Generations

[KMD]

Do you ever wake up in the morning, and wonder what the hell happened in the past 20 years? As a world, we've made incredible technological advancements, that have completely changed the way we lives our lives an interact. I just wonder, from a societal standpoint, if we are ready for such drastic changes in human civilization.  Cell phones, the internet, GPS all have influenced the past 20ish years.
I wonder how people 30 or 40 years ago used to communicate, without cell phones, when things were slower. When you could get ahold of someone at work, or at home, but nowhere else (except for pay phones). In the 21st century, in America at least, everyone is basically expected to have a cell phone, to be available at any time, even children. 15 years ago, a parent of a preteen might've said "But not everyone else in your class has one, i'm not buying you one.", but they wouldn't say that now because chances are (almost) everyone else does. Beyond just a social status, a cell phone is now a social requirement. Okay, we're not quite there yet, but its only a matter of time.

With the "social requirements" we as a people burden ourselves with the cost. Technology isn't free, and so I think these are costs previous generations didn't have (though maybe they had their own "costs"). This, I believe is a large part of the generation gap; The younger generation is amassed with more costs due to social requirement, along with unskilled jobs that nickel and dime us to death. By the time cell phones and internet came about, boomers had settled into their careers for the most part, so for them this was just another living expense, but for the younger generation this is an expensive social requirement.

I don't want this to be about the "evil no good" boomer generation, who clung onto many of the good jobs after the 2007 recession, because I don't feel that way, but sometimes it really seems like we're getting fucked. An insurmountable and unpayable government debt, minimum wages that are too low and jobs where full time is 32 hours a week, barely enough to pay my car insurance and phone bills, much less to actually live off. They certainly are unskilled jobs that offer more hours and slightly higher wages, but almost all of them expect you to work to hard for too little. I'm not against working hard, but i'm not putting my body at risk for a wage that isn't worth it. In this sense, I think we have been taking steps backwards.

I guess I just wonder if people 50 years ago had the same money problems that we do now, if technology is really worth the cost, and how people might change in the next 50 years. As I've stated before, both my parents are making less than they were 20 years ago (probably about 60% of what they were, my dad used to have a comfortable job working for a large insurance company, but he got fired for, and I'm quoting this from the official court documentation "selling insurance to too many black people", but thats a story for another time), and I spend a lot of time trying to comprehend why, and obviously not make the same decisions. In about a decade, they're going to stop working, and worrying if they will have saved enough by then really burdens me. Some days I want to abandon them, and let them fend for themselves, but I know it would make me a monster. The worlds knowledge at my fingertips, ability to communicate with anyone instantaneously, yet we still let paper promises control our thoughts and worries. What has technology really achieved?

Some days I just want to move to a rural place to get away from it all. Everything moves so fast now, that i'm not sure we're ready for it. The world as one makes everyone the same. One day, probably within our life times, human consciousness will be able to survive on a microchip in the digital realm, and that will be a sad day.

[Hoopy Frood]

I think technology is worth the cost. Any tool can be used for good or ill, but on the whole, tools tend to be used for good far more often than ill. (Assuming the tool itself is useful. You could probably come up with tools that serve no purpose other than for evil, but then there's no purpose in being philosophical about it.)

And people 50 years ago didn't have the same money problems we do now (U.S.-centric, I can't speak for other countries). People make less overall in real money than they did 50 years ago. The middle-class is shrinking. The income gap between the top earners and the middle class is growing. And it's an inherently unstable system that way. Economy's stagnate when people stop buying goods and services. The stronger the middle class, the more money flowing around and the steadier the economy. The rich tend to buy rich things, and invest in rich things, and are on the whole largely useless for propping up the economy because all their money tends to stay at the top. And when the middle-class invests in luxury goods and services, it tends to throw more money up there where it stays. Sort of a "trickle-up" economy. The doomsday scenario is that the rich will eventually run out of things they can actually trade because they'll be full of everything they can get and the disappearing middle-class means there's nothing new to produce or experience because the rest are too busy trying to scratch out a living to actually produce more than subsistence.

Of course, as I said, that's all worse case. The advantage of technology is that it tends to equalize things. The poor these days are better off due to technological advancements than the poor of previous generations were. But then again, there seems to be more of them, and their numbers seem to grow each year as the unbalanced system in place tilts ever more to one side.

And nothing's really being done about it since the political parties would rather snipe at each other over meaningless shit than actually try to address the real problems. But since politicians spend about a third of their time trying to get re-elected and a good amount of the rest of the time not trying to piss anyone off who's vote they counted on in the first place, the government's unlikely to actually fix anything.

So I'm rooting for technology, because it's the only thing that seems to stand a chance of upsetting the status quo.