AYE AYE iPhone
Friday Sept. 22, 2017
DeGaulle, visiting with Mao at a French Revolution anniversary, asked Mao his thoughts on France post-revolution.
Mao replied, “we’ll see” …
Now, 72 yrs. on, everyone watches with “we’ll see’ wonderment of how the world and China post-People’s Revolution. And Trump? Don’t start me …
What of our collective future?
Will we have one artificial intelligence driven government, to replace the UN? Will robots vote for us on election day after they check with us first, or will they just auto-vote based on their knowledge of us, or our preferences? Or will our Google search histories reveal enough so actual voting won’t be required?
Will whatever currency bumps Bitcoin and others out of contention, the VHS beat Beta (if anyone under 30 asks, would someone please tell them. And, while you are at it, explain ‘floppy disk’ and ‘discman’ to them too). The times, indeed are a changin’
Women, with much justification, chide men for their use of the TV remote – because they not only want to know what is on, but ‘what else is on’. It’s beyond recalculating, it’s perverse. And pervasive.
Enter iPhone, ‘everything in your pocket’ for everyone.
Ten years on, enter iPhone X.
Latest TV+EVERYTHING ELSE remote.
Ultimate tool connects us to the world while at the same time allowing Apple et all to be connected to everyone the way I Love Lucy or the Evening News once did, only now it is ‘big data’ time and nothing is a secret. OK, our thoughts are still our own, but whenever we voice them or enter a keystroke, that privacy disappears.
Nothing new, just milestone reminders we all enter into this freely and substantially well informed. It reminds me of the smoker who lights up notwithstanding graphic and text warnings.
Is this technology addiction/epidemic we share that different from opiods, booze, tobacco or any other self-destructive behavior?
We hold, in the main, to this notion that the value of these tech-tools outweighs their risks. That advantages and values to us all, to future humankind, which flow from instantaneous knowing of everything by everyone who wants to know – planet wide – is good for us, for the planet, for the future of humanity.
The future most of us won’t see is rooted in the now which we do see. Most of it we are powerless to stop or even slow if collectively tried.
It doesn’t snow much in the arctic – too cold. But when it snows, it blows for thousands of miles unimpeded unless there is a structure. Then drifts pile like concrete. All other snowflakes keeps flying by. Technology and information is like that. If we stand up, if we let it, we are bombarded by a blizzard piling up in mountains we cannot possibly decipher. Or, we can crouch low to the ground, let it blow by. Letting it go, for everyone over 30, might seem a safe bet. Let the next generation sweat it, enjoy it and figure out how to benefit from it.
Or, we could stand up.
Yes, I’ll likely get an iPhone X.
I’m needing/wanting a bigger screen without going monster or tablet.
I realize I can’t keep up with everything, yet I struggle daily to manage how far, how fast, I’m falling behind.
We’ll see …
