Slashdot Mirror
The Coming Cyberclysm - Part One
There are hordes of serious-minded people who insist that computing is driving us towards a Cyberclysm, when humanity becomes overwhelmed as it tries and fails to cope with the number, complexity, speed and nature of the things we make.
Even now, nobody can really keep up, and only a few can even fake it. Everyone is frantic, stressed, tethered, broke or worn out trying to manage. We are bombarded by inventions and advances we might not need or understand, that move more quickly and do more things than we want, that we can barely grasp, let alone service or repair.
The complaints and alarms are piling up.
Author James Gleick in "Faster" complains that technology is forcing everything to move too quickly. In his new collection of essays, Arthur C. Clarke writes "I have seen the future and it doesn't work."
The typical twenty-first-century person's day, he predicts, will include: "Skimming five hundred channel program listings, two hours; viewing television programs selected, four hours; catching up on recorded programs, six hours; exploring the hyperweb, six hours; and adventuring in artificial reality, four hours." He didn't even mention checking e-mail, answering fax-spewing and stock-listing cellphones, or responding to pagers and beepers.
Neo-Luddite Kirkpatrick Sale goes further, warning in his books that technology is destroying the world. He wants us to smash our computers to save the planet.
In his apocalyptic new dirge "Staring Into Chaos," author Bruce Brander proclaims that western civilization itself is coming to an end.
The term Ubiquitous Computing is technological historian Langdon Winner's, who in Netfuture Issue No. 94 [http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/1999/Sep1499_94.html#33], warns that society is drowning in a wave of absurd and unnecessary appliances and electronics, continuously and wastefully cranked out by some of the best minds alive.
Winner, a critic of the Wired-era hype about the Internet and networked computing, exults in what he perceives as a growing realization that Ubiquitous Computing isn't making life simpler or better, but harder, more expensive and chaotic:
"Simplify. Save time. Reduce effort. Liberate yourself from toil. This has been the continuing siren song of consumer technology through the twentieth century. Unfortunately, in its own terms, the dream is always self-defeating. As people add more and more time-saving, labor-saving equipment to their homes, their lives do not become simpler and easier. Instead their days become even more complicated, demanding and rushed."
A disclaimer here : I don't share Winner's summary view of computing. For me, appliances, hardware and software are the least interesting aspects of technology. For me, the siren song would be: Speak and Think Freely. Connect. Learn, and Share What You Learn. Then learn and share more. Grow. For me, this promise has been fulfilled, a thousand times over.
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need. We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful. TV's and sound systems, watches that monitor global time zones, multi-function phones - keep adding features daily, many of them of doubtful necessity to most of the people who buy them. One ad blanketing commercial TV touts new wireless phone technology that will allow people to get their e-mail, weather and sports scores instantly from anywhere. Does anybody really need to be that wired?
Even the most ardent geeks complain that they can never be out of touch, never have time to think, never completely catch up. As the world is able to reach us more easily, it expects us to be always available and more or less instantly responsive. This rushes us and our responses. It makes us edgy, grumpy, impulsive. Technology becomes a means of harassing and pressuring us instead of improving our lives. The genuine blessings of technology - information, opportunity, community, the portability of work - get overlooked in all the gadgetry.
All labor-saving devices don't necessarily improve the quality of life. Autonomous human beings can - and maybe should - take responsibility for the smaller details of life. After all, these labor saving devices require considerable labor: they need installation, adjustment, repairs and replacement - often at considerable time, cost and annoyance. There are enormous ecological consequences as well, to making so much plastic and metal, so many wires and chips.
Newsweek enthused last week, in a gee-whiz cover story about how the Internet is changing our lives, that tomorrow's automatic coffee maker will have access to our online schedule so it can automatically withhold the brew if we're out of town. This is by -now - instantly-recognizable media language of Technohype, computing and technology wrongly presented as a barrage of gizmos with chips that do things we can just as (or more) easily do for ourselves.
But if the laws governing technology are unpredictable, those governing capitalism are unwavering: What is made must be sold and, therefore, hyped.
Such overheated predictions don't evoke the future so much as the past. Remember Walt Disney's Tomorrowland with its notions of intergalactic travel, hover cars, people movers and other things that still don't exist? We may be closer to genetically engineering perfect humans, or even curing cancer, but we still can't cure the cold or come up with a practical battery-powered car, or make computers that don't drive the people using them nuts.
Alas -- according to almost every business or marketing projection, R&D labs will usher in the Millenium by making the creation and sales of info-gadgets and appliances an even greater preoccupation of the next century.
On the East Coast (where I live), in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, one little-noticed consequence of the storm was that power interruption rendered cordless telephones useless even if the phone lines were functioning. Moreover, the flooding of an AT&T installation in New Jersey knocked out hundreds of thousands of cellphones. For a few days, the only phones that worked were the Lo-tech sort, the non-electronic, non-digital kind that plugged into the wall jack, receivers attached to the base with curly cords. That's as apt a metaphor for the coming Cyberclysm as any. Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
Whose responsibility is all this? Nobody's, of course. Technology has a mind, life and direction all of its own. It's inherently uncontrollable, even if anybody was up to trying.
But some of the fault lies in the way our institutions - education, politics, media - deal with technology. We're trapped between two useless states - alarm and euphoria. Either we are railing about pornography, disconnection, and addiction or we are banging the drums for Gee-Whiz Computing that exists much more for its own sake than for our benefit. Like cell phones that receive faxes in taxicabs or 21st century toilets that will monitor the family's health through chemical sampling of fecal matter, or mirrors over bathroom sinks that flash the day's headlines, so nobody in the family has to wait until they get downstairs to get the news, if their wireless phone hasn't already alerted them.
Perhaps the idea that there are people who keep up with all this stuff is in itself a technological myth.
Clarke warns that we're headed for a Cyberclysm (he and others have used the word), a catastrophic collision between computers, technology and humanity. We won't be consumed by evil aliens or runaway AI machines, as sci-fi futurists have long predicted. Instead, we'll conquer ourselves with too much information about too many things and too many appliances performing too many services.
Clarke has written often of the pitfalls of the Dream Machine, the seductive idea that gadgets will run the world and monitor the most intimate details of our lives while we are free to enjoy ourselves.
"There have been many science fiction stories," writes Clarke, "about frantic human attempts to unplug disobedient computers. The real future might involve exactly the opposite scenario. The computers may unplug us." And, he adds: "it would serve us right."
That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices: to fall back with the hare-brained Luddites who want to return to the sylvan forests, or to follow the Techno-Utopians on their runaway CyberBinge.
End Part One.
Tomorrow: Turning to AI computing and the Gods for salvation and survival - Clotho.org.
This has been pondered for over a hundred years now. At one point, society wondered why anyone would want to drive around in an iron horse. Or fly through the air like a bird. Or heck, goto the moon for that matter.
No one knows where we're going, and those afraid of change tend to embrace the past. This is the way of our species. There will always be the naysays who think we're moving to fast.
They may be right, but we should all hold on for the ride, becouse that's not going to stop what we call progress..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
A couple of people have asked that I expand on how the Amish incorporate new technology. Basically (although this doesn't hold true in all cases) some enterprising young Amish-man decides that he is going to use X piece of technology. At this point, one of two things happen. Either the Elders (or rather bishops) let it slide and it becomes (implicitly) allowed, or they forbid it. In some cases that aren't clearly defined the matter will come to a vote among the membership. In some cases pieces of technology are forbidden before they are even tried -- but typically not.
Someone made the point that he thought the decision should be made by the individuals. I personally tend to agree. But Amish have made a commitment to a lifestyle lived deliberately -- they have agreed as adults to be held to the standards of their community, as defined by the elders of the church. I can't find fault with that -- people have the right to choose freely, and they have the right to forego that right. The only compulsion facing an Amish is that, if once they have joined the church, they defy it or refuse to live by its rules they will be shunned by church members. But they are in no way coerced to join the church. The have the opportunity to make an informed decision: most
Amish children spend a period of years (starting at 16) exploring the larger culture. They own cars, go to the movies, listen to rock and roll, smoke dope, and everything else. Something like 80%, having experienced everything the larger culture has to offer (and everything Amish culture has) join the church in the end.
By the way, something like 10% of all Amish are millionaires.
Most of this information is based on the Lancaster PA Amish. Other groups may differ.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Just say no.
:)) They can have a phone, but only in the barn. All these apparent contradictions are to keep technology at a distance.
:)
Take an axe to the TV. Turn off the radio. Read a book. No, not a book on computers. A nice, eighteenth century book. Look up the big words if you have to. Stop driving anywhere that you can avoid -- you'd be amazed where you actually DON'T need to go. Walk everywhere you can. Use the computer at work and, at home, TURN THE DAMNED THING OFF!
I recently had the pleasure of studying the Amish (for an article in my church's in-house newspaper). I finished my study convinced that they had the right idea.
You see, the Amish don't think that technology is evil. They think that it has potential to corrupt their society. That technology, run wild, can reduce Amish society to rubble. So, they only allow technologies in on a case-by-case basis. Even when they allow a technology, they try to keep it as far away as possible.
So, they can have calculators, but not computers. They can have tractors, but no in the field or on the road. The can have generators, but not light bulbs or most appliances. (Ever lived a farm-sleep cycle? 12 hours of sleep in the winter! It's incredible. Now you know why most amish have 10 kids
That's not to say that they're right about everything. But I think that they do have a point about technology -- it's not necessarily harmless, not necessarily necessary, and should be used only after careful consideration.
Of course, that doesn't mean I practice what I preach. After all, palm-pilots are too nifty to pass up
-- Slashdot sucks.
Mr. Katz:
While I respect your postings greatly, it is plainly clear that you have neglected to observe some of the great technological failures of the past few years.
Who can forget the siren call of Push, which would flood us with more graphics and data than we could possibly handle? Oh, right. Everybody. Once the novelty of Internet Animation wore off, the concept of computers dialing away in the middle of the night, retrieving late data that merely looked pretty looked about as lame as it really was.
Look back a little farther, why not, to the misshappen history of Netscape Plug-Ins. I remember browsing through an index of dozens--soon to become hundreds--of plugins, all sorts of new features(and complexities--uh oh!) that people would have to install to get The Latest Web.
In fact, if you look at the last few years, an entire calvacade of fads have been propped up by VC-desperate firms who, no doubt, all either hire the same PR firm or read the same trade rags. Portals! Plumbing! MULTIMEDIA! It's the next big thing!
For things that are truly useful, success awaits. Everything else gets washed away in the toilet that is Internet Time.
New technologies and infrastructures barely get their name embedded into people's minds before they're revealed as either truly useful(Slashdot, eBay, Linux, Google) or utter garbage(take your pick). It's this massive environment of collaborative filtering that the non-technical sociologists utterly fail to comprehend.
I dunno. Maybe it's a bit of Patent Office grade It's-Net-So-It's-New syndrome, but the concept that people are going to spend hours upon hours searching through their five hundred channel guide is patently ridiculous. Scaling the willingness to poke through a TV Guide for few minutes up to poking through an online channel guide for a few hours is the height of illogic. It reminds me of an old joke--in 1976, there were a few hundred Elvis Impersonators, but by the late 80's, there were tens of thousands of 'em. At that rate, by the year 2030, one out of every three humans will be an Elvis Impersonator.
People who channel surf already will continue to do so, but the real advantage will come to those who will finally be able to watch those shows they want to see--and not just whatever random BS is on. As the channel model is debunked by the sheer quantity of stations advertising content viewers might wish to see, the power moves from the network program directors to the writers, the actors, and the producers of the shows the customers actually want to watch.
If, by some cruel trick of nature, people only watching the shows they want to see is a harbringer of inefficiency and "cyberclysm", then NBC, CBS, and ABC have been poisoning the water supply for quite some time now.
I have a good deal of trouble accepting some of the presumptions I see made. The Sharper Image has existed for most of my life--I recently found a catalog of theirs, and revelled in the memories of drooling over their inventive products--yet, strangely, I don't see most people walking around with GPS capable cufflinks yet. Apocolyptic ravings about featuritis don't take away from the fact that while Geeks Like Me will always be interested in the abilities granted by high degrees of technification, most of the population will have better things to do.
And yet, it's only when something comes from the geek realm into modern, everyday life that the bells start ringing.
Much like the Pokemon Lawyers suing themselves, suddenly a major Geek Champion has been caught in fear of encroaching geekdom?
Please. Using a search engine instead of a card catalog does not a disaster of epic proportions create. There are those who have not yet learned the basics of computer usage, but User Interface developments will continue as they have been since the web finally exposed networked connectivity to a world not raised on control characters and LaTeX markup. Overall, those who want to connect will be able to, unless a hurricane hits. That much technology isn't designed as disaster-proof as Ma Bell's network could be construed as a bad thing, I suppose. I'll have to look into that.
In the meantime, those portending a disastrous future of chemically aware porcelain should do well to know--nobody wants a damn camera in their crapper, except the prisons the things were invented for.
Overall, I think you hit on the strongest point of them all in your column: Perhaps the survivors will be the people with the simplest, not the most sophisticated, machines.
It is not an accident that the most successful concepts in all of technology are those that remain both the simplest and the most sophisticated. Grace and form, it seems, are as critical in high technology as they are in most human work, be it architecture, sculpture, or even perhaps law.
If any of the futurists quoted can convince me that all of the world will forever embrace that which completely flaunts all tenets of grace and form; if they can prove the mass population will ignore the precedent of their flashing 12:00's and throw themselves at that which is almost designed to thwart the desires of its users, you'd have a case for a Cyberclysm. However, the continual successes of those technologies that Do It Right(and the continual cycle of destruction that everything else is wrung through) tell me That's Just Not Going To Happen.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
We only have two choices? Abandon all technology and flee to the woods or embrace the 'consuming technological chaos and be subsumed'? (Okay, that's my phrase, but I think I get Jon's point.)
How about treating technology as tools? I don't use a computer because I'm afraid that I can't keep up with the world unless I do -- I use it because it helps me do work. I don't write Perl code because of a deep-seated artistic desire for expression (that's what Perl poetry is for), I write it because it helps me get things done.
That's the same reason my father uses a welding torch or an air compressor or a socket wrench. Not because he wants to have the latest and greatest gadgets, but because he can use them.
Yes, I like to keep up with my e-mail, and I like to check a few web sites and newsgroups regularly, but I can take a week at the beach without any of those things and survive just fine.
I think most people can do the same. Thus, it's a false dilemma.
--
QDMerge 0.21!
how to invest, a novice's guide
That leaves most of us holding the bag, confronted with two noxious choices: to fall back with the hare-brained Luddites who want to return to the sylvan forests, or to follow the Techno-Utopians on their runaway CyberBinge
And here we see it, in the stark black and white of truth...Jon Katz is no freind to slash dot, hes no seer of the way or a guide of the day. Hes a snivling scared child who sees the potetnial of all this around him and is afraid, mortaly afraid, of the power he can never control.
Katz, and those of his mindset, are not into advocating the possibilites of tech or the geek mindset of exploration, they seeking to slow it down, chain it up, and hobble its progress so that the mediocre will not feel threatened by it.
The potential of the tech today is scary, it has a potential for great things, both evil and good. Does this mean we cower back from it, lay ourselves has helpless on its altar screaming "Do not crush us oh great cuthulian godhead"?
NO
We take the example of folks like TimBL, of Wozniak, of PARC, or MIT labs, of the hundereds of developers and creatotrs of Linux and countless other programs and systems.
In short we grasp firmt he contols and navigate or ships across this vast ocean of discovery. Yes the waves will roll high and the weather may turn foul, but with a clear mind and a firm understanding we will make our way forward and NOT fall off the edge of the world.
Jon Katz and the FLat Web Society need to go cower in a nice cave and leave the exploration and discovery to those that can handel it. They will come crawling out of thier caves when the hard work is done and the way has been paved.
Look at Jon Katz's writtings of the last few years. It is all there to see. he waits for the way to be paved and the safe houses made..THEN he struts in and proclaims himself a seer of the future. He leads the tourists buses thru the creations and nods at each site as if to say "my hands did hew these once rough rocks to tower so high"
In this age of exploration there is no doubt we will have detractors and soldiers of mediocracy to hold back the progress.
Once we had the Inquistion, burning and torturing all that was unkown to them. We have had the Dark ages and its supporters. We have had Churches and Religious Instituions hampering anything that would detract from its glory. We have had Political Correct Facists and Concerned Parents seeking to control that which did not conform to thier Barneyeqsue view of the world.
Now we have the updated version, The Lucid Ludite, the Concerened Powerless, the Saviour of the Mediocre..Yes Jon Katz is no Cyber Spokesperson..he is the Salieri to the genius of the Net's Mozarts.
The best and only way to counter his brand of retarded developement is to SHINE SHINE SHINE on , to blot out his limp mediocracy with brillant progression.
The war of ignorance is never over, the soldiers of stupiity never truly vanquished. So long as there is a force that counters its dark regression we are and shall ever more be victrious.
Once more into the breech!!
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
While Katz seems to take a break from his techno-boosterism and techno-determinism by giving some space to "neo-Luddite" writers (basically, anyone who expresses reservations about the "Limitless March of Technology" gets labeled a "neo-Luddite" these days), he lets the katz out of the bag with this statement:
With this sweeping statement, all thought of human responsibilty is banished. Forget future AIs and a-life; a-life is here today, and it's name is Technology. Forget futuristic scenarious about human freedom being supplanted by machines; the future is now, and we have lost our freedom to Just Say No. Don't bother unplugging; it's too difficult to try, and you won't make a difference anyway.
"Bah, humbug!" I say.
People are responsible for technology, it doesn't "just happen." People create it, people market it, people build infrastructure for it, and people adopt it. At each of these points, there is responsibility. And there is choice involved. Some of the choices may be difficult. Nobody ever said being a free and responsible human person was going to be easy.
If you would like examples, you need look no further than the Amish, who are the living experts of subordinating technology to a vision of what human society ought to look like.
But who wants to live like the Amish? Not many people. This, however, is a choice.
Another example, nearer and dearer to the hearts of /. readers, is Richard Stallman. Rather than submit to the "inevitable" shift in the computing world to proprietary software, he chose and chooses instead to do without proprietary software, and even to do without employment that would prevent him from creating free software.
But who wants to live like Richard Stallman? :^) Not many people, apparantly.
As a final example, consider Microsoft. They are under no illusion that technology simply happens, and expend every effort to make sure it happens in a way that favors the Reign of Bill. The slogan "Where do you want to go today?" (tm) is not a bad question, except that it's offered as a multiple-choice:
- Windows 98
- Windows NT 4.0
- Windows 2000
Notice that there is no "none of the above." Slashdot readers will be quick to recognize that such a "choice" is only "choice" in Newspeak; but are slower to recognize this when the question is larger than that of operating systems and office suites.Katz is getting more and more into tabloid-type rants these days... But that aside, there is a key word that this, err, I don't really want to call it an essay, let's say a piece of text, ignores. That key word is 'choice'.
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One of the good things about technology is that most often it gives you more choices. Think your cordless phone is too fragile? Don't use it! Your beeper is driving you crazy? Chuck it out of the window! Overwhelmed by 500 TV channels? Don't switch the TV on!
I am not going to make wild predictions about the future, but currently people (that is, more or less affluent people in the US) can pick and choose whatever level of technology they feel most comfortable with. Nobody is forcing anybody to use the latest gizmos -- if you think so, you are watching way too much advertising.
As to being overstressed, perhaps those that are need to re-evaluate their priorities. Almost in every situation there is a trade-off of stress against money (usually) or fame (more rarely). Just because a rat-race exists, you don't have to participate in it. Besides, what Katz describes is a US phenomenon. European people take a much more relaxed view of the their workload.
And, by the way, capitalism doesn't work by selling all that is produced. Capitalism works by producting only that which has a chance of being sold (but see the
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
The idea of a Cyberclysm seems to rest on the notion that, because we have 500 channels, I must examine them. Rubbish. I watch less TV than ever before, and then mostly what my kids are watching. I just received a cell phone and I've already made an iron rule that I do *not* attend to it in the car; I'll get back to you. When people offer me machines that speak, I usually ask where to find the switch that makes them silent.
The number one survival skill of the new millennium will be selectivity. Look over the options and throw away anything you don't see an immediate use for. Just don't use it. Be the master of the technology that you allow into your presence, not its servant.
I think you missed the point. Although these technologies do save us time when doing the same, or similar, tasks without them, it doesn't result in additional leisure time. Instead, we end up with a little "saved" time that is immediately filled in with even more tasks that we never had time for previously.
I highly encourage everyone to read it. The "murderer" of the story kills communication devices, and as a result has been sent to a mental institution. He has a lot of fun telling the psychiatrist that the specific flavor of ice cream he used to destroy the bus radio is probably going to experience a sales increase soon.
Back in reality, I can certainly understand the instinct. I have a SO who "worries" about me if we aren't in touch several times daily, and I end up putting so much time into my "online life" (both trying to stay "informed" and trying to stay "in contact," though information is key for me), that my work suffers at times. Like now.
And on a certain level, it is distressing when people can't manage without their gadgets. I lived in Rochester for a year without a car; at the time, I was working somewhere within easy walking distance of my house, and I also knew the public transit system quite well. And those who had a car since their 16th birthday always look askance. "You WALKED? Oh you poor thing, let me give you a ride." "How can you stand the bus system, it's horrible?" [No it's not!] And so forth. Similar incomprehension is directed at those who don't have a net-connection, a recent-model computer, a computer at all, a television, a cell phone, etc etc etc. It does get a bit silly after a while.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I've experienced the opposite, at least from the people whose opinion I give a damn about ;-)
When I moved back to the rat race in January, I ended up doing the consultant thing. No more 9 to 5 for this techie. I also declined to buy a car and now use taxis, transit, bicycle or the good old train where necessary.
When on a customer project, I work at the necessary pace to get the job done, and done properly, no rush, no BS. When it's done, I'm done.
My friends, especially the ones with mortgages and car payments and hour and a half commutes to thankless DBA jobs in soulless industrial parks in the faceless suburbs, envy me. They say I'm more relaxed than ever, even look healthier.
In the meantime, I'm very connected. Internet connection, cell phone, pager, the whole works. After all, I'm a technologist. The trick is to use the technology wisely and not get overheated in some endless purposeless spiral ratrace.
I don't think it's the technology that's killing people. It's the rat race in the chase for the almighty buck that's at fault. The technology is just technology. The frantic pace at which we use it and let it control us is our own choice.
MAybe it's easier for some than others, but ultimately it all comes down to choice. If you choose to be controlled by the latest in gadgets for no better reason than "everybody else does it, so I have to as well in order to be cool" then you are a victim of corporate produced, mass enforced peer pressure, AKA fashion.
-M
I would have to agree.
When I'm on a vacation, I deliberately leave behind cell phones, pagers, or any communication devices, including radios and televisions.
My ideal is to spend a couple of weeks every year somewhere in the mountains in a little campsite where you don't know or even care if armegeddon has occured. As long as the fishing is great and you can see the stars at night, everything is OK. Doing this allows you to get a stronger perspective about what is really important in life, and try to actually live.
BTW, some of my former supervisors tended to get rather upset when something breaks and they couldn't seem to get ahold of me. The truth is if it is broke, it doesn't really matter if it gets fixed now or later, and if I get fired, so what! There are other employers as well, so just don't plan on me helping out when I'm on vacation. When I get back I'll put the effort and time in to fixing the problems. Otherwise leave me alone.
An interesting e-mail came my way I'd like to post with this is as follows. Somewhat related to this topic, and although I don't totally agree with it, it does give you something to think about. It it attributed to George Carlin but I'm really not sure who wrote it:
The Paradox of our Time
by George Carlin
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the times of world "peace" but constant conflict, more leisure but less enjoyment, more kinds of food but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill.
It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom, a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.