18 November 2010

The speed of invention

Life is changing fast. So fast that we often don't notice and just adapt. I am on a plane to Boston and posting this entry via two products that did not exist a year ago, the iPad and airborne wireless service. In the past five minutes I have sent a note to my son and another to a friend who is job hunting. I'll post this in a few minutes and it will be broadcast to anyone in the world who cares to read it. I wonder if there was ever a time when things changed so rapidly.

Of course there has. We always view our time on this planet as somehow unique when in reality it is not. Harnessing fire, domesticating animals, the written word, and most recently the wiring of the world electrically all changed the lives of our ancestors immediately and permanently. They adapted quickly or they were left behind.

I wonder what's next? What is the big thing that is just around the corner? The one that will cause my grandkids to laugh at things like ipads and cloud computing. What is it that will make us look so primitive to our descendants? It won't be our faith, that we know. Everything else though seems on the table.

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