All of the parts of our culture have become a mishmash of old and new components that really don\u2019t align and add to the sense that our whole world is completely out of balance and headed for a crackup.\u00a0 Well, all that is true but I get the impression that this is just how the world feels to everyone as they get older.\u00a0 In fact, it was probably even more extreme a hundred years ago when people from really old cultures came in contact with American progressivism in the 1920s.\u00a0 And the tension between the old comfortable conventions and the chaotic modernism of the on-line existence is what will force the exact shape of what comes afterward.\u00a0 After all, there are things going on now that cannot possibly go on in their current shape.\u00a0 They are just too maladapted to last for more than a few years.\u00a0 And these excesses will spawn reactions that will modify and even optimize some of the new customs and patterns that the next generations will adopt.<\/p>\n
So, no matter what the world looks like in the coming generation, I won\u2019t like it because it\u2019s not my world.\u00a0 But it will fit the people living in it.\u00a0 And I will have had whatever input I could provide by my limited feedback to my contacts in the younger generation and by providing an echo of what the world was like in my time.<\/p>\n
Aside from whatever small influence I will have on the new culture what I will contribute to is the historical record of my time.\u00a0 The sum total of all the historical records of the second half of the twentieth century will be an enormous treasure trove for those who look back on that time period.\u00a0 It will be recognized that that era spawned the single most impactful technological event of the last thousand years, the digital revolution.\u00a0 And because of this enormous change the customs and practices of this generation will be studied to see what effect this innovation had on the older culture that pre-dated it.\u00a0 Because these changes are unprecedented.\u00a0 And I believe the negative effects of this revolution will be dire.<\/p>\n
And at some point, corrective actions will need to be initiated to mitigate the harmful consequences on humanity.\u00a0 Some technological and commercial products may have to be banned in order to minimize the dysfunctional outcomes that these practices create in the same way that we prohibit the use of certain very dangerous drugs that create addiction in humans.\u00a0 And conversely, new products and services may be mandated to provide humans with patterns and behaviors that are known to improve individual and group mental health and benefit society as a whole.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s a lot of supposing.\u00a0 But I think it\u2019s a safe bet that we are currently living in the time when the most imbalanced on-line culture exists.\u00a0 I think as the maximum disruption of pre-digital culture is reached the imbalance of the digital culture will begin to recede as equilibrium around the new structures occurs.\u00a0 The only question is will it crash our civilization before that equilibrium is reached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
All of the parts of our culture have become a mishmash of old and new components that really don\u2019t align and add to the sense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1354,2457],"class_list":["post-37174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-current-events","tag-internet"],"yoast_head":"\n