Isn't technology great? In this second of a series of posts looking at how humor today echoes Secret Peace themes, we'll look at some technology jokes. Technology is one of the easiest ways to see progress happening, and in the past few decades, "technology" has often been synonymous with computers. An easily tracked sign of progress is Moore's Law: that transistor capability doubles every two years. So I found this online:
That post is just sort of a "wow" or feel-good post, but a funnier theme is to post about how amazed people were with computers in the past, even though from our perspective, they were awful.
Or how about this post, meant as a quick gag and "apple" pun, but really a profound comparison of life today with less than a century ago:
Or how about the advances in access to information? My generation was the last to make it through school without Google. (I graduated college in 1999.) My daughter will grow up never experiencing the simple burden of not knowing something - even topics in which final knowledge still eludes us have easy access to speculation and what we know so far.
Of course, we often forget that technology doesn't just refer to computers. Look at the all of the advances in health, such as prosthetic limbs.
Or look at this GIF comparing car safety from 1959 with 2009:
Of course, with all new technology comes fear of change, some wise and some unfounded. This XKCD cartoon helps keep it in perspective:
