3 Aug
2012
3 Aug
'12
8:15 a.m.
On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 05:30:42PM -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 5:18 PM, S. Massy
<lists(a)wolfdream.ca> wrote:
I've noticed the same kind of thing.
What I've found out as I've gotten older is that human hardware and kernel-level
operating system software is very, very old-- millions of years, to, at most recent, 100k
years old. It hasn't changed much. So, things that are human-based but were
bewildering to a teenager can be learned and perhaps even eventually almost mastered over
the course of a long lifetime, because it does not ever really change.
But technological things are different. To a young person, technology is just as equally
mysterious as humans, and, to someone with a great deal of enthusiasm and interest, much
easier and faster to master and come up to some semblance of competence on. It changes
fast, but then again, when young, I hadn't gotten too deep into any of them to really
have any vested interest. I shifted as it shifted. Since everything was new to me-- even
things that are millions of years old-- it was all the same, and it kind of was
interchangeably new and interesting.
Now I'm older, and I find patterns of human behavior to be quite stable and
predictable. That's both annoying at times but also empowering. The technology,
however, is still very much a moving target. But regards to technology, I've learned
what I've learned, and I really am loathe to learn yet another way to do the same damn
thing, even when I can see a clear benefit to be gained, and partially because I'm
aware that there are all kinds of things that can and will break, and I'll have to
deal with that breakage too. And, on top of that, I know that whatever I waste time
learning, I'll have to just re-learn again when it changes next year, and the year
after, etc etc,x every time that wheel gets reinvented again.
-ken
I don't think this is necessarily about "young" vs. "mature"
thinking; I
think this has more to do with being a rational thinker vs. being a
dreamer (not an anarchist, necessarily). I believe a society or
community needs both in order to evolve in a meaningful direction.
i mostly agree .... but ... its very easy when you're young to find the
energy to drive changes forward, to come up with (what seem like) new
ideas. the problem is that its much harder when you're young to be aware
when your new ideas are actually old ideas that didn't work, or when the
changes you propose will have subtle side effects that negate the benefits
you were imagining. by the time you gain this perspective, for the most
part, the energy has diminished and the apparently new ideas are in short
supply.
its clearly necessary to inject new energy into the system. the ongoing
dilemma of any organized society is how to harness the wellsprings of new
ideas with the wisdom of experience to create (cultural) changes that
actually improve things over some time scale. its a very hard problem. we
don't want the irrational exhuberance of the visionary to dominate over the
insight of the rationalist, but we also don't want the cynicism and
momentum/inertia of the rationalist to inhibit the visionaries.
put differently, its moog versus buchla, but we want urs heckman to win :)