The 70s and 80s. Those of us old enough to remember have the advantage of the before vs. after comparison.
I remember the family turmoil; the school bullies; the personal angst; the heartbreak; all of that, yes. At the time, those seemed to dominate my being.
But there was also YMCA Camp Latimer and the lake; skateboarding with friends; pitching the baseball in the yard; trips to Tennessee with my grandparents; catching lightning bugs among the southern pines; and people and places that had always been there, and seemed they would be there forevermore (but weren't).
All those experiences, during a time when records were kept only on paper, or microfiche. All the stupid things I said and did, of which there is no record, only my memory that will perish with me.
This imagined story has been filmed, several times, with slight variations.
The most recent one is “The Island” (2005, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201). Instead of addictive screens, the movie uses an imprinted imagined vision of the life to which everyone should aspire (as in MLM propaganda), or the Island. Unreachable, as each valuable promised land should be, obviously, but available to the chosen few through a “lottery”.
The transition from the current existence to the transfer to the Island and the life there are not shown to the longing population - which is exactly how we are being played with the ideas like space travel, Moon landings, and space “conquest” (in a macro scale) or everything smaller than the optical microscope can show (in a micro scale).
In all these scenarios, one thing is common: the population needs a “dream” to pursue. Like “freedom”, “independence”, “ecology”, “net zero” or “0.1 degree temperature decrease”.
As someone who was here before the screens, that makes perfect sense. And perhaps, having existed without screens for a good while has made me more skeptical and less accepting, or at least wary of new technology.
Most can no longer perceive what we've lost. Technology and progress do not always align and sometimes the past is as much the way forward as the future.
We have to stop believing everything modern is better by default. It isn't.
Technology will steal our minds and souls if give into the techno-dystopia.
"The architects of the modern digital landscape are optimizing all devices and services to exploit our desires. The human vulnerability - the need and love for attention and the disdain for boredom - is the result of a world in which our attention is the basis of the new economic model, to be harvested and monetized with ruthless efficiency."
Our three GenZers were luckily introduced to 'screen time' late in their teens. One daughter is a housewife(for now) and very successfully manages 'screen time' with two young kids and it is great; we spend all of our time together and with friends doing many things. Our four year old grandson is developing quite nicely doing everything other than staring...
The technocrats are ushering in a post human world. Time is running out as most people are aiding in their own destruction. It’s very sad what is being facilitated.
This is really an ingenious proposal for a science-fiction novel turned hit movie. This would make great entertainment.
The elaborated story would have to acknowledge the ugly nuances of human psychology, however. The proposal resembles Plato's cave from his dialogue "Republic". If you remember the story, the lifelong cave-dwellers resisted those who tried to drag them up into the light.
So too in this fictional world, agoraphobia and social anxiety would be commonplace. People would be taught that physical interaction is dangerous. Characters would have to undergo some sort of evolution to achieve their new insights.
I can't wait to buy Sharyl Attkisson's first novel!
I read the original "Against the Fall of Night". It's one of my favorite science-fiction stories. I don't know why Clarke felt he needed to rewrite the story. I thought it was perfect as is. Have you read both versions?
Pointing to the screen of the recently purchased, used television set, “That will be the ruination of the country.” said Dad on a day in August 1955. 📺
My husband will be 79 soon and he didn't have TV until he was 14. When his father finally succumbed to the begging of his children, he purchased a small TV and after setting it up in their home, he said: Today, I am allowing Satan into my home. Was he that far off? I think not.
Technology can be good, but it can also be VERY evil.
I was fortunate to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s in an idyllic Nassau County NY neighborhood. One of eight kids amongst blocks and blocks of post WWII Vet fathered families. Kids galore, little league, parades and taught to love the U.S. We would be gone all day sometimes not making it home for lunch but you better be back for dinner. I wouldn’t trade that freedom that we all enjoyed.
I tried to raise my 2 daughters in the 90’s and the aughts with similar values but it was more play dates than letting them roam free. But so far so good though at 29 & 32 years old. Unfortunately they both felt NY was too liberal in policies and policing and both moved to FL this year so I don’t get to see them as often. My message to parents: Put down your phones at the playground, or pushing the stroller, or anytime with the kids. Teach them about birds, the sun, or anything you interact with when you’re together. Be present in the moment!!!
“Then, one day, a maverick inventor unveils a miracle: a way to make the world safe. A breakthrough—let’s call it the “Freedom Protocol”—neutralizes the mysterious threat.”
That actually did happen. Jesus Christ made the world safe for us by offering us the opportunity to have eternal life with him. We will still have tribulation in this world, but he has overcome the world.
It was heartbreaking watching babies in grocery carts, masked. Unable to see the smiles of masked people in line. It's stultifying for children to not walk down the street and get a nod, a smile, a kind word - and it's graying us down. It's Pleasantville, in reverse. Holding the door, handshakes, a tip of the hat - all validate us as humans. Zoom church? Somehow, the hymns just don't work. Fellowship, sunshine, joy - all out there for the taking.
For all too many, especially the upcoming youth, reality is too unwieldy for them. Tech life is safer. Something as simple as a face-to-face meaningful conversation feels too scary/threatening to them (not that they notice it as such, or would admit it if they did), preferring the guarded perceived safety, of "living" behind a keypad on their cellphone where they can pause and take time to form a response (140 char. or less), or even ignore it ("I'll get back to ya," then won't); or "safely" sit behind their keyboard/console of the fantasy game their playing (i.e., lost in), where they are *in control* (a need for some sense of power in their lives) of their sense of safety and freedom, where the consequences of a bad decision (like getting injured, or even killed) are meaningless/inconsequential, and free of actual accountability.
Reality requires facing and dealing with the inherent tradeoffs between the needs for *safety* and *freedom,* enacting some sense of *power/impact* in their lives. In video games you can be free to jump off buildings, kill people, rob banks, run through stop signs, crash other cars, blow buildings and people up, and other dangerous/antisocial acts in real-life, but the consequences are safe, freely expressed, if only vicariously. These reality-avoidance tech activities have no significant accountability (e.g., going to prison, an actual prison) attached to their behaviors.
More to the point, I think kids and reality-resistant adults--those who seem to be relatively *less capable" of engaging and dealing with life--are overwhelmed with reality's complexities and complications, preferring to trade off their need for *actual* freedoms and impact on life for the delusional perception of it while lost in the screen in front of them; they're fine with the govt, mom/dad, someone (the capable), "taking care" of them, so long as they can still feel free, safe, powerful in their imaginations.
And with the advent of A.I. this trend of escapism will only get more deeply entrenched in their lives.
I've been saying it for 25 years. These kids have spent their lives in front of "screens." Kids that are raised outside are much more physically, mentally and emotionally well rounded. Spiritually, too.
The 70s and 80s. Those of us old enough to remember have the advantage of the before vs. after comparison.
I remember the family turmoil; the school bullies; the personal angst; the heartbreak; all of that, yes. At the time, those seemed to dominate my being.
But there was also YMCA Camp Latimer and the lake; skateboarding with friends; pitching the baseball in the yard; trips to Tennessee with my grandparents; catching lightning bugs among the southern pines; and people and places that had always been there, and seemed they would be there forevermore (but weren't).
All those experiences, during a time when records were kept only on paper, or microfiche. All the stupid things I said and did, of which there is no record, only my memory that will perish with me.
It all seems golden now.
This imagined story has been filmed, several times, with slight variations.
The most recent one is “The Island” (2005, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201). Instead of addictive screens, the movie uses an imprinted imagined vision of the life to which everyone should aspire (as in MLM propaganda), or the Island. Unreachable, as each valuable promised land should be, obviously, but available to the chosen few through a “lottery”.
The transition from the current existence to the transfer to the Island and the life there are not shown to the longing population - which is exactly how we are being played with the ideas like space travel, Moon landings, and space “conquest” (in a macro scale) or everything smaller than the optical microscope can show (in a micro scale).
In all these scenarios, one thing is common: the population needs a “dream” to pursue. Like “freedom”, “independence”, “ecology”, “net zero” or “0.1 degree temperature decrease”.
As someone who was here before the screens, that makes perfect sense. And perhaps, having existed without screens for a good while has made me more skeptical and less accepting, or at least wary of new technology.
Most can no longer perceive what we've lost. Technology and progress do not always align and sometimes the past is as much the way forward as the future.
We have to stop believing everything modern is better by default. It isn't.
Technology will steal our minds and souls if give into the techno-dystopia.
"The architects of the modern digital landscape are optimizing all devices and services to exploit our desires. The human vulnerability - the need and love for attention and the disdain for boredom - is the result of a world in which our attention is the basis of the new economic model, to be harvested and monetized with ruthless efficiency."
https://www.mindprison.cc/p/the-catastrophe-of-shiny-objects-boredom-attention-creativity
Our three GenZers were luckily introduced to 'screen time' late in their teens. One daughter is a housewife(for now) and very successfully manages 'screen time' with two young kids and it is great; we spend all of our time together and with friends doing many things. Our four year old grandson is developing quite nicely doing everything other than staring...
The technocrats are ushering in a post human world. Time is running out as most people are aiding in their own destruction. It’s very sad what is being facilitated.
This is really an ingenious proposal for a science-fiction novel turned hit movie. This would make great entertainment.
The elaborated story would have to acknowledge the ugly nuances of human psychology, however. The proposal resembles Plato's cave from his dialogue "Republic". If you remember the story, the lifelong cave-dwellers resisted those who tried to drag them up into the light.
So too in this fictional world, agoraphobia and social anxiety would be commonplace. People would be taught that physical interaction is dangerous. Characters would have to undergo some sort of evolution to achieve their new insights.
I can't wait to buy Sharyl Attkisson's first novel!
Read The City and the Stars written, I believe, in 1953
I read the original "Against the Fall of Night". It's one of my favorite science-fiction stories. I don't know why Clarke felt he needed to rewrite the story. I thought it was perfect as is. Have you read both versions?
It's one of mine, too. It's been a favorite since I was a kid and I've re-read it a number of times, just astounded by his insights.
No, I don't think I read "Against the Fall of Night" but I will now! Amazon ho!
Pointing to the screen of the recently purchased, used television set, “That will be the ruination of the country.” said Dad on a day in August 1955. 📺
My husband will be 79 soon and he didn't have TV until he was 14. When his father finally succumbed to the begging of his children, he purchased a small TV and after setting it up in their home, he said: Today, I am allowing Satan into my home. Was he that far off? I think not.
Technology can be good, but it can also be VERY evil.
I was fortunate to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s in an idyllic Nassau County NY neighborhood. One of eight kids amongst blocks and blocks of post WWII Vet fathered families. Kids galore, little league, parades and taught to love the U.S. We would be gone all day sometimes not making it home for lunch but you better be back for dinner. I wouldn’t trade that freedom that we all enjoyed.
I tried to raise my 2 daughters in the 90’s and the aughts with similar values but it was more play dates than letting them roam free. But so far so good though at 29 & 32 years old. Unfortunately they both felt NY was too liberal in policies and policing and both moved to FL this year so I don’t get to see them as often. My message to parents: Put down your phones at the playground, or pushing the stroller, or anytime with the kids. Teach them about birds, the sun, or anything you interact with when you’re together. Be present in the moment!!!
Peace
If you haven't, you really need to read Arthur C Clarke's The City and the Stars. One of my favorite books of all time and beyond prescient.
"In the Age of AI, We Each Have to Choose How Much of Our Humanity We Want to Keep"
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/in-the-age-of-ai-we-each-have-to
“Then, one day, a maverick inventor unveils a miracle: a way to make the world safe. A breakthrough—let’s call it the “Freedom Protocol”—neutralizes the mysterious threat.”
That actually did happen. Jesus Christ made the world safe for us by offering us the opportunity to have eternal life with him. We will still have tribulation in this world, but he has overcome the world.
It was heartbreaking watching babies in grocery carts, masked. Unable to see the smiles of masked people in line. It's stultifying for children to not walk down the street and get a nod, a smile, a kind word - and it's graying us down. It's Pleasantville, in reverse. Holding the door, handshakes, a tip of the hat - all validate us as humans. Zoom church? Somehow, the hymns just don't work. Fellowship, sunshine, joy - all out there for the taking.
I'll log off now and go climb a tree.
As usual, Sharyl.... on the nose.
For all too many, especially the upcoming youth, reality is too unwieldy for them. Tech life is safer. Something as simple as a face-to-face meaningful conversation feels too scary/threatening to them (not that they notice it as such, or would admit it if they did), preferring the guarded perceived safety, of "living" behind a keypad on their cellphone where they can pause and take time to form a response (140 char. or less), or even ignore it ("I'll get back to ya," then won't); or "safely" sit behind their keyboard/console of the fantasy game their playing (i.e., lost in), where they are *in control* (a need for some sense of power in their lives) of their sense of safety and freedom, where the consequences of a bad decision (like getting injured, or even killed) are meaningless/inconsequential, and free of actual accountability.
Reality requires facing and dealing with the inherent tradeoffs between the needs for *safety* and *freedom,* enacting some sense of *power/impact* in their lives. In video games you can be free to jump off buildings, kill people, rob banks, run through stop signs, crash other cars, blow buildings and people up, and other dangerous/antisocial acts in real-life, but the consequences are safe, freely expressed, if only vicariously. These reality-avoidance tech activities have no significant accountability (e.g., going to prison, an actual prison) attached to their behaviors.
More to the point, I think kids and reality-resistant adults--those who seem to be relatively *less capable" of engaging and dealing with life--are overwhelmed with reality's complexities and complications, preferring to trade off their need for *actual* freedoms and impact on life for the delusional perception of it while lost in the screen in front of them; they're fine with the govt, mom/dad, someone (the capable), "taking care" of them, so long as they can still feel free, safe, powerful in their imaginations.
And with the advent of A.I. this trend of escapism will only get more deeply entrenched in their lives.
I've been saying it for 25 years. These kids have spent their lives in front of "screens." Kids that are raised outside are much more physically, mentally and emotionally well rounded. Spiritually, too.