A thousand years ago when I was but a wee lad we would watch Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones and the guys in the red shirts who were always doomed to die use incredible technology to travel through space and time.
Out on the school yard we’d talk about what we would do if we had our own spaceship, Phazers and Tricorders. We had big plans, grand ideas for adventures.
And then we’d watch episodes of Welcome Back Kotter, All In The Family and Happy Days. The Sweat Hogs, Archie Bunker, Ritchie and The Fonz would bring us back to a reality that was a bit different from what we saw on Star Trek but it never stopped us from hoping that maybe one day we’d see these things.
Really, we were children of the seventies and we knew that something bigger was coming.
Maybe it was because we were still kids who played outside until dark and rode our bikes all over the city without parents in tow.
Or maybe it was something else, the how and why isn’t really a part of this post.
Nah, this is focused on how we watched Q give James Bond the coolest tech to defeat the bad guys and the hope we had that maybe one day we’d gain access to it too.
Our Children Don’t Appreciate Tech
Our children don’t really appreciate how cool it is to have all of this technology on hand. Smartphones are ordinary and they don’t know from not being able to pause their favorite television show because they had to pee.
They don’t know about life without computers, typewriters and the Internet.
It is all normal and ordinary to them.
That is not necessarily a good or bad thing, it is just a thing but sometimes I wonder about it.
Wonder because does imagination do better when you have a framework of ideas to base your dreams upon or does that framework also serve as a prison that restricts what you can or cannot imagine.
I don’t have a definitive opinion about that, but I enjoy mulling over the ideas.
What do you think?
Bonus: Star Trek Tech Brought To Life
You know, this is something I think about a lot. I was born in ’68, so I think we’re probably around the same age, and it’s a far different world today than it was then.
I recall when PC’s were first making a big push into retail, around ’89 – ’90. These old 386 and 486 single speeds seemed to exotic. Looking back now, where my phone is more powerful than these Intel behemoths, is both fascinating and scary.
Like you say, kids will never know the joy of going to a library’s resource drawer to find the info they’re looking for. They’ll never know the joy of sitting in a movie theatre in ’77, watching in awe as that Star Destroyer made its first appearance on-screen, and it seemed to go on forever and ever.
Tech is great; but have we bypassed life because of it? I hope not.
We are about the same age, give or take around 7 months or so. Anyhoo, I don’t think we have bypassed life but I often wonder what technology will impress our children because they simply haven’t seen the dramatic changes we have.
Maybe they will, maybe something will come and turn the world upside down as we witnessed and they’ll be amazed. I hope for that kind of development, not sure that it is critical, but I think it could be beneficial.