One thing to bear in mind is that the rate of scientific discovery is increasing exponentially. Once, it took thousands of years to double scientific knowledge, then hundreds of years, then decades. What is the rate now? Compare that with the rate in 1972.
There will be many worms & a great deal of dirt in front of my nose.
The Worms will have really cool cell phones.
Next question.
I think the opposite. Like I say, there’s not really an area of my life that hasn’t been significantly changed by the internet and by smartphones specifically; I use my smartphone for socializing, getting around, studying, dating, entertainment, fact-checking (I so take for granted that I can check any simple fact immediately) etc.
Frankly the US is something of a laggard when it comes to these social changes IME.
To give another trivial example of life here in Shanghai, they recently rolled out a bike rental scheme: they bought hundreds of thousands of bikes and you see them on every street (the rental bikes are a distinctive color).
How do you rent one? You scan a code with your smartphone to unlock it.
How do you return the bike? You leave it wherever you like. When you press the button on your phone to say you’re done with the bike, it gets your phone’s GPS location.
This is just one example out of many. It’s why here it’s just assumed that everyone has a smartphone with them at all times.
Of course I could get used to living in 1972, as I was born in 1979 so I remember life in 1989, say, very well. But by analogy our hypothetical 1972 person would remember life in 1945 (for simplicity, let’s say it’s a person living in a country not involved in WWII) very well. But I maintain that the change to my life would be bigger than his.
There is a term for using the past to carelessly predict the future, but I can’t come up with it right now. But you are guilty of doing exactly that.
The issue simply is that there was an option during the last 47 years, the wife could get a job and provide additional income. Unless plural marriages come in to vogue, we no longer have that option. So the future won’t be more of the same.
The future will happen (how is that for a prediction? 
). Family incomes will not go up as sharply as they did in the past. But people won’t starve nor get rained on. Their standard of living won’t increase as fast as in the past. I hope that new events in the future will somehow keep the increases coming, but I can’t predict if or how. But people won’t starve. They may be limited in how much bandwidth they consume or how many different communication devices they own, but we all will get by.
I will be 97. And still scooting on my Vespa so WATCH OUT, people!
I happen to be 15 yrs old in 1972, I will be 103 yrs old in 2060. The world of longevity thinking is in front of us right now. The difference is 43 yrs from now. I don’t apologize for anything I did twenty years ago. I am looking forward to this crazy life we have the opportunity to live.
No, they really, really aren’t. It just seems that way to you because, to you as someone who grew up in the mid-80’s the technology seems common place and every day. You probably don’t even notice that during that time period we’ve gone from dial up speeds to multi-megabit per second connections as a norm…or what the implications of that are. We’ve gone from a few slowly connected PCs connecting to a handful of sites to a true world wide web that allows you to access a vast store of information or buy goods and services world wide on a device you can hang from your belt and access while sitting at a Taco Bell ordering food while checking out the nutritional values of what you are ordering and watching a sporting events of video created and shared to millions by some person on YouTube. These are fundamental shifts in whole brances of our society and we haven’t even scratched the surface. Want to communicate with a friend across the country or the world? What were your options in 1984…or 1972? How difference were the options in 1972 as opposed to 1927? You had mail and phone available in both. What do you have today? If you wanted to have a discussion with a group in 1972, how would you do it? How about in 1927? 2017? How would you look something up information wise in 1972? 1927? 1984? Today? How would you buy that gas at any of those times and what were the logistical changes in those times? How about the cars themselves? What were the really differences between cars in 1927, 1972, 1984 and today?
It goes on and on. Like I said, people don’t notice the rate of change because in a lot of cases they haven’t known anything else. If your first memories were in 1984 then you were hopping on right when things were taking off, so the tech SEEMS pretty much the same to you…you don’t really remember, most likely, the fact that the tech cost a lot, was slow and limited and wasn’t as ubiquitous. There were very, VERY few cell phones then and they cost thousands of dollars and basically you could make a mobile call on one…assuming there was a cell repeater somewhere close for you to do so.
Me, I was 12 in 1972, so I remember a bit more about what it was like before the tech started. I remember things like having to have cash for everything, or having maybe one credit card with those raised numbers they would run through a carbon paper machine to get an imprint because there was no way to digitally check it and verify it was good, not stolen and actually worked. I still recall when full service gas stations were a thing, and when even if you could pump your own gas it required you to wait in line to run that card through the carbon paper machine and sign it or pay cash. The differences between 1972 and 1927 were much less than between 1972 and 2017.
Also of course, even if we agreed that the internet is “just [a] faster, easier” way of doing things we could already do (which is not true, but let’s say it is), that’s still the same bracket as the printing press, cars, the cotton jin, passenger jets, pretty much every home appliance etc. Efficiency alone can be life changing.
Like the difference between a hand operated press using type set by hand from type trays and an automated or powered press. You get books in either case, but it’s a fundamental shift from a few very expensive books to books available to just about everyone, or a few books made a year to books being able to be made rapidly, thus keeping the data or information more current as well as more available. And, as you note, it’s not JUST that it’s a bit faster or easier wrt the internet. But it’s one of those things that people just don’t notice because they are too close to what’s happening and it’s difficult to step outside and really look at what’s happening.
That’s why these sorts of threads are fascinating, to me at least…it shows how people’s perceptions are often skewed and they are unable to really look at change happening in their time. It gives an insight into how folks were unable to do the same things in the past, while to us today it’s clear the changes that were impacting them and their society. We know how the story went and how events came together after all, while they didn’t.
Why is laser technology making big waves now that was not the case 5 years ago or more?
Like laser used for treatment for hair loss, cancer treatment, surgery, tumor treatment, wound healing so on.
Newly inaugurated president Donald Trump III has just announced his choices for congress and the supreme court, the previous members having resigned as required by law. He was chosen, of course, by his father Donald Trump Jr who has decided to retire turning the Trump House over to his son.
Dictator-for-Life Trump, on life support by now, will have cemented his ban on citizens from Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, finally sealing off America from the rest of the world.
All those predictions of non fossil fuels look like it is false now. As use of fossil fuels this year has increased and the coming years under US energy plan.