Humble Opinions

It is not very often that we get an opportunity to break from our busy lives, and reflect on the world and its trends. A topic I believe to be vastly under appreciated is mankind’s ongoing development of technology, and its impact on the lives of the civilized world.

Realizing the unbelievable advancements made in the past few centuries, and even decades, should give a person pause, and leave them in wonderment. The inventions of the printing press, railroad, automobile, automatic weapons, airplanes, video cameras, the industrial revolution, and the birth of computers / the Internet have all irrevocably changed the face of the world and life forever.

There are a few areas of change I would like to highlight:

(1). Information

We are currently living in an era that has been named the Information Age. It denotes the global economy’s focus shifting away from the production of physical goods to the manipulation of information. To consider the amount of information that has been made available through the Internet, and the speed with which that information can be disseminated could give a person a headache.

As I have mentioned previously, Europe during the dark ages (which was sparked by the fall of Rome) had an almost 100% rate of illiteracy. The rest of the middle ages was not much better. Up until the last few centuries, it was practically unheard of to own a book. Aside from the fact that few could actually afford a book, most people were not particularly interested in books. Let’s compare that with our time: The Internet offers pretty much anyone access to more information in a single day than their grandparents probably came across their entire lives. I read a statistic that more information will be added to the Internet in 2009 than all of the information known in all of human history before 2009 combined.

In the Babylonian Talmud, it is recorded that during the 3rd and 4th centuries, questions regarding Jewish law were sent by messenger from the land of Israel to Babylonia (modern day Iraq), and the messenger would then return with the answers to the questions. This process took 2 years. Meaning for a piece of information to travel from modern day Israel to modern day Iraq, and back, took 24 months. Compare that to today, where pages of information, as well as photographs and videos can be transmitted across the globe via email in a matter of seconds.

If one were to approach a person from the 1300s, and tell them that on a tiny portable screen, they could see and speak with a person hundreds or even thousands of miles away, I believe they would classify it as a miracle on the scale of the splitting of the red sea. Today, we’re upset waiting more than 10 seconds for a song to download and start playing. Namely, a song that was composed and created primarily without the use of real instruments.

(2). Time

Thanks to modern technology, we all save incredible amounts of time, leaving us with enormous spans of what we call “leisure” time. Instead of heating food up in an oven (let alone a man-made fire), we can make food steaming hot in seconds by using a microwave. Instead of washing dishes and clothes by hand, we now have dish washers, laundry machines, and driers that do it for us. Instead of traveling by boat for several months in horrendous conditions, we can now travel the same distance in hours via airplane, while watching a movie, and eating hot food with dessert.

All of these inventions create the opportunities for a person to accomplish more with their life than those in previous generations could ever have imagined. In this void, the modern day entertainment industry has blossomed into the #1 most profitable industry by filling (ahem, wasting, ahem) people’s time with movies, celebrities, amusement parks, and all the other activities vital to a healthy existence.

(3). Accomplishment

Like I have already said, using technology, people are able to accomplish many times more than those of previous generations, and still be left with far more leisure time than they had. This blog is a perfect example. I can create a piece of literature (by literally pressing buttons), and it can instantly be accessed by millions or even billions of people (don’t worry, almost there). That creates amazing opportunity for accomplishment. I could write a one page article in 20 minutes, and spend the remaining 23 hours and 40 minutes of my day playing video games and drinking slurpees, and I’d still have wider publication than my grandfather probably could have gotten in 200 hours of work in his time.

(4). Quality

In addition to being able to accomplish far more nowadays compared to earlier points in time, we also have the ability to produce at far higher qualities. Thanks to computers, and the slick geniuses that write computer programs (that’s right!), we are able to create amazing slideshows that incorporate all kinds of charts, graphs, video clips, audio recordings, and animations, rendering the presentation of information far more home-hitting. We can also do incredible calculations far beyond the ability of any human that further the study and prediction of things like medicine, weather, DNA, and more.

A great example application, I think, has to do with the tractate of the Mishna (see my post on Jewish literature) called Yevamot. The tractate spends much of its time discussing the relationship scenarios that are acceptable and forbidden to a Jew. At a certain point, these scenarios begin to grow enormously complex, involving cousins of cousins, cousins of half-siblings, descendants of brothers of cousins of half-siblings with questionable conversion to Judaism… you get the point.  Today, amazing companies such as Artscroll have produced great charts that make it far easier to understand each of these scenarios. Thanks to these, many more people can now learn that tractate of the Mishna with far greater clarity and understanding. And that’s just one example.

Food For Thought

It’s always great to stop and realize all the wonderful things in our lives. What would we do if G-d “pulled the plug” on electricity? I think we’d all be in a bit of a bind. Unfortunately, some people (probably inclusive of myself) would be completely lost. If you are Jewish, the next time you make a blessing before biting into a slice of pizza, identifying G-d as the source that brought what you are about eat into existence, feel free to additionally identify G-d as the source of the unbelievable technology that helped refine and perfect every ingredient in that pizza.

Considering all the brilliant points I have made in this post, it is easy to see the immense opportunity for accomplishment in our day and age. As with all things in life, these advancements can be applied for the betterment or destruction of our world and species.

I implore everyone to be careful with their time. It’s so easy to waste away getting involved in things that essentially will be gone tomorrow, and have zero effect on anything. Glad will be the person that lay on his death bed atop a mountain of accomplishment. Sad will be the person that lay on their death bed with nothing but quotes from Adam Sandler movies, and the names of the drinks from Starbucks memorized.

Tags: industrial revolution, technology

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