Technology surely ain’t movin’ at warp speed….

Ya know, we have a lot of sort of neat technology in our society…..we’ve got cool phones and other devices…we’re got this whole internet thing…..there are medical breakthroughs happening….it looks like we’re the kings of technology and we’ve got life in general under control and most of us continue to believe in something called “the technological fix”, which means that no matter what kind of problem humanity faces, it can always develop some type of technology to fix it.

What I think, though – and you’re likely going to disagree with me – is that we’re moving technology forward in tiny baby steps these days….I mean, I think, that we are indeed moving forward – but just not too quickly and surely not quickly enough for me. It’s great to have a cell phone that can cook you dinner – and it’s great to have a robot that can torque a nut onto a car wheel – or even vacuum your rug – but this is all small stuff. Last great breakthrough we likely had as a civilization was the computer. That was a pretty big one. Most of the other stuff we’re doing is sort of chicken feed.

Here’s what I mean. Compare when we moved into the 21st century about 20 years ago…..we were just moving into cell phone technology and the internet was really starting to happen….we were moving forward – there’s no doubt…….but when 1900 dawned, this is what was happening…..the invention of cars, airplanes, telephones, electricity, radio and soon TV….these were massive technological breakthroughs of the kind we haven’t seen since perhaps the invention of computers and early days of the internet.

And we are at a point where we could really use some big advances. We could use things like warp drive, teletransporters, time travel….some big stuff. Even something like a new, clean and never ending energy source would be good for starters. I mean if our belief in the technological fix is going to be proven to have credence, we badly need some really big stuff.

For example, if we could really move out into space – which we’ll never do without something like warp drive – it could solve massive problems on the planet. It could ease population pressure – it could provide us with alternate locations to gather some of the resources we need to survive as a species. Earth is getting way too crowded and you don’t have to be too bright to figure out we’re going to run out of resources before we get much further along. No, if we were able to get out into space in a serious way, it could be great for us. It would provide humanity with a much-needed frontier to grapple with.

It’s strange, but when I was a kid, we tended to play games and keep ourselves amused by looking backward. We mimicked what we saw in popular culture – which was cops and robbers, WWII stuff….the very politically incorrect “cowboys and Indians”…..that type of thing. When my son was a lad – which is going back 40 years – his generation tended to play games that looked forward. Star Wars was really huge…Battlestar Galactica….a whole bunch of futuristic things were all over the pop culture of the day.

For some reason – and I actually used to think about this – I thought my son’s generation and the ones that came after would be eager to invent or create the futuristic “toys” they played with as kids. I’m not sure that has happened. In fact, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t….I don’t see anything like “ray guns” and we’re sure not using flying cars or jet packs or anything else that dominated that early pop culture.

I mean, when I was sitting in the Paramount Theatre in Hanover in 1969-70 watching Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, I sort of thought that’s where we’d actually be by the year 2001. Man, to an old guy like me, we really seem to be moving forward very, very  slowly. We’re moving, but it sure as heck ain’t at warp speed.