But the technological changes never seem to be as visually dramatic as all that... in life they often appear more subtle. My car is still firmly limited by gravity, but when you see how technilogical advances have moved medicine forward, its quite amazing. As someone who benefits from hi-tech medicine, I can appreciate just how far we've come. Just ten years ago, the internet was just starting. Now, its tied into our lives, like a virtual spinal cord, transmitting our impulses around the world.
Technology has opened the pandoras box of cloning, suddenly thrusting the moral consequences of the definition of life and what constitutes a soul into the public discussion.
I've read theories about how computer chips, designed to help the disabled to overcome disabilities (the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk) will become competitive advantages and, thereby, incorporated into our daily lives. For example, if I have a business where everyone has a communication chip in their brain that allows them to communicate at the speed of thought... think how much more efficient my business will be compared to those peole who have to communicate the old fashioned way... with their mouths.As media storage becomes both larger in capacity and smaller in size, and computing power continues to double every 18 months, it is theorized that, one day, you'll be able to download the contents of your brain. And, it would then be possible to have mulitple backups of your brain. And you could also have that brain power working in a virtual realm, like the internet, working for you. Think of that... you download the contents of your brain onto a computer. That computer now works in a virtual realm for you/with you. When you get home from work, your virtual brain will have had it's own days work. One "person" leading different lives, everyday becoming more and more unique.
Those are pretty big picture ideas, but the one that concerns me the most is the on-demand society. I have little doubt that, within 10 years, the television and entertainment paradigm will shift considerably. As more homes are wired to the internet and the speed of that connection grows, you will be able to download any television or movie program to your television and watch it, on demand, whenever you want. Sure, that's great, but what expectation does that leave our children? That you should expect to get what you want when you want it?
Just a few years ago when I was a child, if you didn't see a movie in the theater, you had to wait years for it to appear on one of the three major networks. Now, if you don't see it at the theater, it will be available on DVD in six months, where you can either watch it in your own home theater or catch it on one of the 500 cable channels. How do you teach children the value of patience and sacrifice if they can get what they want when they want it?
When access to entertainment becomes truly on-demand, I fear that humanity will resort to its baser instincts. Just like the internet itself... it is filled with great historical works, books from every age, paintings, news, etc. But what makes the most money? Pornography, by far.So when we get on-demand entertainment, I fear we will treat it as a child would a buffet... sure there's good food on the table, but I can fill up on appetizers and desserts instead. In this on-demand world, how much value will educational programming hold over shows with sexual or comedic content? How will religious programming hold up if the only way you can watch it is if you actually chose it... how many people have been touched by stumbling across religious programming while channel surfing? I guess, if someone is ready to be touched by God, God will find a way.
In the end, I don't know how this will all play out. I don't know how my children will react to an on-demand world. God is the master of turning chicket feces into chicken salad, so I can only hope and pray, raise my kids the best I can and let the Lord use that technology to do something amazing.
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