be sacrificed for the other.. it sounds like you cherry pick the worse of what technology can bring ........ while there is no denying there are potential nightmares that could come from tech this is no reason to banish the idea all together... for example would a highly efficient mass transport system, that uses less resources and transports more people (in a global population that could double in the next 50-60 years) maybe underground, be a more efficient use of natural resources and our environment, and possibly be a greener solution, be better for the world than billions of petrol guzzling cars? Or would a network of small powerful, solar powered nano fuel celled drones (with the capability to deliver the few goods that would not be available in information files directly, or from a decentralised local source) that delivers far fewer items, but locally, faster, quicker, safer, quieter, using less resources, be better than a dirty great big lorry/plane/cargo ships/car/motorbikes trundling all over the place? Also it sounds great where you live... but what about the other 7.2 billion people on the planet ?
Overall there are many many many real world examples of technology, that is , and is going to bring real and beneficial change to segements of society that are sreaming out for it... progress is a double edged sword no doubt, and I am not suggesting it is not... but it is unstoppable... and whilst I am not saying I am looking forward to talking vending machines (actually I was asking, in half jest, are YOU ready?) but AI is something I believe will be significant for society.
I think cherry picking the best from technology, whilst reducing world wide problems, and poverty and hunger and disease and education and solving the resources problem, and pollution problems, and striving for a safer , more open, informed society are things that are all slowly becoming a reality, and are looking more and ore possible everyday... my intial point was that the original inventors of the internet, you mention are not so pleased today... well it took 450 years for people on masse to reach a stage of literacy after gutenberg, and it is going to take an exponentially less amount of time, in my view for the benefit of the internet and the modern technology to actually stamp its stamp on the human race, far less than 450 years... but far more than the pre dot com era bullish investors thought, and as it turns out slower than Tim Berners Lee et al had hoped too.. but still a lot faster than 450 years (and counting)
No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater... I guess it what I am saying, we need more people engaged in pushing forward the benefits of technology and pushing the aspects that we wish to encourage.... and protecting the aspects of our society and globe that we wish to protect. Like a hammer, technology is a tool and it can be used for good, or be used to cause great pain and injury...I see the benefits of the internet far out weigh the pornification, cult of celebrity etc)
One thing I will say though, is that actually yes, one of the challenges of the increasing technological progress that is coming, will certainly be the effects on physical and mental health, and also the environment, I do not doubt that, but then that problem is already a part of our present and our history and will continue to be a part of our future even more so with digital sensory overload, and life extension etc etc.. in fact, already technology does things that 100-200 years ago were considered “god like” in their power, and I believe that this trend is going to continue is mind boggling ways… over the next 100 years, and the closer the technology gets to “god like” the more strain it will put on humans, the further away we get from what it was to be considered human. Though strangely enough it had been suggested we already would have reached this stage and as it turns out, humans seemingly lap it up as it comes, more data, more speed, more information.. it is almost as if we have as part of our own evolution started to merge with machine.. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, or if it is something that we even could have any control over (imagine it as a function of evolution and then imagine trying to stand in its path)
But yes the further down this route we go the further we go from being “human”
Do you think if tech enables a man to live to be 1000 years old (the first human to do so
may already be alive) will that man be "human"? I would probably say that "no" they would not be, not in any classical sense of the defintion.
Should we stop this and detour or double back from this path we are on? Now that is a question of massive scope… massive..
For now I say that give the tech, including "the internet" and the emerging disruptive technologies and the next generation tools that are now being built (and the humans behind them) a chance...not an open pass, but certainly a chance, and some time...... they may surprise you...and I still have faith.
ps.. I could do with escaping this concrete jungle for a while... funny enough Kakadu is calling)
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