A World of Digital Mutants?
For people in their 50's like me, the evolution of digital technology has been surprising, overwhelming, disrupting and overwhelming. I had not even seen a television set till I entered senior college, had seen the computer only in SciFi and James Bond movies let alone touch it. I never thought I would ever make a film, simply because my family did not have deep pockets. For us, even owning a telephone was a luxury, and no thought of a mobile phone ever crossed our minds.
I remember the time when I was first introduced to a computer in 1989; I was almost afraid to touch it. I remember how gingerly I used the mouse. I bought my first computer in 1992, which was a 386, with a 120 MB hard drive and a 4 MB RAM! And when there came along a 1.2 GB hard drive, we thought it could not get better than this.
For the last about 100,000 years, we, the Homo sapiens have evolved with nature. We have got used to the sun, the moon, the weather, and the sunrise and sunset diurnal cycle. We feel the seasons changing, and we have adapted accordingly. We did accept the industrial evolution, survived the wars, and so many catastrophes, but put digital technology on the timeline of evolution, and it forms just a very small fraction.
The life expectancy of humans is about 75 to 80 years. Some of us, who were fortunate to have been exposed to this technology adapted to these changes and adopted the new technology, whereas some simply feel lost in its labyrinth. Rather than evolving with the digital technology, which is necessarily a slow, adaptive process, we have to simply accept it. So we pounce upon the latest gadgets, imbibe them into our system, use them, and get ready for the next fast change. Its almost like we include a piece of the digital DNA into our own, transforming, mutating into a new being.
How else do we explain the dependence on technology, the socio-economic problems that are so prevalent today? But more on that later....
There is no time to EVOLVE, because if you don't mutate, you do not survive.
Quite simply, we are (turning into) a world of Digital Mutants.
I remember the time when I was first introduced to a computer in 1989; I was almost afraid to touch it. I remember how gingerly I used the mouse. I bought my first computer in 1992, which was a 386, with a 120 MB hard drive and a 4 MB RAM! And when there came along a 1.2 GB hard drive, we thought it could not get better than this.
For the last about 100,000 years, we, the Homo sapiens have evolved with nature. We have got used to the sun, the moon, the weather, and the sunrise and sunset diurnal cycle. We feel the seasons changing, and we have adapted accordingly. We did accept the industrial evolution, survived the wars, and so many catastrophes, but put digital technology on the timeline of evolution, and it forms just a very small fraction.
The life expectancy of humans is about 75 to 80 years. Some of us, who were fortunate to have been exposed to this technology adapted to these changes and adopted the new technology, whereas some simply feel lost in its labyrinth. Rather than evolving with the digital technology, which is necessarily a slow, adaptive process, we have to simply accept it. So we pounce upon the latest gadgets, imbibe them into our system, use them, and get ready for the next fast change. Its almost like we include a piece of the digital DNA into our own, transforming, mutating into a new being.
How else do we explain the dependence on technology, the socio-economic problems that are so prevalent today? But more on that later....
There is no time to EVOLVE, because if you don't mutate, you do not survive.
Quite simply, we are (turning into) a world of Digital Mutants.
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