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1. •  
     CommentAuthortrewqh
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007 edited

    (50.1)

   adaptation has to be a value, doesn't it?

   
   
   It is, but there's the question of direction. We shouldn't try to adapt to the world (understood as a number of life styles to choose from), but try to adapt the world to how diverse we can be (so that any new life style can contribute). I think that was the theme of the talk, that got lost once adapting was put next to 'keeping up' and single-tracked technology-based progress was set up as the ultimate value, reference and beacon.
   
   Some people find it hard to adapt? Let them mold their world so that they don't have to adapt to other people's lifestyles. That's how we can progress.
   
   Nice, economic explanation of how devaluation of degrees doesn't hinder scientific progress, robb. I could add that colleges are offering more and more academic/creative compared to scientific courses, not because they want to help anyone develop creativity, but because the former are much less capital-intensive. Hell, humanities don't need much more than good faculty these days, actually!
   
   To sum up: single-tracked, 'forward moving' progress is appealing because it's a clean and simple concept. But, actually, it's a boring and limited remains of Positivism, right?
   
   (Sorry, if I sound like and asshole. Blame my English if that's the case.)
2. • CommentAuthorKinesys
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.2)

   Nice, economic explanation of how devaluation of degrees doesn't hinder scientific progress, robb. I could add that colleges are offering more and more academic/creative compared to scientific courses, not because they want to help anyone develop creativity, but because the former are much less capital-intensive. Hell, humanities don't need much more than good faculty these days, actually!

   
   
   Sorry. Theater major and i sez Bollocks!
   
   Creative programs often get the fuzzy end of the lolipop in terms of funding simply because they ARE funding intensive and it's impossible to quantify it's work in terms of test scores and the other yardsticks that administrations use.
3. •  
     CommentAuthortrewqh
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.3)
   Hmm, but would you say there's more and more of creative/academic courses which are funding intensive?
4. • CommentAuthorKinesys
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.4)
   Not sure i would. every single theater department i know of is usually forced to scrap like a ratting dog for funding and space with it's music department counterpart.
5. •  
     CommentAuthorMJSM
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.5)
   So then, is Future Shock just the default state of a stagnant society? With so much going on within a single culture, subcultures and subgenres and religions and pseudo-sciences emerging every day and what-have-you, is our culture really grinding to a halt as all the Scary New Things gum up its gears? In some aspects of society it really seems this way, while others are violently rebelling AGAINST the future. So I guess my question is, will the Future kill our culture, or will our culture kill the Future? Mainstream society has a history of absorbing rebellion into itself after all, but is there simply too much going on now for it to handle?
6. •  
     CommentAuthorgraphicartistx
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.6)
   Look to the past for guidance.
   
   Women's rights: Resisted, then accepted.
   
   Civil rights: Resisted, then accepted.
   (Only two examples, but you get the drift)
   Every new idea has been resisted, then finally accepted. If not by the all, at least by the majority. Granted, some new ideas SHOULD be resisted. Or at least questioned. I cite the third reich as a major example.
7. •  
     CommentAuthorDoctor Pockets
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.7)

   I've been writing and thinking about this a little bit recently. It seems to me, from some angles, that we're in a period where the idea of forward motion, progression and cultural momentum are viewed as a bit... quaint. We're in a period where, in fact, there is no such thing as cultural time. It's the Long Now, to steal a phrase, instead.

   
   
   Our culture no longer moves through time nor does it reference time for it's narratives. We move through spaces - from surface to surface - and no longer have any connection to the past, nor do we have any interest in it. Likewise, there's no interest in the future, unless its someone trying to scare us into buying into whatever they're selling.
8. •  
     CommentAuthorDoctor Pockets
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.8)

   Women's rights: Resisted, then accepted.
   
   Civil rights: Resisted, then accepted.
   (Only two examples, but you get the drift)
   Every new idea has been resisted, then finally accepted. If not by the all, at least by the majority. Granted, some new ideas SHOULD be resisted. Or at least questioned. I cite the third reich as a major example.

   
   
   Almost any kind of social change will be resisted - by nature, change is difficult and frightening, and the status quo is much easier to deal with.
9. •  
     CommentAuthorgraphicartistx
   • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

    (50.9)

   Almost any kind of social change will be resisted - by nature, change is difficult and frightening, and the status quo is much easier to deal with.

   
   
   True, but that's only because we think we can control the status quo. But if enough people resist, the status quo can be changed. Needs to be, in my humble opinion.
10. • CommentAuthorrobb
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.10)
    MJSM: "is our culture really grinding to a halt as all the Scary New Things gum up its gears?"
    i think gears, as pretty as they are, aren't the proper visualization of a moving culture, whichever the direction of "progress." it smacks of predestination and organization if not destiny which is just downright boring if not scary.
    
    i always liked the trailblazing, machetes in the wilderness, metaphor. or, less intentional, the twitching antennae/whisker/snake's tongue testing each bit before moving forward or away from what it found. but perhaps it's just silly to even attempt at imagining time and culture as something phsyical and i'll just shut up.
    
    trewqh: "Some people find it hard to adapt? Let them mold their world so that they don't have to adapt to other people's lifestyles."
    to keep kicking at what Kinesys said earlier about two core american cultures diverging: molding oneself to not adapt is precisely how the US become so antagonistically bipartisan and kind of scary. one doesn't want to listen to the other, so they argue and bitch and moan about how their values (rooted in puritan rock vs maleable outcast) are more american than the others'. i think that's an argument of any ornery teenage nation, it's just that you older countries out there have grown past it and found new problems with your culture's movement to bitch about and claim "the end is nigh."
11. •  
      CommentAuthorMJSM
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.11)
    Sure, I can work with other metaphors. So then are the Scary New Things clipping culture's whiskers faster than they can regrow?
12. • CommentAuthorrobb
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.12)
    ha, well put.
13. •  
      CommentAuthorWillow Bl00
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007 edited

     (50.13)

    I've been writing and thinking about this a little bit recently. It seems to me, from some angles, that we're in a period where the idea of forward motion, progression and cultural momentum are viewed as a bit... quaint. We're in a period where, in fact, there is no such thing as cultural time. It's the Long Now, to steal a phrase, instead.

    
    
    How selfish and depressing. I will now go out and punch the world in its proverbial face.
    
    

    are they fighting for progressing culture or just trying to catch up with whatever happened three seconds ago, to gobble up the knowledge before it's obsolete in another three minutes? now that people are gettng accustomed to choosing their own media and scary big aggregate feeds of information all spinning different colors of the same things... they don't have time to process it. who has time for the future?

    
    
    Another conversation I had with another friend (somewhat) recently was about how youtube and gchat allow (and encourage) people to SEND their experiences to other people, rather than SHARE them (experiencing them again and gaining something new out of it). Our world is so interactive now, why aren't we interacting with it more? One of the reasons I like sites like this so much... it's constantly changing to what the people involved want out of it, rather than us taking whatever they give us. Reminds me a bit of this article.
    
    
    

    To sum up: single-tracked, 'forward moving' progress is appealing because it's a clean and simple concept. But, actually, it's a boring and limited remains of Positivism, right?

    
    
    So we're not moving forward in ONE way anymore, whereas we've seen our selves as doing that in the past.
    
    
    

    Almost any kind of social change will be resisted - by nature, change is difficult and frightening, and the status quo is much easier to deal with.

    
    
    This is what I meant about progressives always eventually winning (was that on this thread?).
    I think it's easier now to connect to people who are like-minded rather than cause like-minded-ness in those you're connected to (different types of locality). (if that makes sense... I'm happy to pontificate if it doesn't - tribalism of a sort)
14. •  
      CommentAuthorDoc Ocassi
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.14)
    I read this quote by Hunter S Thompson today-
    
    "The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it."
    
    I know he is referring to something else but I had a thought when I read this.
    
    When he refers to The Edge you might imagine a cliff or something static, in the case of modern society it could be something continually expanding, science & energy, if things like this can expand, surely they can also contract. What if it turned and started thundering towards you? The current idea of the future is built on visions of technology and advancement, future shock is just the adaption to a change in how we view the future. In the future the forest may be full to overloading with wise men and women, that is just not our current vision of the future, you can't get a diploma in survivalism, can you?.
    
    As to adaption, we can't really help it can we, we adapt to study subjects that may not be our favorite so we can get a job. It may be our biggest resource during any type of future shock, societies crumble under changing times because they are slow to react and built for the present as though it is forever, but people will adapt. As to how depends on the type of problems we face.
15. • CommentAuthorrobb
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.15)
    i'm not sure if i'm spooked by people who are shocked by and fear the future, i'm spooked by some people's capacity to capitalize on it so intuitively. kurtzweil said something like "i know, to my dream Thing A, i need Technology B. Technology B does not exist yet, so i wrote an algorithm which predicted when it can exist based on Theorist C's law and planned the development of Thing A accordingly. and then i was right and i made a buttload of money"
    
    that sort of fortune telling r&d is the exact opposite of future shock. i want that capacity.
16. •  
      CommentAuthorMark Seifert
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2007

     (50.16)

    Another conversation I had with another friend (somewhat) recently was about how youtube and gchat allow (and encourage) people to SEND their experiences to other people, rather than SHARE them (experiencing them again and gaining something new out of it). Our world is so interactive now, why aren't we interacting with it more?

    
    
    Willow Bl00 -- interesting point, and I think it's partially because when you use stuff like youtube you're vaguely aware of the fact that you're potentially sharing with a large (and unknown to a degree) audience rather than just a few of your friends. That makes people think of it a little as speaking to an audience from a stage rather than having a conversation in a bar. Maybe we will all grow into thinking of this stuff in a more interactive way.
17. •  
      CommentAuthormuse hick
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007

     (50.17)
    doesn't futureshock pre-suppose that one culture supplants another? isn't change gradual enough to allow absorption? cultures seem to cohabit with each other regardless of the time-segment they are derived from and each has its own shield, or belief system, that guards against the sovereignty of its state being usurped. there also exists within a lot of current sub-cultures devices which allow them to assimilate alternatives in such a way that they pose no threat. there is also the thing that half of the so called culture trends identified today are blown up to a point that they implode before they had a chance to grow anyway -- a process of continual and almost simultaneous expansion and collapse. we push for unified theories in everything and the closest we seem to get is a big toy box with new toys cheeks by jowl with old and forgotten ones.
18. •  
      CommentAuthorJaredRules
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007 edited

     (50.18)
    Might there also be something to be said for the fact that, if you take Kurzweil's word for it, not only are we a a point of rapidly advancing technology, but it's only gonna get faster and faster? I mean, in my lifetime I've gone from playing Oregon Trail on an Apple II to PCs with a Mouse! to laptops to internet to wireless internet to wireless internet on little handheld devices. And that's only 23 years. I think the younger generations are all gonna be pretty open to change and advancement since we've been living in it non-stop.
19. •  
      CommentAuthorWillow Bl00
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007

     (50.19)

    isn't change gradual enough to allow absorption?

    
    That's the question, isn't it? It's like invasive species... all things travel through space and time, spreading for their survival. It's only when it's too abrupt for the things around it to keep up that we call it invasive rather than indigenous. That's how I see future shock, being invasive to our selves.
    
    

    I think the younger generations are all gonna be pretty open to change and advancement since we've been living in it non-stop.

    
    This is good. I'm excited to see this.
    However, we're also waiting longer to have children and having longer lives ourselves. Might this trend change if the only way to keep up is to refresh our genes? It's an option, but I think we'll come up with ways to adapt faster..
20. • CommentAuthorBOODOFFSTAGE
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2007

     (50.20)
    It seems to me that Future shock is mainly the fear of a Majority culture being taken over or over run by a minority sub culture.
    Mainly, it's a territorial issue.
    Get off my Christian Conservative lawn you punk ass Liberal Gay Activist!!