Originally posted by Sly1one
reply to post by ollncasino
Wow, this floors me...when I was 6 or 9 I was off god knows where building forts and climbing trees, riding my bike and god knows what else...so long
as my parents knew where I was going and I was home before the street lights...it was all good in the hood...
I wouldn't doubt the goal of conditioning kids to being supervised at all times...once their used to it at a young age they won't question it when
their an adult...when big brother or your parents (government) is supervising you while you are outside...
I can't say I'm surprised but that still doesn't make it any more comfortable to see coming true...
I think there's a lot of hyping about this case, so I take it with a grain of salt.
I'm a tech buff. I love technology. Got me?
The one thing this technology does is it greatly increases information flow.
Maybe all of these gadgets make us feel vulnerable somehow.
More information is supposed to make us better, more comfortable.
So why would it make us feel the reverse? Make us feel we have to supervise our children 24/7? Could it be that we've grown so used to being connected
that we can't live without it 24/7? You know, millions of people play online games where EVERYTHING is within reach. Think about that. In an online
game, everybody has a name floating above them. And when you select them, they're highlighted. And when you look at your in-game radar, you can see
who's nearby and where they're going. You can also see a detailed map of the area. You can see various statistics about nearby players and monsters.
So all of this seems harmless because it's a game, right? But when people log off they re-enter reality and have to come to the realization that all
of those helpful information tools in the game are not available in real-life. This leads them to wish it were. They want to know where their child is
24/7 just like how they can know where someone is in an online virtual world.
I predict that the real world will look and behave more and more like virtual worlds do. I don't mean real-life will be a game, I mean that there'll
be heaps and mounds of information about EVERYTHING around us. EVERYWHERE we go we'll be able to use these information tools. It will be a hybrid
reality. People nowadays would be opposed to the information, but it'll be commonplace in the future.
People in the past could cope without this information because that's the world they grew up in. They adapted to it through trial and error. They're
like fish in the ocean that're adapted to the ocean. But if you place fish adapted to the ocean in open air, they'll die quickly unless they can
breathe it. The same thing would happen if you grabbed someone from 90 years ago and placed them into today's world. They would not understand our
obsession with information and control. They would not have the education to cope. They might not die like a fish would, but they'd not thrive on
it.
This information technology has opened the floodgates and now we're swamped with information. We adapt or we don't or the world goes backwards. If the
world moves forward then things continue to change. People will grow to need this information like a hunger just as submarines NEEDED sonar when it
was invented. Or just as emergency responders NEEDED radio when it was invented. Or just as people NEEDED phones when they were invented. This is a
neverending thing. Each separate generation is like a separate species or something, each adapted to a different environment.
The question I have is how will humans respond if progress is exponential? At some point progress would be so great that humans cannot keep up. Will
evolution favor rapidly changing humans? Or will evolution give some slack so humans can keep pace? If technology greatly exceeds our ability to use
it well then doesn't this hint that terrorism could be deadly? (like a child with a loaded weapon) Or what about industrial accidents? Hell, what
about traffic accidents or gun use laws?
As an example of how things outpace our ability to keep up is age. As we age, everything slows down. Hence, we fail to maintain our steady progress
forwards. In this case, the inhibitor is age. But in the case of our ability to fully comprehend our technology and information, I'm unsure. I'm
guessing that we can fall behind and that this can result in deaths, accidents, wars, strife and extinction.
edit on 22-9-2012 by jonnywhite
because: (no reason given)