With change, you have some choices that can make a difference in your life

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Change is inevitable, we can’t stop it. I’m sure we can all agree that the rate of change has been increasing over recent history, particularly technological change. The past century, the twentieth century, saw probably more change that impacted our culture and humanity than any other century. One might argue that it began picking up steam in the middle of the previous century. During other periods of history, there were certainly some major changes, however, the speed of travel and communications brought the changes to more people faster than ever before during the twentieth century.

With some change, we have more options than with other sorts. Perhaps, that is not exactly accurate. Suppose you experience a flood. You could see it as the end of everything, or you could see it as opportunity to help other people. What about something like E-mail? Some of the newer technologies start out and seem to be optional, but as they become ubiquitous, it is expected from other people that you are reachable by E-mail. The cell phone is one change that has taken the world by storm. Small business owners will tell you that customers expect to be able to reach you anytime and that it often seems like an invasion into their life.

I would like to suggest three options you have when faced with and in dealing with change. They are pretty simple and you should be able to remember them so you can shape your decisions and actions. Let’s use the example of the daily news. You might be accustomed to getting your news from a combination of newspaper, television and radio. All of a sudden you can get all your news, anytime and immediately from the Internet. What do you do?

First, you may choose to adopt to the change. That means, however the change is attempting to influence your life, you accept it and make the changes to your life accordingly. In our case of the news, you think, you might as well give up on the other sources and get all your news through the Internet. In other words you adopt it completely.

Second, you may find it better to adapt to the change. This might mean that you change what you do somewhat in order to utilize the change. Back to the news, you decide that you will continue with your current sources, but add the Internet services as you have time. You have then chosen to adapt the change into your lifestyle.

Third, you make some critical decisions as to what your actions will be with the goal to appropriate the change into your lifestyle. This takes more time and thought, but can pay off with you being more satisfied. It takes research and testing to critique the change you are considering as to how it might be best suited to you. You want to make an informed decision. You want to ask how your options will impact your life and whether it makes you more or less human. Then you determine how you could best appropriate the change. In a way it is turning the other options from above around. You are not adapting to it, you are adapting it to you. In some way, you might be able to have it adopt your lifestyle. Either way, you are in control and the power remains with you.

It is about learning how your life can be changed and taking charge of what you do. You don’t want other people telling you that you need to do your banking online because that is the way things are going. You want to make your own decision after careful consideration. I have heard people say to someone that they need to be on Facebook. The truth is, no they don’t. You don’t have to do your banking online if you don’t want to. Look at the pros and cons of the possible choices. If you begin to communicate using Facebook, you may decrease the amount of time you spend face-to-face with people.

I will add that time seems to have a way of convincing us that we need the convenience of what the change is offering. You may not have time to catch the news when it is available on a broadcast and you may have an aversion to the recycling a newspaper requires. If you are on the go, as most of us are nowadays, a tablet might seem like a great option. But remember, sitting in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea or coffee is a relaxing time you might be losing. The choice is yours and you should be the one that make a difference in your life.

You’re a machine—Striving for optimal performance

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Last week when I was curling (the game) with the men, I was making a unusual number of good shots. Finally, a fellow on the other team, turned to me and said “You’re a machine tonight.” Later, sitting around in the lounge, another fellow said the same thing.

I have been curling for only a few years now, yet, I have noticed something that can occur at times. The skip, that is, the person who is in charge of the team and calls the shots, may call one shot, only to have the person throwing the rock (actually sliding the rock on the ice) miss. The result can sometimes be an unintentional good shot producing a different, but positive result. It is a bit of a joke, but does happen quite often. We call it Plan B.

The Plan B concept might be worth a little closer look and consideration. It seems to me that humans are striving for optimal performance with such vigour as to want our society to be full of human machines. It’s not the only way we are becoming more like machines, but it seems to be the most intentional.

We are born into the routines of society. Almost immediately, we enter into a repetition of activities that allow us to fit into society. Later, we enter a journey through school systems that seem mechanized like a machines. We are trained throughout our lives to do particular activities and to do them well. We even reward the best. When we enter the workforce, it becomes a race to be successful and that means being the best. Doing things right.

But, what about plan B? Let’s forget, for a moment about the fact that humans are fallible anyway, and consider that, as in curling, sometimes things work out in other ways. Is our striving for perfection causing us to lose some of the plan B affects in our lives?

Back to curling. I am amazed at some curlers who do it all wrong and still make quite a few good shots and enjoy the game. In fact, they have been doing it wrong for so long that they are actually good.

Our society and culture seems obsessed with doing things the right way and the best way, and to becoming the best. Are we actually having a better, more human life? Are we happier performing at machine precision?

Next time you are watching professional sports on TV, notice whether the participants are happy. Hey guys, it’s only a game, have some fun!

Now, another question. Is our obsession with machines causing us to become machines? Let me re-phrase to a question that is one I ask regularly. Is our technology making us more human or, in making and using the technology, are we becoming more like machines?

Does anyone remember the German film from the 1020s called Metropolis? I remember the workers struggling to work the machines. It is an iconic image, but may well be playing out in our lives. Yes, many humans work on assembly lines with machines, even making more machines, doing work that would seem to be better suited to a machine. Wait, did I just describe machines making more machines?

Take a look at your online life. Chances are you have a computer and that you carry a cell phone and it is likely a smartphone that can connect to the Internet. I suspect that you check your E-mail at least once a day, probably more. You may also check Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media. They all organize information in various ways and you work within the structure of each.

Just before I began to write this I posted a reply to a discussion in a group on LinkedIn. They mentioned cyborgs. Here is an excerpt from my reply:

Cyborgs were always the stuff of science fiction, yet, in reality, it is true, many of us have been becoming partially cyborg for years now. And questions do arise. Think of the Olympic runner or the person with an implant that is controlled by software. What is it, for every 100 lines of code, there may be a bug, or something like that. What about hackers? I have heard of implants that communicate with a monitor station and that, in turn, is connected to the Internet and is monitored by doctors. I like to think that there are aspects of us, including spiritual, that may never be replaced by a machine. 

It had been mentioned that Benjamin Franklin started the cyborging of humans with eye glasses. We have been slowly adding more technology to our bodies.

Whatever technology we look at, we can see how it adds benefit to our lives. It will also add negative aspects to our lives. Facebook allows you to make, what they call, friends, but do you really know them? As we fill our lives with machines, we actually become more machine like to use them and we strive to perform like a machine.

Things don’t always work out the way we plan. Perhaps, we could loosen up and expect the unexpected and remember Plan B.

Archaic—where are we going?

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Today, I watched as somebody was attempting to access a website over the data connection on their smartphone. It was slow. Even though what he was trying to do would have been nearly unthinkable ten or twenty years ago, it was now looking archaic, particularly since someone else was getting ready to write down the website address on a piece of paper—now, that really is archaic.

Yesterday, I was sorting out some difficulties with my smartphone and computer being able to synchronize through my cloud account. This is a very useful possibility, however, my personal stuff is being stored on a server that is out there somewhere and that makes me wonder how safe it is from hackers. Probably something similar struck folks the first time they put their money in a bank.

If you have read some of my other writings or have been following my blog, you will know well that I tackle technology issues often. I think we all need to consider carefully about where the technopath is leading us. One very important question I feel we should be asking is, does it make us more human and truly improve our lives? Just about everybody I meet and talk to about technology is excited about what it can do. It is undoubtably amazing.

My purpose here is to look at what has happened in recent history, where we are, and to urge you to consider and to think. Then, I want to take a stab at extrapolating to determine where we might be going. Let me start with a few observations.

I’ll just quickly mention that my first experience with the telephone was with the one phone we had in our house and the line we shared with neighbours. It was known as a party line. I remember when the digital calculator came along. Mechanical calculators had been used for years. Many were huge and all were too big to carry around. Digital, hand-held calculators allowed people to carry them around and use them in all situations. People seemed to lose the ability to do simple addition in their heads. My parents and aunts could add rows of figures fast on paper, usually faster than I could punch the numbers into a calculator. I was among the last of high school students who were not allowed to use calculators in math classes.

I also remember life before the personal computer. The manual typewriter reigned and typesetting and graphics were produced by industry experts with special equipment. Eventually, the typewriter became electric and one day, it got a very small screen that could show a few words that had just been typed and, most importantly, allowed one to back up and make a change to what had just been typed. I’m sure you can see where that led. The personal computer debuted from Apple, invented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, changed the world by a huge leap.

It didn’t take long before these individual computers started to be connected together. We’ll take a jump here to mention the next major change. Many groups of connected computers existed, however, the Internet prevailed as the largest. The Internet was born during the cold war and was designed to provide a way of communicating that could not be interrupted. In other words, the Internet can’t be disconnected or destroyed. This is a characteristic we should all keep in mind. Another original segment of the Internet was used by educational, scientific and research institutions to store and share information.

There are a few other pieces to the puzzle that I should like to mention. Cameras have become digital, no longer requiring film that had to be processed before a photograph could be seen. Photography has not only become instant, but cameras have been shrinking and gaining quality. This also applies to video cameras. Most people wear a wrist watch. While the phone has morphed into a multifunctional digital computer device, I find it amazing that it is only now the wrist watch is about to be replaced. Perhaps replaced is not the correct word. Absorbed might be better. The cell phone has been absorbing many devices we use.

Here is one more and probably the most important piece of the puzzle. Our information. We are living in what has been described as ‘the information age.’ All this, the devices that have been getting absorbed, is about storing and sharing our information. As this becomes faster and easier, we find we have more of it. It is mind boggling. We need more technology to help us remember, manage, organize and use all the information we have.

Thus, here we are, most people carrying around a small device that is a computer and communicator. It is cumbersome in that, we have a very small screen to look at, a small keyboard to enter information and it often fails. Sometimes, some of us revert back to using paper in conjunction with the digital device. It is difficult for us to read large amounts of information on screen so we print it. We wear a separate device to tell time. Our pockets and our purses are filled with everything from money in the form of cash to sophisticated credit cards with computer chips in them.

I have watched as computers that used to take up entire rooms became terminals connected to a central computer, to computers that sat on or under a desk, to computers that could be held in one’s lap, to a computer/telephone/camera/multifunctional digital device that fits in one’s hand. And that, as it turns out, is beginning to look awkward, cumbersome and slow, in other words archaic.

So, where are we going?

We all love our digital devices. I like to think that we feel we can turn them off whenever we want, although this seldom happens. While they seem handy in many ways, technology always seems to find new ways to get closer to us, to infiltrate our lives even more.

My prediction, actually it is already beginning to happen, is that we may soon be looking at the ability to have our digital devices implanted in our bodies binging all the capabilities we now enjoy with our current technologies and much more, much faster and without the awkwardness and cumbersomeness we experience today. Why would somebody want to do this?

Why would somebody want to carry a telephone around with them 242/7? Why would somebody want to be able to have complex math, complicated problems and simply be able to store and access vast amounts of information without much thought? Why not have images and video display instantly in your mind? Who would not want to get rid of their wallet full of valuable information and money that can be stolen or lost? You would not need a passport. Nobody else could use your device and you could not lose it.

The world, through the Internet, is becoming a giant brain. Sometimes I see an image of a human head that looks like the Earth and has web-like lines covering the brain. As we feed it more information about us, it grows and grows smarter about us. Why would we not want to tap into this huge vastness of human experience? Why would we even need our awkward, cumbersome physical bodies?

Why would anyone really want to do this? As with most technologies, there might be some resistance at first, however, it usually does enter our lives. Online banking is one. I remember thinking I would never trust my banking to be done online. Somehow, perhaps by charges or by convenience, I have adopted online banking. The RFID chip credit card was thrust upon us without choice. There are instances where one can’t make a purchase without a credit card. Will the day arrive when the only card accepted is a chip card? Can you see where I am going with this?

In considering these issues and situations, I have wondered if a revolt by a large group might change the path we are on? Might some people withdraw from allowing deeper infiltration of technology in their lives? Could there end up being two or more groups, such as those with implants and those without? Can technology completely replace the human brain, or is the human spirt what truly make us human and what can’t be absorbed or infiltrated by technology?

There are prophecies in the Bible about the sorts of predictions I have written about here and Bible prophecies have always come true.