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Techno Panics From Forty Years Ago... Narrated By Orson Welles
from the sound-familiar dept
Adam Thierer points us to this wonderful BrainPickings blog post about how, in 1972, a little-known documentary was made, based on Alvin Toffler's famous and massively influential techno-panic book Future Shock, which famously warned about the dangers of technological progress. Apparently, the entire documentary has been put up on YouTube, so you can watch it below. It's narrated by Orson Welles, but what's most amusing is how many of the concerns voiced in the documentary about the evils of technology are the same "warnings" that we hear today, with the same absence of evidence that support the position. I particularly like the dramatic scary music that fills much of the entire film.
The lesson from all this, as pointed out in BrainPickings, is that: "Societies have always feared new technology but ultimately adapted to it. Or, better yet, adapted it to their needs." It would be nice, if just once, we didn't have to go through that fear process, but it seems like that's wishful thinking.
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-Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear. Dune
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However I wouldn't brush off the whole idea of future shock so quickly. I think that people who use it as a call for slowing progress or as a general reason to fear technology are simply reacting to it wrongly - the idea has a certain gravity.
There's a lot of talk, even here on Techdirt, about the ways people are incorporating technology into their lives and how society needs to adapt to that - whether its letting kids have cellphones in schools or giving up on preserving the scarcity of information. In that I completely agree - but it's also valid to consider the effects this has on society and, dare I say, each new generation's fundamental thought processes.
Broad trends like impermanence, more-information-faster, and computers aiding our thought processes all interact with our human nature in unexpected ways - and though many of these observations seem stale, that's at least partially because the same things have been happening for a long time, and accelerating steadily. The implications are difficult to study and impossible to pin down, but truly fascinating to consider.
Don't get me wrong - I think the drama and the fearmongering are terrible. I firmly believe progress and innovation are human society's greatest strengths and also just as necessary to our survival now as it has always been. I also am excited about what people will achieve as we continue to use technology to exceed our natural capacity. But studying the impact of all this on our psychology, both in the positive and the negative, is equally important.
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The Borg is a great plot, Skynet, the various films from the 50's and 60's about isolated island with terrible experiments getting out of control, one that I remember seeing but can't remember the name is one of some creatures that were produced and they sucked the bones out of you, I remember being scared to death by that movie LoL
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I've seen YT vids with 30 min+ time limits while most will say that 10 minutes is the cap.
Anyone know whats up?
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What fear mongering?
Toffler just tried to describe how the technological environment was changing and going to change, and how people are reacting to it. Most of what he wrote in "Future Shock" and especially in "The Third Wave" holds very true even today.
And by the way - the reaction of the content industries to the technological changes in their business environment are accurately described in "Future Shock", and the changes themselves accurately predicted in "The Third Wave".
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Future Shock
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Intro
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Re: What fear mongering?
The whole thing is fear mongering.
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Re: Re: What fear mongering?
But simply analyzing the effects of rapid development on society is not fearmongering in itself.
That being said, I haven't read the book - this movie is definitely fearmongering, but from what Yogi says I'm not so sure the original work is.
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oh, cool, barbeque..."
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Re: Re: Re: What fear mongering?
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BUT THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN !!
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When you look at anything, you can find the negative in it. That movie is only really a collection of the negative aspects of certain types of advances, and then taking those aspects and applying them willy-nilly to other things. Any movie that can make moving house sound like a horrible, scary, terrible thing to do gets points for blowing as much smoke as possible.
Quite simply, there are tin foil hatters in every generation. In the 60s, they made movies. In current times they open blogs, like TD. Some of them write horrible one sided cartoon, like Nina Paley does.
At the time, the message may have found a receptive audience. 40 years later, we can see past the FUD and separate out the facts and the fiction. I suspect a 40 year lookback on TD will show just how transient many of the ideas here were as well.
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ie The end montage with the infant lying in a sand dune with no one else in sight is unintentionally hysterical. This whole film would've been ripe for an MST3K episode.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: What fear mongering?
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Actually that fear is what makes us stop and think, so it's a good thing. Perhaps it goes on a bit much, particularly in todays connected world, but that's really a small price to pay.
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What shock?
The problem with progress is that it is too slow, not too fast. The technical progress, in terms of practical effects on peoples lives, in the intervening 40 or so years is NOTHING compared to the changes from 1860 to 1900 or 1880 to 1920 or 1900 to 1940 or 1930 to 1970.
The transistor was invented in 1950, the integrated circuit in 1960 and the microprocessor in 1970. Where are the new inventions that even come close to those? And they are minor in significance compared to, say, Tesla's alternating current electric engine. Each major advance is less important than the one that came before it. Progress is asymptotic, not exponential. We think current progress is rapid only because we take for granted what has come before.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What fear mongering?
I have much more respect for these online media/entertainment sources, they must compete in a much freer market than the MSM, which benefits from bad laws in their favor.
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In July...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What fear mongering?
Whenever I see stories about sexting or kids getting dumber or any of that stuff, I feel like they only exist to give the get-off-my-lawn crowd more ammunition at the dinner table.
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Re: What shock?
If one aspect of progress slows, another one always accelerates.
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What does this film have to do with the book?
IIRC, Toffler's work was not some Luddite "technology is bad" book, but more of a cautionary work about possible pitfalls from reliance on technology as a substitute for personal and business "best practices".
One thing that stuck with me -- and something that has been valuable to me in my career, is his comparison of high-tech vs. high-touch. I can't count the number of times I've seen organizations rush to implement a technological "solution" with no other justification than "progress" or poorly understood promises of cost reduction. Often those technological solutions have mostly served to alienate their customers and drain their budgets.
If you have ever sworn off a company because of their voice jail system, convoluted web "support" sites, no means of direct contact, etc., then you have illustrated his point. If a positive interaction (even very brief) by phone, online chat, or in person can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, then an automated solution that prevents actual customer contact (high touch) might not be progress at all.
I think Toffler would have appreciated the meme:
1. Step 1
2. Step 2
3. ...
4. Profit!
It's the very type of thinking (when applied to technology solutions) that he warned against.
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It did inspire many bizarre and terrifying dreams.
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Risking being called a moron.
What does it mean?
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Re: What shock?
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righto
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Not really "unknown"
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Re: Re: What shock?
Where are the inventions of the last 40 years that have a similar prospect?
The Internet is less significant than the telegraph, with the telephone falling somewhere in between the two. Most of Facebook is garbage, written by children.
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Re: What does this film have to do with the book?
2. rtb
3. ...
4 profit!
Yeah, I can see how that works. :)
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Re: What shock?
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