A sobering reminder that every generation is told some version of the same story: this is the future, it’s coming, and resistance is futile. Sometimes that story is true, at least in the sense that the machinery has already been set in motion before the public has had much chance to reckon with it.
People living inside that future eventually come to regard it as normal. They inherit its benefits, its conveniences, its new powers, and also its losses. What once would have caused wonder and alarm becomes daily life. That doesn’t mean every consequence should be accepted with a shrug.
The problem, as always, is that we’re seduced by the technology and driven by the profit, while only dimly aware of the unknown unknowns. Who benefits? Who pays? What improves? What disappears along the way? Progress has a long history of presenting us with benefits up front and invoices later.
A sobering reminder that every generation is told some version of the same story: this is the future, it’s coming, and resistance is futile. Sometimes that story is true, at least in the sense that the machinery has already been set in motion before the public has had much chance to reckon with it.
People living inside that future eventually come to regard it as normal. They inherit its benefits, its conveniences, its new powers, and also its losses. What once would have caused wonder and alarm becomes daily life. That doesn’t mean every consequence should be accepted with a shrug.
The problem, as always, is that we’re seduced by the technology and driven by the profit, while only dimly aware of the unknown unknowns. Who benefits? Who pays? What improves? What disappears along the way? Progress has a long history of presenting us with benefits up front and invoices later.
So well said