From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu May 09 2002 - 23:51:02 MDT
On Thursday, May 9, 2002, at 10:51 pm, spike66 wrote:
> Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
>>
>> On Thursday, May 9, 2002, at 01:37 am, spike66 wrote:
>>
>>> You can have both. Life is simpler now than ever before,
>>> and getting simpler all the time.
>>
> Perhaps I should have made it clearer I was only referring to survival.
Yes! This I agree with. It is much easier to stay alive, stay healthy,
and live longer today than ever before. In that context, I agree that
prospects are much easier for the patient. The work and science
performed by doctors to create these miracles is ever increasing in
complexity.
> I catch your drift. We should redefine the question thus:
> is it getting simpler or more complicated to be an
> average prole in society? Middle of the pack. Then
> vs now. I argue that basic survival has become
> laughably easy. To be at the top of the heap has
> become mind-boggling complicated. Has it gotten
> easier or harder to be average?
If we are talking about average, or even worse, couch-potato failure,
then I agree with you. It is far easier to do nothing and accomplish
nothing today than ever before. With welfare and food stamps, people
don't have to struggle to survive. They can just lay back and watch
Jerry Springer. For these kinds of people, life is much easier and
simpler than before.
I was harping on the life of people on this list. Our ever-expanding
grasp of science and control of the universe is becoming more and more
complicated, and we are working harder than ever to accomplish even
more. For us, life is not simpler, it is more complex. We work harder
now than our ancestors did, because there is so much more we can
accomplish than they ever dreamed about. This is the tangent I was
taking.
> Where I am going with this is showing that specialization
> is allowing us to survive without knowing how most
> of the machinery of life works. Our car breaks, we
> take it to the mechanic. (Well, others do). We need
> not know how it works. We need not know how the
> grocery store gets filled with highly processed foods,
> need not know how to do taxes, need not know how
> the national defense system works. (Evidence: newspaper
> writers spill gallons of ink writing about how the national
> defense system works when it is perfectly clear in the
> first paragraph that they know not the first thing about
> their topic.)
This is a whole 'nother topic. While things are getting more
complicated, fewer and fewer people understand and are handling that
complexity for the masses. We have a small core group of technophiles
running the world, while larger groups of the general population just
sleep through life unaware of how things really work.
> If we extrapolate forward another 30 years, I expect
> ever more specialization and ever more people who
> forget basic survival skills. We might even see a
> reality-based game show where the contestants
> play a "Survivor" game with a technology level
> like that available in 1950. spike
This will probably be true on earth. If we have a space frontier, the
no-nothings will stay at home, while the more advanced will move to the
new frontier. There will be a worse mix on the ground, as you predict,
but a better mix in space where I plan to be!
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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