What happens when technology is used to appraise the daily interactions people have with each other? We have SPAM blocker, Email rules based on specific criteria, Speed checker with cameras to shoot your license plate number, Automatic Thermostates, EasyPass, and Mobile Gas Speedpass. We should soon have a refrigerator which throws expired food away automatically.
How much do we loose of ourselves when we stop interacting with the minor aspects of daily life? Who writes letters any more? Who strolls up 5th Avenue any more? Who sits on the porch any more?
None of this was conceived yet when Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock. A book about the future as seen from the 1970s. It was not a book about a utopia. It was a book about us. Although we still think we have our humanity, while, if I remember correctly, Toffler thought we would loose it.
At Pantopicon, there is a link to the Future Shock documentary from 1972, narrated by Orson Welles. Oooh, how dramatic!
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