Take a look around, nothing much has changed.

[davywavy]

The patest issue of Wired magazine is the 'Ideas Issue'; they look at probable developments in society and technology over the short and longer term. Mostly this is in the field of communications media and the exciting new avenues for sharing pictures of your cat with the world which will soon open up. I have to say I found reading all of this a bit intimidating. Just when I've come to terms with one set of technology a whole bunch more comes along and invalidates everything I've just learned. When I were a lad, I found myself thinking, we made do with two tin cans and a bit of string to talk to our friends. Kids today. Eeh. They don't know how lucky they are. Tchah!.

I then stopped myself with the awful realisation that I have finally started sounding like my dad.

It struck me, though, why teenagers always seem so okay with new technology when most of the rest of us constantly feel like we're running to keep up - it's because when you're 14 you're seeing all this for the first time, but as you age you have to forget and learn anew every couple of years or so and it's not that you cannot do it, it's that you just really can't be arsed. A new iPhone? Why care? There'll be the next gadget du jour along in a week, so why develop a skill which is soon to be obsolescent?
It's this mindset, expanded, which is what makes people get old.
The world changes, and it's really tempting to become dogmatic about it; to rail against changes rather than adapt to them. It's like a couple of years ago when I sulked and stamped my foot and said I'd not go and visit the US again because of their overly complex and prescriptive immigration rules; obviously, as an attitude on my part, this was foolish as it displayed unadaptive thought patterns. Rather than complaining about things which one cannot change, it is better to change behaviours. It's better to learn new skills, even ones of short-term use, as they make the brain forge new connections and that increase in plasticity helps delay neural degredation and the resultant dribbling and incontinence.

Anyway, this post is more of a reminder to myself than anyone else, but I'll cap it with a question: What do you complain about, when really you'd be better off just changing what you do?

Comments

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

Things that annoy me in the media, when really I should just not give a crap.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with transhumanism?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the concept.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I think it's an extreme example of a mindset that knows what's possible but doesn't quite have it yet. This mindset, I suspect, is far more significant to keeping track of technological progress than age. Most of the people I work with are about fifteen years older than me, but because they're always impatiently waiting for the next development, they never get left behind.

I could have said that without bringing up transhumanism at all, thinking about it.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's mostly to do with maintaining interest and curiosity and a willingness to try new things, especially ones outside your usual sphere.

Transhumanism per se, however, always struck me as unconvincing in its predictions for the same reason all those 1950's predictions that we'd have limitless free electricity from the miracle of nuclear power by the faraway year of 2000 turned out to be wrong.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I'm not exactly an adherent of transhumanism, but it isn't just crazy anime fans going on about the fabulous robot bodies we'll all end up walking round in. Underlying it is a general idea that the faster technology advances, the less time people have to adapt to it, and eventually it's the people who are going to have to change.

The amazing future of my childhood was about two years ago (sans jetpacks and flying cars), and in retrospect it seems pretty unambitious. I've got no desire to have my head cryonically frozen after I die on the offchance of that shiny robot body, but I am totally prepared to see the world change into something largely unrecognisable in the next few decades.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd say that the wqorld has always changed into something unrecognizable from the perspective of people as they age. Someone born in 1890 would have seen everything from Queen Victoria to the Atom Bomb, Someone born in Rome in 100BC would have seen an end to Republic and a rise of Empire, and people were crying The World turned Upside Down in 1643.

Things change. They always have. The mechanisms of change have themselves changed in our era, but beyond that, change is still consistent.

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

It's constant, but I wouldn't call it consistent. New technologies improve our ability to generate more technology. 'Exponential' is a perfectly legitimate term to use.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh I'm terribly sorry, I thought you two were talking about Transhumance.

I think one of the earliest Sumerian cuneiform texts refers to the degenerate youth of today; it's just that the old stratified diffusion has speeded up a bit, so that instead of Grandad having to work his socks off so your Dad can get into the Grammar and you can become a Doctor, you can now go for the Crack Dealer/ X Factor contestant career option. That said a lot of Free born Romans volunteered for Gladiator school.

Suspicion is that we haven't changed much in the 20,000 years that homo sapiens sapiens have been about. Maybe Darwinsim can take us no further than us, we just keep coming up with new toys to play with.

D

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

Windows operating systems - just as I'm getting the hang of Vista I'm now told I'm obsolete. Alex bought windows 7 for his new self-build pc and I think that looks really smart, but I'm not jumping at it. As you say, that too shall pass!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

but the act of learning about it will make you incrementally cleverer and better adapted!

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

But I'm already in the middle of a Masters Degree - I think my brain is getting expanded quite as much as it is capable of just now!

[(Anonymous)]

moaning that the weather has turned cold, and implying that we ought to turn the central heating on, when actually it would be cheaper to adapt to seasonal change by wearing what we call "win-ter cloth-ing". Oh, no, sorry, that would be you.

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

But we, as a species, have adapted to cold weather by building what we call 'Houses'. You know, those things that were live in. One of their purposes is to retain heat in cold weather. Heat generated by 'heating'.

Eeeh, it's a miracle of adaption. Or it would be if we didn't live in the middle ages in our house.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, but unlike other house-using species, such as, for instance, "House" Martins, we have also invented the miracle of "Clothes" such as vests, socks, woolly bobble hats and other useful and flattering garments.

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I bet you ten whole pounds that if I wore nothing about the house beyond vest, socks and a woolly bobble hat you wouldn't describe it as 'flattering'.

I don't see how I can lose this bet, particularly with the work digital camera to hand

[(Anonymous)]

You're on

H

Re: I don't see how I can lose this bet, particularly with the work digital camera to hand

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So you reckon you can describe that look as 'flattering'? I reckon it would stretch even your noted powers of dissembling to breaking point.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a tenner at stake, plus you didn't say anything about using a sincere tone of voice

H

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You mean you'd lie in order to take money from me? Why, that's Socialism.

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

No, that's just big sisters for you!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sisters: THE RED MENACE

True.

[danfossydan.livejournal.com]

I mainly complain about being tired. What I should do is excersie and sleep more. Like I'm gonna make that change! I guess I also complain about not having enough time. I should spend less time thinking may be?

With regards to the technology gap, I love new gadgets that make my life easier or more fun. Lots of them do. As an IT generalist, I pick up most concepts pretty easily, but often I just don't see the point any more. HD TV, can't be bothered. SD is good enough. Windows 7, err I'm quite happy with the previous version. I would like a newer Ipod mind... one thats not out yet.

As to not accepting the worlds changes, if they are not to your benifit why accept them. I choose not to internationally travel. There are loads of reasons for that.

I get very claustrophobic on planes.
Its bad for the environment.
Its expensive to go along way.
I'd rather travel around the UK more, I hadly have the time for that now.

The US immegration rules are very horrible. I'd rather not. You argument about people growing old and becoming set in their ways is right, but I disagree that striving to accept what the latest and greatest thing is what you need to do. My late grandmother became old, but she retained her marbles right up till the end, I suspect though constant reading of various historical book and newspapers, keeping up with the quite extended family and daily crosswords. She was a complete technophobe though, the CD player being just about beyond her, prefereing to use her records.

Keeping your mind active has got to be good. How you do it is up to you. I feel for example the fact that I can't be bothered to use Twitter, not an example of my ludite heritage, but a choice I've made that I would rather not.

Or the Revolutionary alternative

[applez.livejournal.com]

"The world changes, and it's really tempting to become dogmatic about it; to rail against changes rather than adapt to them."

Or you could indeed change them to suit your needs.

I was reminded of this during a recent trip to Washington DC. Finding I had a bit of time before my departure, I nipped over to the airport bar for a wee pint of something local. Finding the poor lighting and loud sporting event on TV sufficiently distracting from deciphering the local grog on tap next to the Samuel Adams, I told the Ethiopian barkeep that I "wanted a pint from the tap next to the Sam Adams."

Deafened by the television, he stated a confirmation, "Sam Adams" and moved off to fill the order.

Dismayed that he got the order wrong, I yelled down the bar, "No, the one next to the Sam Adams." And tried several more clarifications in monologuish conversation.

This elicited stares of recrimination from the other patrons, who were shaken from there Crackberry-enabled distraction from the noisy television broadcast by my oral correction.

Call me simplistic, but I thought the basic function of a bar was bringing patron and their alcoholic beverage in harmonious union...at least until Nature Calls. Here was a blatantly dysfunctional bar design, and every person in that bar lacked the courage to request or force the most distractive element (from the core function of the bar), the television, to be switched off.

Foucault would be nodding sagely at this, I'm sure.