There may be people who were able to accurately predict what's happened over the last twenty years, but we'll probably never hear about them because they're all so filthy rich they've completely disappeared from the view of us ordinary mortals.
I was born in 1955, eight years after the invention of the transistor and three years before the invention of the integrated circuit.
So, yeah, in terms of technology, I've seen a few changes during my life. I think some of those changes have been harmful to people and society in general but, on balance, I'd rather have today's technology than 1960's technology.
In social terms, it's common for old gits like me to long for the good old days, but I never do. The good old days really weren't all that great for a lot of people.
To take one example of a non-digital technology that has made a huge change in people's lives: Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was licensed for use on the public a few months before I was born. Before the mass polio immunisation programmes which started a couple of years after I was born, polio epidemics were common all over the world, and they caused the deaths of many children and permanent disability for many more. (One of my earliest memories is of seeing a boy in an iron lung that was positioned at the picture window of a house so he could see the outside world.) These days, most people never encounter someone who had polio and many have no idea of what the disease actually involves.
It's a similar story with many other diseases which have been eliminated or drastically reduced by immunisation programmes.
(Us humans being such perverse creatures by nature, the consequence is that many idiots have decided that, since they've never seen an infant with measles or whooping cough, the illnesses can't be _that_ bad, so their little darlings won't get immunised. But that's a rant for another thread...)
No society is perfect and we've got a long way to go before it's possible for every child born to reach their full potential as a human being and live a long, peaceful and fulfilling life, but it seems to me that, in many ways, we're closer to that now than we were when I was born.
Would you have guessed life would be this way 20 years ago?
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There may be people who were able to accurately predict what's happened over the last twenty years, but we'll probably never hear about them because they're all so filthy rich they've completely disappeared from the view of us ordinary mortals.
I was born in 1955, eight years after the invention of the transistor and three years before the invention of the integrated circuit.
So, yeah, in terms of technology, I've seen a few changes during my life. I think some of those changes have been harmful to people and society in general but, on balance, I'd rather have today's technology than 1960's technology.
In social terms, it's common for old gits like me to long for the good old days, but I never do. The good old days really weren't all that great for a lot of people.
To take one example of a non-digital technology that has made a huge change in people's lives: Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was licensed for use on the public a few months before I was born. Before the mass polio immunisation programmes which started a couple of years after I was born, polio epidemics were common all over the world, and they caused the deaths of many children and permanent disability for many more. (One of my earliest memories is of seeing a boy in an iron lung that was positioned at the picture window of a house so he could see the outside world.) These days, most people never encounter someone who had polio and many have no idea of what the disease actually involves.
It's a similar story with many other diseases which have been eliminated or drastically reduced by immunisation programmes.
(Us humans being such perverse creatures by nature, the consequence is that many idiots have decided that, since they've never seen an infant with measles or whooping cough, the illnesses can't be _that_ bad, so their little darlings won't get immunised. But that's a rant for another thread...)
No society is perfect and we've got a long way to go before it's possible for every child born to reach their full potential as a human being and live a long, peaceful and fulfilling life, but it seems to me that, in many ways, we're closer to that now than we were when I was born.
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Rich_Guy
5 years ago
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Yes. We are also closer to the 1% having a 60% higher share of the GDP.