(What will it be like to discuss this time period in the future? How will we view the moral landscape of this time period, historically? otto)
"Essay"
Language 201
Early Twenty first Century Prose
Whenever any of my devices fails to read my body or eye gesture correctly, I start to wonder what it would have been like without the cue activated applications of the modern day. What would that have been like to operate your own vehicle? What would it have been like to smell the dirty air? How would I be able to contribute anything if I were constantly needing to take time and thought to do the things we have automatically done for us today.
Mostly, I try to imagine the difference in the way people must have thought. People wasted so much on so little. When my grandfather was born, the world was a frivolous place full of flashing lights and loud sounds. It's hard to understand how so much was expended for pursuits that resulted in so little.
During my grandfather's time, we still scarred the earth for food, and we still dug into the earth for fuel. Imagine doing that. It's as if you would take an electric blade to cut your leg off in order to move from one tramway residence stop to the next. In those days, it seems like we thought that work was the thing that was abundant, not energy. Imagine living with the fear that there wasn't enough energy to provide. All that wasted time and effort into such trivial issues. We could have stopped the problems we face today if we had simply learned earlier how to redirect our focus.
I can almost imagine, however, what it would have been like to believe that we were limited to the resources of the Earth. Or that we should even think that the exploitation of the resources was a good idea. I guess some might have a point that we were really forced to use the earth resources, or that our current society was built on a foundation that relied on those resources.
In asking my grandfather about his childhood, here is the file that returned.
I wasn't born until the very end of the O and C era. It was still a tenuous time. Many people still sought to protect and defend the practices of inequality which had so effectively stopped the forward motion of progress. I remember the adults talking quietly in words that today would be filtered and lost. The ideas behind those words seem brutal and primitive to you, but to them, they really believed that these ideas were the best ideas.
We barely understood the power of shared knowledge. We actually believed that it was possible to progress alone. At some times in human history, we were content to simply survive. At other times, we had the illusion of progress, based on what we thought were morally good ideas. When I was a child, I would hear my parents talk about the time that we now call the "Own and Control Era."
This was before we even understood that superstructures could be made. It was before we had developed the inner ear balance mods that are necessary for making the superstructures livable. This was long before tramways, and it was when you walked on the sidewalk, and not when it walked you. Did you know that the reason we refer to "applications" isn't because we "applied" the devices to our skin for power and connection? That's how we understand it today, but back then it meant something different. As a matter of fact, it was widely believed that we were going to install devices into our bodies, not make a simple application device. As if that made any sense! Can you imagine that they would think repeated surgical procedures to update a device was a good idea?! You know that I don't really like to wear applications, but the ones that I do have seem to need to be updated every five weeks. How difficult would it be for doctors to continually use surgical means to install the balance mods?
When you use the word "page," you use it as a measure of information. When I was born, a "page" was actually a material object that was made with cut trees. For hundreds or thousands of years, it was common to cut down trees to share information. There was no Common Connect in those times, so seeking information was difficult.
You've asked me about cars before. I remember a little bit about the way that people used to drive them. Cars were the ultimate expression of the ideas of the own and control era. Every once in a while, I smell something that is a little bit like that burning fuel from the cars. It brings back a flood of memories of sitting in my grandfather's yard and looking at the old pile of junk that had the combustion engine. lol. Combustion. When I was a child, I remember seeing the picture of the places where they would puncture the crust. You can't imagine how they would have done that, can you? I guess they felt they had to.
So now we get our resources from rocky solar system bodies, but is that the best way? Do you ever wonder if it there isn't some problem with continuing to bring so many materials for building here? Transport after transport arrives. Day after day, filling the planet with outside materials. Today, after decades of growth upwards, we now have those who argue that we are dooming ourselves to staying by not exploring.
I'm just rambling now, and I've been thinking this document for an hour already. Save document. Save document.
Dammit, why isn't this thing taking my save command? Close document. Close it. Close the stupid document. Oh, duh. This is what you're supposed to say.