technology, change, and stasis

content/post/technology,-change,-and-stasis.md

@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ But now, because of technology that allows us to capture, record, and reproduce
 
 I think one of the symptoms of this problem, can be seen in the fact that modern pop musicians and filmmakers don't seem to be able to construct narratives of their own anymore. Everything is a "reboot", a "prequel", a "reset", or a "remix". They seem only capable of digging up the corpses of past generations, re-animating them, dancing them around like puppets, and dangling the artefacts created by those characters in front of our faces. Star Wars premiered in 1977. By 1997, I was sure that was the last I'd see of Ben Kenobi or Luke Skywalker. But somehow, their skin suits keep re-appearing, year after year after year. And it doesn't stop with star wars. Every single major film franchise of the 1970s and 1980s is constantly recycled. In music, the recycling comes in the form of dismemberment and reassembly. Whenever I'm in a restaurant or mall, I am frequently accosted by the sound of a song I haven't heard since the 1970s. But it's not the song. It's fragments of it, dissected out of the song, and sewn into an electronic beatbox rhythm generator. It's way worse than "creative remix". It's reappropriation for the purpose of monetization, on an industrial scale. All made not only possible, but ridiculously easy, by digital technology.
 
-What the latest generations coming online don't seem to have, is any sense of *themselves*, any clear narrative about their place in the cosmos, their purpose on earth, and the future they want to see. All they seem to know, is what is happening *right now*, and how can I navigate the social landscape in *this moment*, to avoid any penalties. And the cultural accumulations of the past three or four generations made possible by technology, are both an ever-present attic to be picked through for its utility, and an ever-present imposition on the psyche making demands and setting standards no longer possible to achieve.
+The end result of all of this seems to be that the latest generations coming online don't have any sense of *themselves* they can hang on to, any clear narrative about their place in the cosmos, their purpose on earth, and the future they want to see. All they seem to know, is what is happening *right now*, and how can I navigate the social landscape in *this moment*, to avoid any penalties. And the cultural accumulations of the past three or four generations made possible by technology, are both an ever-present attic to be picked through for its utility, and an ever-present imposition on the psyche making demands and setting standards no longer possible (or perhaps even desirable) to achieve.
 
 ## What Now?
 This may come across as some sort of Luddite manifesto. But that is not what I am attempting to advocate by implication, here. Rather, the point is that we have gotten *way ahead* of ourselves, in terms of our own cleverness, and need to take a step back to consider how we are going to cope with the inevitable costs of the benefits we so greatly desire from our cleverness. The question is not "was it worth it?" but rather "how can we be sure that it was worth it?" and "if it's not, presently, then how do we make it worth it going forward (because there's no going back)?". To some, this will sound like a distinction without a difference. But the distinction is significant.