Of course other changes have lead to similar discussions - and every generation worries about their children's future.
But what bis being seen now is of a different magnitude - and the rate of change is making the situation difficult, if not impossible to, react to. The computer designs computers. A computer as a tool is brilliant. Without computers we couldn't have the net, JIT, this conversation. BUT - you have to see where this is going. What is in front of your face. Productivity is not about people anymore. It's not about how many carrots Shaun picks in a field. OK the industrial revolution changed that - but the machines were costly and large - now computers are small. So small, there's probably a dozen chips within this room I'm sitting in - and each of those chips is capable of doing stuff that a human did or a raft of humans did. Now productivity is about how 'tech' your company is and how few people your company needs as the human element is the cost. The problem is, is that most jobs can now be computerised. It's not limited to a specific area or two. It's all areas from farming and tractors that drive themselves via GPS, fruit picking, office automation, entertainment, health, travel, communication...everywhere.
This is all within 60 years. 60 years. Not even a lifetime.
But that in itself isn't the issue. The issue is more and more people accept that you live your life through tech. That is so hard to avoid anyway (says he typing on a keyboard). I know so many people who can't live without their phone (computer) being in their hands n hours a day. Even that isn't the issue. The issue is where we're going. Tech is going where you live inside tech. Do you see the impact? Tech will no longer be external. It will be immersive. It is in the acceptance of the tech that the problem exists. We move from one level of tech to the next and actively pay lots of money to move to the next level without questioning what damage it's doing. Slowly simmering in the pot. Zuckerberg is to employ 10,000 people to work on the metaverse. When his version of reality appears in VR form, people will snap it up. Your old 2D phone will be like a Betamax video. The new tech will be accepted. People will live inside a version of reality - not just play an external version - but they will accept it because they learned that tech was good. Their parents encouraged them to use it for all aspects of their live. They got praised for using it.
So as Shaun slowly becomes redundant, they will turn to their device as they do now. But that device will be an immersive experience. Personally, I'm not convinced at all that this will be a good place to live a life. I think children now should be being taught about the benefits AND drawbacks of tech - not just to accept it.
“… I think children now should be being taught about the benefits AND drawbacks of tech - not just to accept it…”
But my understanding is that is exactly what does happen in schools today … hence the way our young family member chooses to use her phone and iPad etc. limiting her online social activity, controlling how and when she can be contacted etc while still using the equipment for zoom lectures etc.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Chooses? What alternative have they been shown? What alternative is taught? What alternative is there? Did your young member choose to have a phone or IPad? Could they have chosen NOT to? And why did they want a phone? To make emergency calls? To fit in with their peers?
Tech is. Maybe you hadn't realised, but to have the NHS app, you had to have a mobile device. To contact your surgery now is what? How do you see your Dr? How do you bank? How will your grand children bank? How is your x-ray analysed? How is your blood sample analysed? How do children do their homework?
The child nowadays has all but no option but to use tech - and it's being taught that it is acceptable. It's the unquestioning acceptance of tech that is the problem, not whether the child plays educational game A or nasty violent game B - or for how long they play them. They will accept the device - they will want the next, latest device. They will accept whatever tech is current with open arms. How long have smartphones existed - 20 years? We're now in the situation where the parents grew up with them - so see them as essential - so their kids emulate that behaviour and acceptance.
And to compound the problem, the whole world sees tech as the way forward to increase productivity, so our Gov is going for AI as a major thrust of their economic plan for Britains future, as they don't want Britain to be left behind. No thought or plan from what I've seen as to what that may mean. The market will drive it, not any thought for the impact. The market does not care - unless it is about profit.
@steveTu .... you've obviously not read what I posted. I gave you an example of a real live nineteen year old and the choices and decisions she and her peers have made. Of course she needs a phone ... she's hundreds of miles away from home. Having IT enables her to stay in contact with family and friends as well as her employers and her uni tutors, and access zoom lectures etc in a pandemic. She's a very capable and informed young woman ... .
I find the rest of your post rather patronising ... of course I realise you have to have a smart phone in order to have the NHS Covid app .... that's how apps work ... dur! I have a smart phone, and the app, and use it. I presume you have a snail mail version? 🤣 Whatever sort of people do you think you're talking to 😲 some ignorant old woman in a rural backwater struggling to type on her old pc? 🤣
I've been using computers for work since the 80s, then in the 90s using email for contacting musicians and artists across the globe making arrangements for exhibitions and concerts in the UK ... do you honestly suggest I should have typed out letters to be sent by surface mail ... because of course airmail would include the use of planes which use smart technology?
Things change ...they always have ... some folk fear change and see future horrors ... they always have .... you're talking about people 'living inside' VR ... but if that happens that will be their reality ... just as folk found it hard to understand that in the future it woiuld be possible to could talk to someone on the other side of the globe using a telephone that has been my reality ... as has being able to get on a plane and fly to the other side of the globe ... my great grandfather was the mayor of a small town ... a larger town nearby refused to allow the railway to go there because they were afeared of the changes it would bring ... my gt grandfather welcomed the railway line and his town and its inhabitants became prosperous with employment for all and a marvellous hospital that folk could afford (before NHS of course). Perhaps the other mayor thought the folk in his town enjoyed their peaceful poverty ... but most of them up sticks and moved to my gt grandfather's town for employment and a better way of life.
My grandparents' generation would not have comprehended the changes of the past 50 years ... they probably wouldn't have liked all of them ... but that does not mean that they or we have a moral imperative to prevent change that we find hard to accept.
In the past people were burned or drowned for being witches (i.e. having knowledge that others were afraid of) and books were burned in order to control knowledge for their own purposes ... Is it a good or a bad thing that in most places now most people can read and write?
I'm sorry, but you sound like someone sitting in the corner of the pub back in the 40/50s muttering into his beer ... 'Television you say? ... mark my words, no good will come from it.'
Like most things, lots of good things and some bad things will come from the increasing development of IT. It will be up to future generations to make what they can of it ... it has always been thus.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Patronising? Unintended. Was that matronising from you (why has this turned into a male / female thing)? I assume unintended - but we all read what we want Dove don't we, without that personal interaction?
What I was trying to get across was my issue with you saying there is a choice. No there isn't. If someone had said even 20 years ago, you would have to have a mobile phone...a computer, they would not have been taken seriously. But it's moving that fast, that even a mobile phone is becoming old. My BT line - my old bakelite phone - will be obsolete as BT go digital (read web) by 2025. There will be no difference between mobile/landline - it will eventually all form part of the metaverse.
I don't want to sound patronising again, but you are missing the difference between books and knowledge and how that then is manipulated. Missing the point between you having a choice of technology you use and being left behind by the technology that HAS to be in your home. Between technology used to enhance life and technology you have to have or else you can't live in today's society. Do you not see the difference? The tech that is NOW, isn't just to make one aspect of life different. It's not a change in speed. It's a fundamental change in how you MUST live. Tech affects everything. And as much as tech now affects everything, the metaverse will encompass it all - and as you can't ignore the web and comms, you won't be able to ignore it. Do you want it? Did you want the web - did you have a choice? Is a child without internet access and a computer now seen as disadvantaged? Why? Shops are closing. Banks are closing. Life is moving to the net.
I smiled on the other thread where the talk has been about the sad death of the woman on the film set. '...Why not add the gun shot, flash etc in after...' was mooted. Why not indeed. I caught part of Moonraker (1979) on the box over the weekend. The SFX were laughable. Now we're all used to seeing CGI talking characters in adverts, dinosaurs come to life, foreign worlds explored - it has become that cheap to create 'reality'. So when the metaverse arrives in 10, 15, 20 years and that, like the web has become de facto, you won't be able to tell what's real from what's fake. But it will all be fake. Plato's Forms - shadows of reality. But you won't be able to do homework, bank, see a doctor, shop, talk to your mum...without it. You will play football there. You will cook there. You will love there. It's not quite the same as a train making London-Brighton a bit faster.
The lobster is just starting to change colour. Nearly ready. It just doesn't know it's dead yet. And I just took another sip of my pint. I would put a smiley there, but that's beyond me technically.
Smiley? ... click on that little face on the toolbar above the text box @steveTu and make your choice ... or not, as you choose.
There are other options if you prefer but if you've not done it before and you wish to give it a try, it's probably best to start with the simplest. 🤯 😵🤪
And I do understand what you're trying to say ... what I'm saying is that with IT tech etc the choices are not whether you use it ... that's a given unless you're going totally off grid (and I do know folk who have made that choice)... it's how you use it .... that's what youngsters nowadays are learning. They're much more aware of the pitfalls (including the VR ones you hypothesise about) than you seem to realise.
Of course, there will always be the idiots ... many years ago I left a cinema having seen a film shot in 3D ... I overheard a conversation between two young men ... one remarked to the other "Wouldn't it be great if real life was in 3D?" There's always a few ... but the world really won't wait for them to catch up ...
Oh, and I'm not sure why you think my referring to myself as a woman turns the debate into a male/female thing ... a very binary attitude ... of course the word patron had/has a male connotation from its Latin root ... make of that what you will . .. it is interesting however that the feminine version hasn't appeared in common parlance. I am not one to hold up my hands in horror at the way language is used nowadays ... good heavens, once upon a time all books were written in Latin ........ they thought that 'No good would come' of writing them in English ... they were wrong.
Edited to add: By the way, some 'Off Grid friends' report that living Off Grid is much simpler with the use of smart phones, online banking, keeping accounts and doing their taxes returns and paying their bills online. Others prefer a weekly expedition to the old PO Box at the local Sorting Office ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When I was a child, children who didn't have access to books at home (no money to buy them and parents who didn't take them to the library) were seen as disadvantaged. These days it's IT.
There's a cosmological theory that the universe and everything in it is a hologram, which seems wacky but how would we know, if we're part of it? And does it actually matter, if it's our collective reality?
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
' it's how you use it .... that's what youngsters nowadays are learning...'. That's where we differ and why I used the NHS app as the example. No choice. To be safe and protect others you HAD to use it. No choice - not about how you use it. It's not about being sensible and only spending 2 hours online. It's not about avoiding porn sites and not giving away your personal details. That isn't the issue (well it is an issue - but it isn't the dilemma facing the child). More 'stuff' is on line. To access it you MUST use a computer. No choice. It's not HOW you use it, you are being forced into using it. Not intentionally, not in a coercive way, but that is where the market is leading. And the market doesn't care as long as someone makes a profit. Tech is without and within.
What youngsters are learning is the acceptance of 'tech just is...you have to use tech to live', because without tech you can't (read won't be able to) bank, order a passport, register a death, apply for a job. And again that is fine in a way - because tech is still 'out there'. You can see it for what it is. But like the lobster that only notices a very gradual warming, the child today will accept an environment where they are IN tech. Where they have no choice of that either - because as much as it's heading in the direction of being very difficult to live without the web today, in future that will be the enhanced web. The VR/AI web.
That is what needs to be taught now - or maybe needed to be taught 50 years ago before we all embraced tech. The child has to see that the pot is warming and although it may feel comfortable and cosy, it could seriously harm their health. I'm not sure that there's a lobster ladder up the side of the pot though. I'll have another sip of me Old Peculiar and mull that over.
It is being taught now, but it couldn't be taught 50 years ago because it hadn't really been conceived of ... most of the world is always running to catch up ... the wwweb was created by young folk and because they were young they were idealists (just as I was when I campaigned to ban the bomb etc) ... they saw it only as a source for good (just as the folk who invented the bomb did) ... maybe they should have run the idea past their grandparents who would've said "Howd yew hard a minnit bor ... thas a rummun ... have you considered that it might be used for pornography, paedophilia, fraud, embezzlement, terrorism et al? " Perhaps they did run it past them, and their grandparents did say that ... but the young are idealistic and they have little experience of human nature and they think the old know nothing ... I bet if Bill Gates etc were starting from here they'd do things a little differently ... but you can't put old heads on young shoulders ... never could, never will ... much as it might sometimes be a good idea
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Complete technophobic here,hubby has just spent nearly 2 hours on the phone to sky and Netflix. We're cancelling got the package down by more than half New sky box this morning,set up by bloke. Still so complicated.My FB was hacked they locked it for safety Eldest daughter got it back but not the PM that my friends use to chat to me. They were really worried I was disappeared,so messaged my daughter. My youngest daughter is a software expert for a big toy store,and gamer. Oldest son was using PC s at 4 at school,he's very techy and a gamer. Just asked 10 year old grandson he says they're £400, I was gobsmacked. Air is blue here,new sky box had frozen. I'll stick to me books and knitting.
Posts
But my understanding is that is exactly what does happen in schools today … hence the way our young family member chooses to use her phone and iPad etc. limiting her online social activity, controlling how and when she can be contacted etc while still using the equipment for zoom lectures etc.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I find the rest of your post rather patronising ... of course I realise you have to have a smart phone in order to have the NHS Covid app .... that's how apps work ... dur! I have a smart phone, and the app, and use it. I presume you have a snail mail version? 🤣 Whatever sort of people do you think you're talking to 😲 some ignorant old woman in a rural backwater struggling to type on her old pc? 🤣
I've been using computers for work since the 80s, then in the 90s using email for contacting musicians and artists across the globe making arrangements for exhibitions and concerts in the UK ... do you honestly suggest I should have typed out letters to be sent by surface mail ... because of course airmail would include the use of planes which use smart technology?
Things change ...they always have ... some folk fear change and see future horrors ... they always have .... you're talking about people 'living inside' VR ... but if that happens that will be their reality ... just as folk found it hard to understand that in the future it woiuld be possible to could talk to someone on the other side of the globe using a telephone that has been my reality ... as has being able to get on a plane and fly to the other side of the globe ... my great grandfather was the mayor of a small town ... a larger town nearby refused to allow the railway to go there because they were afeared of the changes it would bring ... my gt grandfather welcomed the railway line and his town and its inhabitants became prosperous with employment for all and a marvellous hospital that folk could afford (before NHS of course). Perhaps the other mayor thought the folk in his town enjoyed their peaceful poverty ... but most of them up sticks and moved to my gt grandfather's town for employment and a better way of life.
My grandparents' generation would not have comprehended the changes of the past 50 years ... they probably wouldn't have liked all of them ... but that does not mean that they or we have a moral imperative to prevent change that we find hard to accept.
In the past people were burned or drowned for being witches (i.e. having knowledge that others were afraid of) and books were burned in order to control knowledge for their own purposes ... Is it a good or a bad thing that in most places now most people can read and write?
I'm sorry, but you sound like someone sitting in the corner of the pub back in the 40/50s muttering into his beer ... 'Television you say? ... mark my words, no good will come from it.'
Like most things, lots of good things and some bad things will come from the increasing development of IT. It will be up to future generations to make what they can of it ... it has always been thus.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
There are other options if you prefer but if you've not done it before and you wish to give it a try, it's probably best to start with the simplest. 🤯 😵🤪
And I do understand what you're trying to say ... what I'm saying is that with IT tech etc the choices are not whether you use it ... that's a given unless you're going totally off grid (and I do know folk who have made that choice)... it's how you use it .... that's what youngsters nowadays are learning. They're much more aware of the pitfalls (including the VR ones you hypothesise about) than you seem to realise.
Of course, there will always be the idiots ... many years ago I left a cinema having seen a film shot in 3D ... I overheard a conversation between two young men ... one remarked to the other "Wouldn't it be great if real life was in 3D?" There's always a few ... but the world really won't wait for them to catch up ...
Oh, and I'm not sure why you think my referring to myself as a woman turns the debate into a male/female thing ... a very binary attitude ... of course the word patron had/has a male connotation from its Latin root ... make of that what you will .
Edited to add: By the way, some 'Off Grid friends' report that living Off Grid is much simpler with the use of smart phones, online banking, keeping accounts and doing their taxes returns and paying their bills online. Others prefer a weekly expedition to the old PO Box at the local Sorting Office ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
New sky box this morning,set up by bloke. Still so complicated.My FB was hacked they locked it for safety
Eldest daughter got it back but not the PM that my friends use to chat to me. They were really worried I was disappeared,so messaged my daughter. My youngest daughter is a software expert for a big toy store,and gamer. Oldest son was using PC s at 4 at school,he's very techy and a gamer. Just asked 10 year old grandson he says they're £400, I was gobsmacked. Air is blue here,new sky box had frozen. I'll stick to me books and knitting.