I Don’t Know How It Will, But I Know It Will
What constitutes living and survival is constantly changing. When I think about how far things have come since I played my first brick game, I feel any misgivings, fears, threats, and concerns we have about digitalization will eventually just go away.
The requirements it takes to have a productive and successful life in today’s society are extremely digital, and those things that haven’t fully absorbed them are gradually doing so. It doesn’t matter how technical, creative, or instinctive these things are, they’ll eventually give way to digitalization. These days, I can’t help myself. I see a task or process, and I think of optimization. The question is always, “How can this thing become digital?”, no matter how much human input and dexterity are currently needed to achieve that process. And it’s not so much about the solution as it is about being convinced that it will one day become digital.
Of course, there’s the part where I consider so much of the human experience that I start to think, “There’s no way”, especially considering, creativity, love, togetherness, pain, hurt, and the like.
But then, I also think about how primitive we’ve been as a society. 3000 years ago, everything we have today, the level of optimization, would have been unimaginable. Remote control!? 3000 years from now, the level of advancement would be ludicrous, with the amount of information we would have contributed to science and technology. If we will see another 3000 years as a race, that is yet to be determined. Lol.
How would it impact society, what we currently define as humanity? As judges, our concerns and opinions are not all too relevant because the society of humans we have created now will not exist then. It will be new humans defining their own humanity. Will love exist? Will pain exist? I don’t know. Will it be necessary to spend some time away from technology? I don’t know. Will emotion become a socket that you can plug into or plug out of? No clue. To some extent, medical science can already effectively control our moods and associated feelings. Perhaps science will be able to turn anger off, and technology will make it such that it can be switched on and off from an app.
I imagine when the mass printer was invented, and publications became a thing. I would have been the great-grandfather telling his great-grandson, “These pages you’re constantly reading are distracting you from hard work and family.” My great-grandson would have argued he needed it for work, to get information, at the hospital, to communicate, to practice faith, to show affection, and to get instructions for good eating habits and exercise.
Yet, the screen is a byproduct of digitalization. I need to exercise more frequently because I work in front of the screen all day, but that advice was sent to me via text or email — the screen wins. I miss my partner, and I have to tell her how much I miss her — the screen. It’s her birthday, and I need to spend quality time with her, so I order a ticket through my phone to the city where she’s working — the screen wins every time. Even if I do decide to walk into the ticket booth at an airport, the attendant will need to generate my ticket or boarding pass on a screen.
We are not at an impasse. Concerning everything, digitalization will go very far. It might become everything. Digital products and services will come and go. We won’t applaud, like, believe in, or retain many of them.
Many times, I think about the metaverse. I don’t know how it will work or scale, but I know it will. And maybe it won’t, but something like it or about it will.
