[KaiserJeep]

So far, with almost six months in office, the economy seems to be surging, economic indicators across the board are encouraging, and no great manmade disasters have occurred.

Windbag that he is, it seems probable that Trump may earn himself a second term on merit.

The media of course are still playing "Gotcha", and have not noticed.

[Newfie]

I wonder if the changing way we're are using autos is relevant to this discussion. For me, as a kid in a spread out rural cumminity, having some wheels was FREEDOM! Over the years the joy of driving has greatly diminished. Waaaaay too much traffic. Going to Lowes to get a 2x4, 5 miles away, was a one hour ordeal.

Now fewer kids are getting cars and even drivers licenses. They don't have the experience of being able to go where you want when you want. They need to work in some communal space via mass transit, ride share, Uber, whatever. Also, they can't go to that back country lake and skinny dip at 12:30 am, as the whim strikes.

I presume they feel that having a car, with the attendant costs and restrictions (parking) is a restriction on their freedom. I presume they don't know of the freedom of wild spaces. Just the hum of the hive.

And to change thoughts a bit...........

I think the roots of this thread have been around a long time in our popular culture. The Star Trek BORG series realty with the concepts of personal freedom vs give loyalty. The Matrix concept dealt with our addiction to entertainment. Most to me he point, now that I've made the connection. Was that old ZARDOZ movie, which surely discusses the Overshoot Predator and the value of an over indulgent life.

[Tanada]

I think a lot of this transition to fewer teens driving has to do with the population dynamics. When most of the members here were born the urban to rural proportions in the USA were about 70/30. Today they are a lot closer to 50/50. Urban lifestyles are not personal car dependent while rural/exurban/suburban lifestyles are personal transport dependent unless you can find a job in your very local community.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')Now fewer kids are getting cars and even drivers licenses. They don't have the experience of being able to go where you want when you want. They need to work in some communal space via mass transit, ride share, Uber, whatever. Also, they can't go to that back country lake and skinny dip at 12:30 am, as the whim strikes.

I presume they feel that having a car, with the attendant costs and restrictions (parking) is a restriction on their freedom. I presume they don't know of the freedom of wild spaces. Just the hum of the hive.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '-')snip-
You're right, at least for many urban dwellers vs. rural dwellers. Different lifestyles, needs, choices (with better technology), and wants. For them the freedom and whim fulfillment we consider natural and "required" isn't that important -- clearly.

-snip-

These big changes across one or at most two generations are many places -- the car is just a very recent example.

I look at me and many of my college educated career "professional" friends who are now between say 55 and 65. The big thing we noticed around age 30 was how HELPLESS and STUPID we generally were when anything went wrong mechanically with the car, with the house, etc. We had to just call for help in most cases. And we'd remark how our parents or grandparents would frequently fix or patch or rig something to get by -- or even fix the thing better than most repairmen.

A huge change. Very fast. For a LARGE segment of first world people.

In another generation, I wonder if I'll even be able to meaningfully TALK to kids who will be doing god knows what, buried deep in some level(s) of virtualization in things I've never even heard of. IMO, technology can only be rapidly accelerating that sort of change.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')The change in vehicle technology is what caused the loss of automotive expertise. ... I'll just point this out because it's not like today's adults are stupider or less intuitive than their parents, it's just that the vehicle tech requires another specialized computer to diagnose and repair it.

[KaiserJeep]

OS, I'm stunned, really. I too refuse to carry around a smart phone. Actually I don't carry around a dumb phone, either. I was forced to do so once, when I worked for a Persian who wanted to offload all his decision making on me, and then blame me if "he" didn't make the right call. That was in the days of analog flip phones, I have not carried one since.

I do carry around an e-reader because I fill every spare minute by reading. If I'm in the mood, I turn on the WiFi and catch up with e-mail or this forum. I am just as networked as I care to be.

[Newfie]

The meta story behind the above observations is that younger generations are far more reliant on support systems than older generations. Urban dwellers are far more reliant than rural dwellers.

The young urbanite is very hooked into the hive and requires it to function for their way of life if not survival. Small dairy farmers and commercial fisherman are probably the polar opposite of the metro sexual set. It could be argued that todays youth have as much freedom as past generations, it's just expressed in different activities. I would counter that this is true on the surface but deeper that kind of reliance on the hive requires the individual to conform to the norms of the hive. Tatto sleeves may look outrageous and edgy but they are really just a subset of hive normalcy. A otherwise "normal" person who is inheriently a loner, who is not electronically connected would be an outlier. I'm thinking of someone who could stand behind a plow mule for 10 hours a day.

Chris Christopherson wrote "Freedoms is just another word for nothing left to loose." Today's young urbanites have a great deal to loose, which would tend to argue they have very little freedom.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'O')S, I'm stunned, really. I too refuse to carry around a smart phone. Actually I don't carry around a dumb phone, either.

[Newfie]

I use my smart phone a lot. All email and web searching. But also it is my scientific calculator, camera of convience, navigation charts/gps, weather station.

Some modern convienced are just damn nice. But we try to pick what we use carefully. TV and increasingly FM radio are toast.

Being overly tied to the hive tends to limit your degree of flexibility in thought. Most especially it restricts your world view to the hive, the hive demands attention. If you want to know something of the world beyond human interaction you need to leave the hive, sever that connection for at least some significant period, and expose yourself to nature. Not just day trips, you need to learn how to listen and see.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'T')he meta story behind the above observations is that younger generations are far more reliant on support systems than older generations. Urban dwellers are far more reliant than rural dwellers.

[Newfie]

Trying to do my part, within the bounds of comfort of course!

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')It is a positive feedback toward tying us more forcefully to the current trajectory moving us ever closer to the brick wall of consequences. Nobody is doing much questioning or putting up more than just tepid resistance.

Is resistance futile? Are we being assimilated beyond the ability of an individual to act independently is any significant way?

[Newfie]

Those are valid comments. As the world contracts into survival factions those "freedoms" will evaporate into group conformity.

So, as the human world shrinks there is something to be lost as well as something to be gained.

Like most things in life it's not clear cut good vs evil. We are eternally ambivelent trying to hold multiple ideals and goals.

Such is life.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '
')
Now, maybe this is just putting lipstick on a pig (and if so I plead guilty), but to me it's not even close to all negatives in the electronic era.

[Newfie]

Consider that the "digital matrix" is a new environment that we (well the kids anyway) are adapting to. Advantages/disadvantages aside, is this new environment sustainable?

Then again, we have destabilized the old environment.

So is ther ANY stable environment?

My bet is the next few hundred years will be characterized by rapid large scale changes not only in the physical environment but within the social/cultural environment.

Outcasts points out the social acceptance we have adopted. Cog fortells the social retreat to the tribe, the retrenchment of social acceptance. Ibon points out they are both adaptive mechanisms.

What are the limits of human adaption? Individually and as a species?

What are the adaptive limits within our ecosystem?

[KaiserJeep]

Make no mistake, digital tech is a win/win in every sense. It enables efficiencies in manufacturing, agriculture, even personal craftsmanship. It makes for more efficient personal transportation, shipping, retailing, warehousing, ordering, and consumption.

There is simply NO WAY that digital electronics is unsustainable. Without it's added efficiency, the world economy would already be in collapse, oil in decline, famine rampant, and probably, resource wars underway.

There is no excuse for not understanding the benefit of digital tech. Just LOOK Around at the changes that have occurred since 1980. That is when personal digital tech became affordable.

If you long for the "simpler" lifestyle pre-1980, just remember that you would be relatively poor and scrambling to feed you and yours without it.

As I have said more than once, the last two people on Earth may be suffering from exposure and malnutrition, but they will be networked and messaging each other.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')As I have said more than once, the last two people on Earth may be suffering from exposure and malnutrition, but they will be networked and messaging each other.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '-')snip-

This is the inherent blind spot of being networked. When the network is all you know then outside of the network is not even in your consensus reality.

There is a whole world out there!