Man I wish I could believe you. But I live close to a school. When the teenagers come past my window, they look and sound as idiotic, superficial and faintly agressive as we did about seventeen years ago.
As you attempted to carry me aloft by the hopeful vision you weave my brain's ass got repeatedly scaped by the realization that DNC/CIA-friendly tech giants have already censored and castrated yet one more avenue of human emancipation.
The fact that Monet on an IPhone and Monet in person are two entirely different interactions is also a thing. The same goes for the Grand Canyon. And love.
You're picking at the brush strokes of a work of art, deliberately deflating a hopeful sentiment. We don't know where we're going. It's unprecedented. It could be nuclear holocaust or it could be wonderful. It's up to us to be positive, creative and to keep fighting any way we can to the bitter end.
I'm glad for your upbeat take, but by my reckoning, any endeavor that has a coin-toss's chance of ending in nuclear holocaust as you observed cannot be rightly categorized as hopeful. Your mileage may vary. As to the scraping of my brain's ass, this was not a deliberate action on my part, but an honest reaction on reading another of Caitlin's excellent pieces. My brain appears to have a mind of its own.
This is pure bollocks. Caitlin is spot-on much of the time, but when she gets "creative," she usually drops a stink bomb. This is one such instance.
Art summons humanity's finest instincts and intelligence. The old art-lovers are far more likely than the I-phone zombie to deplore the present US belligerence in the Black Sea, which could easily plunge the world into war. The girl, with all the (dis)information from her I-phone, is unlikely even to know about it.
The younger generation (with some exceptions of course), have no thoughts of their own. It is all dictated to them by their "information sources." They are not creative, as the rebellious '60s generation was (and how). They shun discussion, stifle debate, and are quick to condemn. Pure destruction is all I've seen from them so far. Nihilism, no ideals. (Nor were any even hinted at in the pathetic sketch above.)
I'm having serious doubts about Caitlin's powers of judgment.
I'm 74 and literally grew up with computers using them my entire career to conduct scientific research, manage labs, draft publications, and even to navigate on the highway. I notice that compared to people still in school, I use digi tech as tools to access information necessary to navigate my life; not to define it. That is not a subtle difference, but it does seem that over generations, technology like smartphones seem to distract more and more people from the enriching experiences of a Monet painting or Dante poem.
Love your writing, love the way you think. However, as one of those old people. horrified by the hold that cell phones have on people remember a million people out protesting the war in Vietnam as opposed to perhaps that many or more griping on Facebook about whatever present war of plunder we're engaged in. Where people used to engage with each other, they now aovid human contact in favor of a radiation device that's guaranteed to increase the cancer rate exponentially. On top of that, the industry is owned and controlled by what I suspect are many autism spectrum people who are also psychopathic in their thinking, who have little capacity to comprehend what being a human being is and, due to their criminal amount of money (no one person or entity should be permitted to get that rich) they have at their disposal what they seem intent on doing with it is a complete social engineering of the human race with the ultimate goal of turning us all into their cyborg slaves. The internet at this point is heavily censored as to what is available to us and it looks like the majority are quite okay with their role as lemmings for the megalos in control. Technology can be a blessing. Without concomitant spiritual evolution and the complete absence of the sacred, it is a curse and that is where we are. And everyday I am grateful that I am 82 and my time left here is blessedly short. But I still cry for my children and for the human race that think they are headed to Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, but once again will end up as donkeys.
This piece has the potential to open up many people to much richer lives - the children and the adults and the elders. In many ways, our communication technology is our best hope for survival of our species.
This sounds vaguely transhumanist and techno-utopian to me. There's nothing fundamentally different or special about the generations who grew up staring at phones other than that they don't know what it's like not to have grown up staring at phones.
I cannot agree. The access to information and ability to create connections in this manner provides a different framework for understanding reality, which we as humans co-create. That the children of today will always have had this access will inevitably shape the structure of the world on both macro and micro levels, and increasingly so with the passage of time. Caitlin's piece here illustrates that our species can evolve (and actually must) if we are to avoid self destruction. It is hopeful while being mindful of the way that different generations struggle to understand the multitude of variables that exist and contort before our very eyes, irrespective of opinions of them. And closing oneself off to change is in not an effective way to avoid its effects or repercussions.
I agree we must evolve, but personally I don't think this evolution will take place because of technology but in spite of it.
I like this quote from Arthur C. Clarke: “Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
Point being access to information is not knowing the score. Those who know the score would probably know the score even without the access to information. Those who don't know the score in most cases don't know the score in spite of having every opportunity to access information.
All the technology really does is facilitate communication and dissemination of information among those who do know the score. I don't see any reason why it would impart the generation who grew up with it any special edge or special qualities that generations who didn't don't have (other than those attributable to being socially and sensorially conditioned by it). I mean that's a nice romantic notion, but on a personal it doesn't match my own observations.
do we as the older generation have any, i mean ANY authority to tell the young that we know better????? look around, you see what we have done to the world in which the young have to live?????
Man I wish I could believe you. But I live close to a school. When the teenagers come past my window, they look and sound as idiotic, superficial and faintly agressive as we did about seventeen years ago.
As you attempted to carry me aloft by the hopeful vision you weave my brain's ass got repeatedly scaped by the realization that DNC/CIA-friendly tech giants have already censored and castrated yet one more avenue of human emancipation.
The fact that Monet on an IPhone and Monet in person are two entirely different interactions is also a thing. The same goes for the Grand Canyon. And love.
You're picking at the brush strokes of a work of art, deliberately deflating a hopeful sentiment. We don't know where we're going. It's unprecedented. It could be nuclear holocaust or it could be wonderful. It's up to us to be positive, creative and to keep fighting any way we can to the bitter end.
I'm glad for your upbeat take, but by my reckoning, any endeavor that has a coin-toss's chance of ending in nuclear holocaust as you observed cannot be rightly categorized as hopeful. Your mileage may vary. As to the scraping of my brain's ass, this was not a deliberate action on my part, but an honest reaction on reading another of Caitlin's excellent pieces. My brain appears to have a mind of its own.
This is pure bollocks. Caitlin is spot-on much of the time, but when she gets "creative," she usually drops a stink bomb. This is one such instance.
Art summons humanity's finest instincts and intelligence. The old art-lovers are far more likely than the I-phone zombie to deplore the present US belligerence in the Black Sea, which could easily plunge the world into war. The girl, with all the (dis)information from her I-phone, is unlikely even to know about it.
The younger generation (with some exceptions of course), have no thoughts of their own. It is all dictated to them by their "information sources." They are not creative, as the rebellious '60s generation was (and how). They shun discussion, stifle debate, and are quick to condemn. Pure destruction is all I've seen from them so far. Nihilism, no ideals. (Nor were any even hinted at in the pathetic sketch above.)
I'm having serious doubts about Caitlin's powers of judgment.
I'm 74 and literally grew up with computers using them my entire career to conduct scientific research, manage labs, draft publications, and even to navigate on the highway. I notice that compared to people still in school, I use digi tech as tools to access information necessary to navigate my life; not to define it. That is not a subtle difference, but it does seem that over generations, technology like smartphones seem to distract more and more people from the enriching experiences of a Monet painting or Dante poem.
Love your writing, love the way you think. However, as one of those old people. horrified by the hold that cell phones have on people remember a million people out protesting the war in Vietnam as opposed to perhaps that many or more griping on Facebook about whatever present war of plunder we're engaged in. Where people used to engage with each other, they now aovid human contact in favor of a radiation device that's guaranteed to increase the cancer rate exponentially. On top of that, the industry is owned and controlled by what I suspect are many autism spectrum people who are also psychopathic in their thinking, who have little capacity to comprehend what being a human being is and, due to their criminal amount of money (no one person or entity should be permitted to get that rich) they have at their disposal what they seem intent on doing with it is a complete social engineering of the human race with the ultimate goal of turning us all into their cyborg slaves. The internet at this point is heavily censored as to what is available to us and it looks like the majority are quite okay with their role as lemmings for the megalos in control. Technology can be a blessing. Without concomitant spiritual evolution and the complete absence of the sacred, it is a curse and that is where we are. And everyday I am grateful that I am 82 and my time left here is blessedly short. But I still cry for my children and for the human race that think they are headed to Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, but once again will end up as donkeys.
This beautiful and hopeful, and yes, scary too (but all leaps into the unknown are).
I'm a boomer and I approve of this message.
This piece has the potential to open up many people to much richer lives - the children and the adults and the elders. In many ways, our communication technology is our best hope for survival of our species.
This sounds vaguely transhumanist and techno-utopian to me. There's nothing fundamentally different or special about the generations who grew up staring at phones other than that they don't know what it's like not to have grown up staring at phones.
I cannot agree. The access to information and ability to create connections in this manner provides a different framework for understanding reality, which we as humans co-create. That the children of today will always have had this access will inevitably shape the structure of the world on both macro and micro levels, and increasingly so with the passage of time. Caitlin's piece here illustrates that our species can evolve (and actually must) if we are to avoid self destruction. It is hopeful while being mindful of the way that different generations struggle to understand the multitude of variables that exist and contort before our very eyes, irrespective of opinions of them. And closing oneself off to change is in not an effective way to avoid its effects or repercussions.
I agree we must evolve, but personally I don't think this evolution will take place because of technology but in spite of it.
I like this quote from Arthur C. Clarke: “Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”
Point being access to information is not knowing the score. Those who know the score would probably know the score even without the access to information. Those who don't know the score in most cases don't know the score in spite of having every opportunity to access information.
All the technology really does is facilitate communication and dissemination of information among those who do know the score. I don't see any reason why it would impart the generation who grew up with it any special edge or special qualities that generations who didn't don't have (other than those attributable to being socially and sensorially conditioned by it). I mean that's a nice romantic notion, but on a personal it doesn't match my own observations.
do we as the older generation have any, i mean ANY authority to tell the young that we know better????? look around, you see what we have done to the world in which the young have to live?????
I like the way you talk.
This is brilliant
Caitlin is not a propagandist. This is a fable about all the bullshit we lay on our younglings. I want to know more about her wings...
Oh my god shut up you weird freak and stop spamming nutjob comments all over my cool story. Away with you.