28 December 2016

Notes - arrogant, embarrassed and personally satisfied / *



       Later in the afternoon. You used your activity app for the first time and it works well. There should be no problems with the new watch. You have been running errands and had lunch at Panera. --> You are waiting for Carol at the community center. - Amorella

       1651 hours. I have spent some time researching on and finally beginning a YouTube video tutorial on the watch. This last a couple hours from the looks of it, but I'm sure it will be productive. I am just happy that the first activity session worked so I get credit for the 30+ minutes of exercises. I'm sure it has lots of bells and whistles and I need to know which apps I want to keep and those I'll put to sleep.

       Papa John's pizza for supper as you watched the local and national news in real time. You are tired and would just as soon go to bed but it is too early. - Amorella

       1908 hours. Earlier I was ready to watch some of that YouTube video but I've lost interest. It is time to relax and listen to some music and maybe do some reading online or otherwise.

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Future Shock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time". The book, which became an international bestseller, grew out of an article "The Future as a Way of Life" in Horizon magazine, Summer 1965 issue. The book has sold over 6 million copies and has been widely translated.

Term

Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change overwhelms people. He believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems are symptoms of future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he popularized the term "information overload ."

His analysis of the phenomenon of information overload is continued in his later publications, especially The Third Wave and Powershift. In the introduction to an essay entitled "Future Shock" in his book, Conscientious Objections, Neil Postman wrote:

"Sometime about the middle of 1963, my colleague Charles Weingartner and I delivered in tandem an address to the National Council of Teachers of English. In that address we used the phrase "future shock" as a way of describing the social paralysis induced by rapid technological change. To my knowledge, Weingartner and I were the first people ever to use it in a public forum. Of course, neither Weingartner nor I had the brains to write a book called Future Shock, and all due credit goes to Alvin Toffler for having recognized a good phrase when one came along" (p. 162).

Development of society and production

Alvin Toffler distinguished three stages in development of society and production: agrarian, industrial and post-industrial.

The first stage began in the period of the Neolithic Era when people invented agriculture, thereby passing from barbarity to a civilization. The second stage began in England with the Industrial Revolution during which people invented the machine tool and the steam engine. The third stage began in the second half of the 20th century in the West when people invented automatic production, robotics and the computer. The services sector attained great value.

Toffler proposed one criterion for distinguishing between industrial society and post-industrial society: the share of the population occupied in agriculture versus the share of city labor occupied in the services sector. In a post-industrial society, the share of the people occupied in agriculture does not exceed 15%, and the share of city laborers occupied in the services sector exceeds 50%. Thus, the share of the people occupied with brainwork greatly exceeds the share of the people occupied with physical work in post-industrial society.

Fear of the future

Alvin Toffler's main thought consists of the fact that modern man feels shock from rapid changes. For example, Toffler's daughter went to shop in New York City and she couldn't find a shop in its previous location. Thus New York has become a city without a history. The urban population doubles every 11 years. The overall production of goods and services doubles each 50 years in developed countries. Society experiences an increasing number of changes with an increasing rapidity, while people are losing the familiarity that old institutions (religion, family, national identity, profession) once provided. The so-called "brain drain"– the emigration of European scientists to the United States – is both an indicator of the changes in society and also one of their causes.

Features of post-industrial society

   Many goods have become disposable as the cost of manual repair or cleaning has become greater than the cost of making new goods due to mass production. Examples of disposable goods include ballpoint pens, lighters, plastic bottles, and paper towel.
    
   The design of goods becomes outdated quickly. (And so, for example, a second generation of computers appears before the end of the expected period of usability of the first generation). It is possible to rent almost everything (from a ladder to a wedding dress), thus eliminating the need for ownership.
    
   Whole branches of industry die off and new branches of industry arise. This affects unskilled workers who are compelled to change their residence to find new jobs. The constant change in the market also poses a problem for advertisers who must deal with moving targets.
    
   People of post-industrial society change their profession and their workplace often. People have to change professions because professions quickly become outdated. People of post-industrial society thus have many careers in a lifetime. The knowledge of an engineer becomes outdated in ten years. People look more and more for temporary jobs.
    
   To follow transient jobs, people have become nomads. For example, immigrants from Algeria, Turkey and other countries go to Europe to find work. Transient people are forced to change residence, phone number, school, friends, car license, and contact with family often. As a result, relationships tend to be superficial with a large number of people, instead of being intimate or close relationships that are more stable. Evidence for this is tourist travel and holiday romances.
    
The driver's license, received at age 16, has become the teenager's  admission to the world of adults, because it symbolizes the ability to move independently.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

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       1941 hours. At Escola Graduada de Sao Paulo I began teaching a 'Futures Studies' unit, later I discovered from some researchers working on doctorates Chicago that this was the first such unit taught in Latin America. I felt good about it because by that time I had developed the "Futures Studies/Science Fiction" class for juniors and seniors at Indian Hill High School, and I had joined the World Future Society. I talked my retired father-in-law, Dr. Granville S. Hammond into teaching such a course at Sun City Center, which he did with great success. It was very cool to have a father-in-law well interested in the World Future Society.

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We believe in uniting the architects of the future. We exist to unite the futurist in everyone. 

The World Future Society is the world’s premier community of future-minded citizens. A 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1966, the organization is driven by three critical objectives;

1) Uniting people passionate about building their desired futures through an ecosystem of members, chapters and partners. 

2) Advocating to bring to public awareness the world's major challenges. We ignite the futurist mindset in those who no longer want to be bystanders. 

3) Building global labs where futurists of all types are able to produce solutions, that are not solely reactive to the present, but to architect new systems that make the broken ones obsolete.

Our membership is made up of futurists of all types; entrepreneurs, executives, forecasters, economists, scientists, students, parents, and conscious citizens. We are united by our shared desire to tackle the world’s biggest challenges.

The future is yours to build.

1966
The World Future Society was founded in 1966 at a time of great uncertainty. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the production of plutonium and the uncertainties of a society in transition, were at the forefront of one innovator’s mind. Ed Cornish founded The World Future Society to gather brilliant people to tackle the dangerous challenges of the time.

1980
By 1980, while the building blocks of the Internet were being established, over 7,000 people attended the World Future Society Summit in Toronto, including a young Al Gore, and by then, Ed Cornish had been an advisor to three U.S. Presidents. . . .

Selected and edited from - . . .wfsDOTorg/page/aboutus

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       You are showing another side of a nearly-life-long passion focused on humanity. - Amorella

       1956 hours. This comment is embarrassing to me. I wish you had not stated this.

       Is it not true? - Amorella

       1958 hours. I cannot say that because it would be false.

       Then you are arrogant as well as embarrassed. Post. - Amorella


       2005 hours. It appears I am arrogant either way I state my honest thoughts and reflections. There is a twist of dark humor in this (which gives me a strangely deep sense of personal satisfaction).

       Really? - Amorella

       2041 hours. I have been reading 'Quora' online and I found a really good question and response. Here it is.

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How can the universe just start from nothing?

Neil DeGrasse Tyson had a great explanation of it. The fact that our universe is so (three-dimensionally) flat is proof it came from nothing. Because to be perfectly flat, it must have zero net energy, meaning it didn’t take or give off energy to be created.

Answered by Ronny Biggs who studied at University of California, Los Angeles

Selected and rearranged from Quora dot com

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       Note how words printed on a piece of paper or words texted electronically across the screen show a similarity in use as stars and worlds in a flat universe.  Post. - Amorella

       *2055 hours. Strange thought, Amorella. Interesting, but strange. Intriguing and still strange. 


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