Re:Closest Temperate World Orbiting Quiet Star Discovered
by rayiner on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @08:40PM
(#15709673)
At least for her, computer technology didn’t result in structural change in the way people live. They had television, phones, cameras, etc., when she was a teenager. She uses her iPhone and iPad as a television, a telephone, a camera, and a combination of television and telephone (FaceTime). Neat and convenient, but not life changing in the same way as cars, planes, moon colonization, etc. Certainly not “magic.”
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Closest Temperate World Orbiting Quiet Star Discovered
by harryh on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @08:45PM
(#15709695)
FaceTime is a little magical. How often would she get to see and talk to her grandkids without it?
And would people living on the moon have really changed her life either? Unless she was one of them she'd just end up hearing about it in the news and then going about her day.
TBH if I really had to pick the thing that has most changed her life I'd bet it's the shipping and logistics technology that has dramatically lowered the cost of all the consumer goods she buys.
Re:Closest Temperate World Orbiting Quiet Star Discovered
by rayiner on Wednesday November 15, 2017 @09:13PM
(#15709811)
She lives with us, so every day. She grew up in a society where even extended families all lived in the same town, so better ways to communicate don’t really impress her. (My dad, who went to boarding school, does find it very impresssive.) She was also rich in Bangladesh, so she doesn’t have much positive to say on the consumer goods front either. Obviously that’s a highly specific viewpoint. I do think though, there is something generalizable about the idea that folks of a certain generation don’t find communications technology that amazing because (1) they don’t work in a profession that’s really been changed by it; (2) they’re from communities where families lived in close contact and video chat seems like a step down.
As to people living on the moon: she grew up with America being this frontier that was very inspiring. I think she sees space travel the same way (also, probably bias from reading a lot of sci-fi of the time).