Hi Ranty Nation!  Ranty McRantyson har agin!

A lotta folk these days, specially those who ain’t grown up wit a buncha technology when they wuz younguns, are busier’n ever.  It seems like almos ever day folk’re hearin bout sumthin new.  Whether it be sum new technology that bin invented, sum new crime story, or sum new political scandal or made up crisis, folk’re bein lambasted wit new thangs ever day.

“Signal to Noise”

Thangs dun be happenin so quick that folk’re hearin bout the next new thang befur the last one’s hardly got started.  Folk’re gittin overloaded wit new thangs an craziness!  The “future may be bright”, but it can also be scary fur sum folk.

This causes a problem fur most folk.  Theys only got so much time fur the craziness.  Theys got jobs, family, friends, bills… an you name it that’re already a full time job fur jus bout anyone.  Kinda makes y’all wunder, “Who’all’s got time fur all this craziness?”

Cuz of this, they’all’ve got to “pick an choose” whut they listen to.  Wit how politics’re dividin Merica, it really splits up where folk’ll go to git they’s “news”.  If’n they’s only got an hour or so a day, they’s probly only got time to listen to one source.  An if’n they’s only got time fur one source, then they’s probly gonna listen to the one that’s (1) in line wit they’s beliefs an (2) gives them a really simple message witout a buncha confusin facts an such-like.

They’s barely got time fur the “right now”, much less the “future”.

A Slower Paced Time

Most folk, specially older folk who grew up in a much slower paced world, jus can’t deal wit all that’s goin on.

Har’s an example.  When wuz the last time y’all jus laid down on the ground or sat on a chair an looked up at the sky on a partly cloudy day?  Jus let everthang go an jus watch the clouds?  Well, back befur, say, the 1990s, that wuz whut folk did to relax… an they did it ever chance they cud.

Ah know bout doin this cuz even though ah wuz goin to school (in the 1970s an 80s) an wurkin a part time job, ah did sumthin like this ever chance ah cud!

Speedin Up, Ever Faster, Now an in the Future

Now ah’m gonna compare that to how folks behave today.  An we’all’ll take a bit of a look at sum changes in the future.

Sum Quick Background

Over 50% of the population har in the USofA is over 38 years old.  This dun mean that they’s wuz born befur 1983.

The internet wuzn’t created til the 1980s an the furst internet domain wuz registered in 1985 (symbolics.com).  Who knew how that’d affect us in the future?

But it weren’t til 1995 befur the internet really got goin when Microsoft included internet (TCP/IP) support in their newly released Windows 95.  By 1996, dial up internet providers like AOL had millions of users who could access that new-fangled thang everone wuz callin the World Wide Web.

Off to the Races

From that point on folks were wantin more an more of the Web.  They started changin frum dial-up to ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network (offerin bout 64,000 (64Kb)/sec (64Kbps) data transfers)) to DSL (Digital Subscriber Line (offerin bout 256Kbps to 1Mbps data transfers)).  But thems wuz purty expensive, wit mostly professionals an businesses gittin them.

Furtunately, that grew up to today’s ever present “broadband” connections.  This is special becuz (at least in theory), it’s always on, just like the lectricity an water an phone systems.  The best thang bout these new broadband connections is how fast they are.  Generally speakin, they go frum bout 25Mbps up to bout 1,200 Mbps or 1.2 Gbps.  An 1.2 Gbps is probly faster than yur wired ethernet an most Wi-Fi connections!

An the faster our connections to the internet, the faster thangs seemed to change.

Back in the 1980s ah wuz a “bulletin board” manager (thunk of forums, but witout the internet).  We had to dial-up the bulletin boards an upload/download messages so as we cud answer them offline cuz the bulletin board owners cudn’t afford to pay fur a lotta phone lines.  Now ah can access jus bout any forum in the wurld in jus seconds and “stay online” wit them as long as ah want.  Who knows whut the future of “online” interactions will be in another 30 years?

Other Technology Changes

We dun seen a whole buncha changes since ah wuz born in the 1960s.  Folk dun broke the sound barrier, went into space, an even to the moon!  So har’re sum other changes that’ve got many folk reelin frum the changes over the years.

Compooters

Ah remember the furst computer ah ever used.  It wuz a Radio Shack TRS-80 with 4KB RAM an had a cassette tape player/recorder as the program storage (a la the later “floppy” disks, HDDs, and SSDs) in the late 1970s.  The first compooter programmin ah did in college wuz in COBOL an wit an IBM mainframe usin punch cards.  An that wuz the early 1980s!

In the 1990s, the furst text messages dun be sent an a company by the name of “Palm” invented they’s “Pilot” as the furst portable “personal digital assistant” (PDA).  It came wit less than 1MB of memory an y’all cud git a 14.4Kbps “modem” fur it to send both messages an other data.

An in the mid-2000s, Apple came out wit they’s iPhone (whut wuz like a high-end Palm, but wit a better screen an a “cell phone” built in).  Apple went all out an put in a whoppin 128MB of RAM and 4-16GB of storage!  Whew!  That dun blew Palm away… as did the price at $500+.

An since the 2000’s folk’ve gone frum 2 cpu cores in one compooter to up to 64 cores (wit 128 “threads”) on the desktop an even more in servers!  The average smartphone has more compooterin power than the “Deep Blue” supercompooter that beat then world chess champion Garry Kasparov 2:1 in a six game chess match in 1997.  Yeah, so don’t thunk y’all’re gonna beat yur smartphone in chess…

An who knows whut compootin’ll be like in the future?

Medicine

Back round the time ah wuz born (early 1960s), most folks didn’t have much of a chance of survivin thangs we take fur granted most folk’ll survive today.  CPR had jus bin invented, but most folks didn’t know how to do it (theys wuzn’t much trainin yet).  So gittin a heart attack usually meant y’all wuz gonna die.  Same wit strokes, cancer, an other diseases that folk’ve got a chance of survivin today.

Shoot, back when I wuz a youngun, they wuz just startin to reattach fingers that had bin cut off.  In fact, a guy ah went to high school got his finger cut off in shop class (remember them?) an had it reattached, round 1980, thanks to sum quick thunkin by our shop teacher.

In the future, they’s talkin bout bein able to grow organs an even limbs.

Vaccines

Back in 1945-1955, the US had bout 40,000 folk a year dyin frum polio.  By 1960, no one wuz gittin polio in the United States, much less dyin, an all thanks to the polio vaccine!

Thanks to the smallpox vaccine, most medical folk thunk that smallpox’s died out in “the wild” (meanin it only exists in labs around the world).  The USofA has bin free frum smallpox since 1950, thanks to the smallpox vaccine.

Problem is it usually takes 5-10 years to create a vaccine the “normal” way to make sure they’s vaccine’ll be safe.  But wit new fangled technologies like mRNA vaccines, they can be created much faster.  Ah’ve talked bout this in my COVID-19 series (Part A: The Flu, Part B: COVID-19, an Part C: COVID-19 an the Flu).

The great thang bout the mRNA vaccines is them medical folk thunk they can be used fur vaccines aginst other thangs like cancer!  Barrin sumthin bad, it looks like we’all’ve dun got a lotta gud thangs to look furward to frum mRNA technology in the future.

Vehicles

Back in the 1950s, big V8 powered cars had a whoppin 140hp!  They cud git frum 0-60 in less than 10 seconds!  Compared to the 1963 Volkswagen Beetle mah momma had when ah wuz a kid, that wuz flyin!

Course, thru the later part of the 1960s V8s like the Chevy 427s, the Chrysler 440, an the Ford 429 producin upwards of 400+ hp frum the factory.  Course, that was the bare engine’s hp output.  Compared to how they’s calculatin hp today, that 400hp back then wud only be bout 200-250hp today.  But as light as cars were back then, they cud shure light them tires up!

Nowadays, we got US factory cars puttin out over 750hp (probly bout 1500+ 1960s hp)!  An cars’re goin frum 0-60 in close to 2 seconds!  It ain’t much of a thang fur high performance cars to go frum 0-60 in less than 4 seconds.

Shoot!  We even got electric cars that’ll go frum 0-60 in bout 2 seconds an drive theyselfs!

Back to the Future, uh, Past…

The long an short of it is that cuz of how quick thangs’re changin, folk’re gittin overwhelmed.  An they’s thunkin back to when they wuz younger an thangs were changin slower… or at least slow enuf they cud deal wit it.

Fact is that thangs are changin faster than back in them slower paced days… an the rate of change’s gittin faster ever decade.  Frankly, ah’m not shure that human being’s brains can keep up wit the rate of change fur much longer.  An that really scares sum folk.

Conservatism

Ah thunk that’s one of the appeals of “conservatism”.  An let’s be clear bout whut “conservatism” means.  Ah’m not just talkin bout the political meanin of the wurd.  Ah’m talkin bout it down at its roots.  So let’s start wit its dictionary definition:

Conservatism: 1 the disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change.

Now that ain’t bad, in an of itself.  After all, why fix it if it ain’t broke?

So Whut Does this Have to Do wit “Future Shock”

Problem is, “change is inevitible”.  We’all can see it in the wurld all round us.  Ain’t nuttin the same today as it wuz a year ago.  They’s always a change.  Sumtimes it’s small, sumtimes it dun be big.  But they’s always change.  An we’all know they’s gonna be more changes in the future.

Fur folk who’re already gittin overwhelmed by the changes in theys lives, the conservative talkin points bout how they’s jus tryin to stop the changes, sounds purty durned gud.  Kinda like them old Greek tales bout sirens.

An “conservative” politicritters have figured out that if’n theys can git they’s voters all discombobulated an afraid of whuts goin on round them, they’s gonna want to stop the change that’s scarin them.

How This Dun Hit Me Over the Head

While ah wuz wurkin on the series bout “Liars Lyin Witout Lyin“, ah wuz confused-like by how so may folk fall fur all these differnt ways of lyin.  Ah jus cudn’t wrap mah brain round why they keep fallin fur the lies.  Specially the obvious lies.

So ah jus started focusin on sum of mah kin an other conservative-like folk ah know.  Down har in Tennessee y’all can hardly swing a BBQ smoked pork shoulder round witout hittin a Trump supporter.  So ah started tryin to talk to em an see whut they’s wuz thunkin.

No matter how hard ah tried to show them proof of how Pres Trump wuz lyin to them, it jus fell on deaf ears.  A lotta folk’d say sumthin like, “Ah don’t have time to hear all that.  Ah’m tired of politics.  Ah’ve got too many of mah own thangs to do to spend time tryin to figure all this out.”

An y’all know whut?  Ah begun to see whut they’s wuz talkin bout if’n ah put on my “Future Shock” thunkin cap!

Whut, Exactly is Future Shock?

Back in 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote a book called, “Future Shock“.  The Wikipedia article on this book had this to say:

“… the authors define the term “future shock” as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. The shortest definition for the term in the book is a personal perception of ‘too much change in too short a period of time’.”  — Wikipedia.com

An ah have to say that purty well sums up whut’s goin on in our society these days.  In mah inexpert opinion (meanin ah ain’t no expert on this), “future shock” is probly a purty gud reason why so many folk who say they’s “conservatives” tend to be older.  They’s lives jus ain’t prepared them fur where our society, heck, our planet is heading, change-wise!

Ah can certainly unnerstand whar they’s comin frum.  Even if’n ah don’t agree wit them on the best way to deal wit all the changes.

The Bottom Line (Future Shock Edition)

Ah thunk it’s a perfectly normal thang to wanta say, “Whoa!  Wait up a minute!  Ah’m gittin overwhelmed here!  Ah just need a bit to git mah thoughts in order!”  Specially when y’all’re bein hit, right an left wit new stuff.

The thang is whut y’all do to deal wit all of the changes.  The wurld ain’t gonna stop changin cuz folk can’t deal wit it.  An thunkin back to a slower time probly ain’t gonna do more’n slow yur heartbeat a bit.  The wurld’s still gonna be out thar an changin.

Ah guess that the best question to ask, is whut can ah do to deal wit all the changes?  Well, ah guess ah can only answer wit an old sayin:

Question:  How do you eat an elephant?

Answer: One bite at a time…

The point bein is y’all need to decide fur yurselfs whut’s important to you.  What problems y’all thunk’re the most important.  Then start wurkin on them one (bite) at a time.

We’all ain’t gonna solve ever problem or deal wit ever change they is.  But we can wurk on whut’s most important.  An they’s lots of other folk who can wurk on the problems we can’t… cuz fur sum of them, those’ll be the important ones.

Anyhoo, that’s all ah’ve got fur now.  Keep yur eye out fur a couple new t-shirt designs that ah’ll be releasin fairly soon.

Ranty McRantyson signin off!