Are we better off?

It’s a pretty awesome time to be alive, technology-wise. Medically, we can diagnose things at a much earlier stage than ever before, and operate with tiny incisions and amazing accuracy. Our cars perform millions of calculations per minute to ensure safe operation and max fuel efficiency. And 24 hours a day we have access to an unparalleled abundance of knowledge, history, multimedia entertainment, and breaking news, within 5 minutes of it occurring, anywhere on the globe - all at our fingertips. We rely on advanced technology now to correct our spelling, figure our tips in restaurants, avoid traffic, record TV shows based on our individual tastes, and tell us the closest place to get a good frozen yogurt… We have all of this technology working for us, but at what cost.

I was at the store not long ago stocking up on beer and vodka for an upcoming snowstorm. What… In an emergency, vodka can be used to help start a fire, or clean a wound. Let’s see you do that with bread and milk. Anyway, the total came to $34.53. I handed the young girl a $50 bill, and she proceeded to start tapping her extremely long nails on the flat screen register. After a few seconds of nothing happening, she shouted to the back of the store, “it’s doing it again”, and made her way to the other side of the counter to use a calculator. Now, most, if not all of you have already done this simple math in your head, as had I. But wait, it gets better… After a few bangs on the counter, it was apparent that the calculator wasn’t working either. As she made her way back over toward me to call for help, and apologized for taking so long, I said, “no problem… It’s going to be $15.47”. She looked at me, let out a sigh of relief like I just told her that her biopsy came back negative, and handed me my change. In retrospect, I should have said the change was $125.00… Now, is she just horrible at math? Lazy? Who knows, but we do see this more and more since cash registers and calculators started doing all of the work.

We can’t really blame it on schooling. Our kids learn most of the same things we did, but as with anything, if skills aren’t utilized, they are lost. There is little need for basic math day to day. Our phones have calculators, and Quicken balances our checkbooks. Most legible penmanship is a thing of the past because everything is typed, spellchecked, and printed. Technology gives us the ability to be incredibly efficient, but is causing us to be increasingly lazier. Who remembers encyclopedias? Everyone had a set… Britannica, Funk & Wagnall’s, World Book - 22 volumes of reference books your parents needed another piece of furniture to house. They were fun, no? Need info on Nixon? Check the index book and find it’s in volume 16. Go back to the bookcase, grab that book, find the section on Nixon -  halfway through you see ‘Watergate’… Need more info on Watergate? back to the index – Watergate: volume 21... On and on it went. To write a 5 page paper you’d need 4 encyclopedia books, plus an 85 pound dictionary, and a Roget’s thesaurus… Now, we can just Google it. To be clear – Hell yes I’m jealous!!! But, as with anything we hated as kids, I learned how to investigate, find answers, and solve problems. Another skill fallen by the wayside is map reading. Today, with GPS, there is just no reason for folks to learn how. So much for treasure hunting… Not only do Goonies never say ‘die’, they never once said, ‘Siri, where is One-eyed Willy’s ship’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from a technology snob. I take advantage of it every day… I am in the IT field. - I’m listening to music on my IPhone now, I will be sharing the link to this blog on Facebook and Twitter, and later on I’ll take my turns on Words with Friends on my Kindle Fire. And, no – I don’t remember phone numbers anymore… I don’t have to, right? Technology in its many forms is great. I just worry that the basic skills that were needed not long ago to survive in this society, may not survive themselves. Hmm… laptop’s running a little sluggish, maybe it’s time for a new one.

If this keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push button finger. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

The age of the Unimpressed

“When Alexander looked upon the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no worlds left to conquer.” Any fan of Die Hard knows this line. Maybe one of you will know it from it’s author, Plutarch… (If that person is you, you need to get out more.) What made me think of this line was the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking those first historic steps on the moon. I have admitted before to being kind of a ‘space geek’, so I really enjoyed all of the specials, and the interviews – it was especially cool because Endeavour is up at the International Space Station, and had a scheduled EVA on the 20th. So there were astronauts, outside of their ship, orbiting the Earth on the Anniversary itself. (What? I told you I was a geek!)

It was July 20th, 1969… Just a little over 8 years after President Kennedy made his speech in which he mentioned, “achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Which was a scary gauntlet to throw down to the folks who actually had to do it. Virtually all of the technology to fulfill this little promise to the American people had yet to be invented. But, apparently Marilyn wanted a moon rock necklace, so… And granted, it did take close to half a million people, and around $22 billion, (that’s 60s money btw), but they did it. And with that, folks began to wonder… Are we done? What is our next great achievement?

All through our history, it seems there’s been something to strive for. Great achievements to better mankind, and keep America competitive and strong. Edison, Westinghouse, Bell, Morse, Eastman, Ford… and the list goes on. How about Wilbur and Orville Wright? A couple of bicycle repairmen who were stupid enough to think they could fly! Louis and Clark heading West to see what was out there. Of course, they eventually hit LA and immediately got hammered by the fashion police. “Beaver pelt in June? Puh-lease…” We climbed Everest, (without Gore-tex mind you). Made it to the North Pole. We had the industrial revolution. Yes, we actually made things, and were impressed by progress. The cotton gin, the printing press, and moving pictures wowed the people of their time. It seems very rare nowadays for folks to really be taken aback by great feats, or new technology. Is that the problem? Are we just unimpressed? We have people living in an orbiting space station, our iPods contain entire record collections, doctors can now do ‘micro’ surgery with actual robot arms, our GPS systems hold our hand and guide us to Aunt Millie’s house, our favorite vacation spot, nearest restaurant, or strip club… (I hear!)

I think about my son’s life, and the things he’s always known. There has always been digital music, DVDs, camcorders, video games, microwave ovens, personal computers, and cell phones. Maybe it does take more to impress someone who has been inundated with technology their entire life. Those of us who are a little more mature, and wiser… aw hell – older, remember having to mess with antennas, and the dreaded ‘outer’ dial to try to limit the snow on a UHF channel so we could watch the 3 Stooges. Then suddenly, there was crystal clear cable… magic! Pong, Commodore computers, bag phones – all of these great strides in technology really got our attention back in the day. How about safety? When we were kids, the only airbag we had was maybe a sibling sitting between you and the steel dashboard of your parents car… You know, the one with the seatbelts stuffed way down between the seats. How about medicine? We have over the counter remedies for ailments that killed people not so many years ago. They taste better too!

I do think that’s the case. We seem to be simply hard to impress. Throughout all of the Apollo hoopla, I heard over and over again, ‘why haven’t we done anything great since?’ I don’t think it’s a case of lack of great achievement on our part. I think great achievements happen at a rate that we are either accustomed to them, and therefore almost numb to them, or we just can’t keep up. Imagine the guy who just got an echocardiogram done so his doctor could see a live, 3D, multicolor view of his heart beating to check on a murmur he heard. This guy is now on the road, talking to a client in Japan on his Bluetooth, his GPS guides him to his next meeting, as his iPhone gives him up to the minute traffic updates, (Yes – there’s an app for that)… And, ironically, this is the guy who’d say, “Ya know, we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t stop the condensation on my iced coffee from dripping on my pants when I take a sip!”

‘and that’s the way it is…’
Walter Cronkite 1916-2009