The technological revolution in a personal & historical context.
The explosion in human creativity that ensued as a result of the industrial revolution, and spread, thereby, through an increasingly educated and prosperous general population in the Western world is endlessly fascinating to me.
The level of individual opportunities and resources that has grown over these past couple of centuries has not followed a straight line, of course, pumped periodically by things like a World War or a breakthrough granting of human rights. The basic shifts in individual conceptualization of human survival and accomplishment, however, moving from the personal and physically immediate to a larger societal orientation, have still been primarily driven by the advancement of human knowledge, and more specifically by the creativity and passion of a few. It’s a passion that is contagious.
It is in this context that I relish being both a spectator and participant in the technological revolution.
Google’s first web definition for revolution (unattributed) is ‘a drastic and far-reaching change in ways of thinking and behaving’. In the 80’s the popular term used by many business gurus for the one we’re traveling through now was paradigm shift, and one of the more familiar descriptors for the potential of it was ‘global village’.
As a result of the industrial revolution, the average person’s immediate world gradually expanded from ‘breakfast at sunrise followed by labor in exchange for the necessities of life’, which involved connecting with just a handful of other people in close physical proximity, to a growing (ie. spurred by unions) participation in the exponential rewards conferred by recognition and development of economies of scale. This led to potential networks for the average person of dozens and even hundreds of other people in an urban setting, growing steadily because of the introduction of then miraculous basics such as electricity or the telephone.
…segue…
Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a pioneer in science fiction, conceiving and presenting visions of the future which are fascinating viewed from our perspective today compared to how they must have sounded to our recent ancestors.
Thomas Edison said, “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
Where are we today on this road between the 20th century personal network and the next scale of extended and global human networks?
The current ‘revolution’ or ‘paradigm shift’ is really still in its infancy. Every year boosts the overall level of collective cognition and conceptualization of where the realities of our immediate lives are and could be heading. So far, we’ve developed a myriad of effective little business tools and a panoply of cool toys.
Remember, though, from the decade of conspicuous consumption, that the phrase ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’ was closely followed by ‘he who has the most toys dies anyway’.
Our view of the world wide web has already morphed from the congnoscenti’s ‘breathtaking and miraculous’ to the non-techie’s ’so what’s the big deal?’. IBM discovered to their chagrin that catering to businesses and not people wasn’t necessarily the best long term strategy. Riffs on ‘if Microsoft instead of GM built our cars’ are entertaining us today, but they are also highly illustrative of many an average person’s partial disillusionment with technology.
Ok, the idea of a smart house was pretty dazzling. I’d be able to remain seated in front of the TV and tell the house to vacuum the den or defrost the ground beef? Wow …but… if the smart house requires a comparatively greater amount of troubleshooting and tech support than my PC …then I’d rather just get up and take the bloody beef out of the freezer… especially since I’d rather go back to my TV show than work a second or third job to buy a smart (dumb) house.
So far, most people have a coupla three more tools and toys, a coupla three more acquaintances or friends due to the internet (but they could also have accomplished that by joining a local society for something they’re gaga about instead of sitting in front of the machine), and a frequently maddening amount of time spent fixing or shopping for replacement of their modern technologically enhanced stuff, not to mention the occasional regret that nothing is built to last more than 3 years anymore regardless of how much you can afford to spend on it. Big bucks currently buys you the latest cutting edge version of anything accompanied by the knowledge that it will become obsolete soon.
What’s the next chapter in this revolution, then? It’s a question I love hearing all the different answers to. Anything we can fully conceive could come to be.
Much as I enjoy reading various tech development bloggers, we’re not often reading about the next wave of breathtaking ideas …partly because they’re still covered by NDAs, and many won’t survive. This makes me smile sadly, since talking ideas is my top fav pastime, but it does also confirm my belief in free enterprise.
