At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, does anyone ever wonder whether humanity is just moving too fast sometimes?
Centuries of slow, gradual, non-linear progress. Then the industrial revolution, electrification, computers, the Internet. The past couple hundred years have had incredible and ever-accelerating progress that has drastically improved our understanding of all sorts of sciences. You can find all sorts of global stats that show how humanity has benefitted from this time. But there have been drawbacks. Pollution and environmental destruction, climate change, rampant capitalism and exploitation. And now we have AI on the horizon: will it upend society or go the way of 3D TV? Are we at the point where we need to cool off “innovation” and take more time to figure out the things that we already have?
And I think that applies to much lower-stakes technology like what’s referenced in this post too. Looking at videogames: there were huge advances from 8-bit to 16-bit. From 2D to 3D. From CD to DVD. The jump from PS3 to PS4 and 360 to Xbone was still noticeable, but not huge. But did we really need a PS5 and Xbox Series? The Switch is definitely past it’s prime, but is the rumored 2028 PS6 really going to be necessary? The jump from 1080p to 4k is nice, but nowhere near as significant as the previous ones. I can’t imagine 8k ever becoming more than a niche application. Higher frame rates are nice, but I think anything higher than 120FPS is the same as 8K: always reserved for niche and enthusiast use cases.
Or you can look at phones. The market is finally slowing down, but for a while phones were only built to last 2 years. To the point where they stopped making user-removable batteries, and they’ve even stopped including SD cards on a lot of models. I have several old HTC and LG phones that are just as functional as when I bought them, but they can’t handle web browsing and most apps are no longer compatible with their operating systems. I could jump through hoops to install something like LineageOS, but that’s relying on a community of volunteers to help to circumvent the restrictions put in place by manufacturers who do not even make phones anymore.
How many different storage formats existed in all of history prior to 1900? Maybe a dozen? How many have been retired since then? Laser disc, 8-track, VHS, cassette, wax cylinders. Vinyl came, went, and has kind of come back again. CD’s peaked in the early 2000’s and are a fraction of what they used to be. Best Buy and Sal-Mart are going to stop selling DVD’s and Blu-Rays next year. Floppy drives have disappeared from computers, and internal optical drives are almost wiped out. Cars are replacing CD’s with Bluetooth and streaming services.
Humanity seems to be moving towards all science and culture being stored on the servers for a handful of huge corporations. All our science and culture at the whim of a billionaire. Library budgets are under attack. Copyright laws get more and more draconian, to the point where even saying something about an IP that it’s owner doesn’t like can result in that content being stricken from all but the most niche platforms.
I applaud organizations like Wikipedia and Archive.org, and of course all of the pirates out there. I’m trying to personally hoard enough physical media to satisfy myself through my lifetime. But it all just seems like a battle humanity is destined to lose with itself.
At the risk of sounding like an old man yelling at a cloud, does anyone ever wonder whether humanity is just moving too fast sometimes?
Centuries of slow, gradual, non-linear progress. Then the industrial revolution, electrification, computers, the Internet. The past couple hundred years have had incredible and ever-accelerating progress that has drastically improved our understanding of all sorts of sciences. You can find all sorts of global stats that show how humanity has benefitted from this time. But there have been drawbacks. Pollution and environmental destruction, climate change, rampant capitalism and exploitation. And now we have AI on the horizon: will it upend society or go the way of 3D TV? Are we at the point where we need to cool off “innovation” and take more time to figure out the things that we already have?
And I think that applies to much lower-stakes technology like what’s referenced in this post too. Looking at videogames: there were huge advances from 8-bit to 16-bit. From 2D to 3D. From CD to DVD. The jump from PS3 to PS4 and 360 to Xbone was still noticeable, but not huge. But did we really need a PS5 and Xbox Series? The Switch is definitely past it’s prime, but is the rumored 2028 PS6 really going to be necessary? The jump from 1080p to 4k is nice, but nowhere near as significant as the previous ones. I can’t imagine 8k ever becoming more than a niche application. Higher frame rates are nice, but I think anything higher than 120FPS is the same as 8K: always reserved for niche and enthusiast use cases.
Or you can look at phones. The market is finally slowing down, but for a while phones were only built to last 2 years. To the point where they stopped making user-removable batteries, and they’ve even stopped including SD cards on a lot of models. I have several old HTC and LG phones that are just as functional as when I bought them, but they can’t handle web browsing and most apps are no longer compatible with their operating systems. I could jump through hoops to install something like LineageOS, but that’s relying on a community of volunteers to help to circumvent the restrictions put in place by manufacturers who do not even make phones anymore.
How many different storage formats existed in all of history prior to 1900? Maybe a dozen? How many have been retired since then? Laser disc, 8-track, VHS, cassette, wax cylinders. Vinyl came, went, and has kind of come back again. CD’s peaked in the early 2000’s and are a fraction of what they used to be. Best Buy and Sal-Mart are going to stop selling DVD’s and Blu-Rays next year. Floppy drives have disappeared from computers, and internal optical drives are almost wiped out. Cars are replacing CD’s with Bluetooth and streaming services.
Humanity seems to be moving towards all science and culture being stored on the servers for a handful of huge corporations. All our science and culture at the whim of a billionaire. Library budgets are under attack. Copyright laws get more and more draconian, to the point where even saying something about an IP that it’s owner doesn’t like can result in that content being stricken from all but the most niche platforms.
I applaud organizations like Wikipedia and Archive.org, and of course all of the pirates out there. I’m trying to personally hoard enough physical media to satisfy myself through my lifetime. But it all just seems like a battle humanity is destined to lose with itself.