Freed Time To Be Lazy
We are ruled by the “everything, now” mentality. Instant this, instant that. Instant noodles. Instant downloads. Instant messaging. The power of our mental facilities has allowed it.
We don’t like to work for things anymore. Well maybe no one ever really liked to work for things, to begin with, but our younger generations are much less willing to.
As man found more ways to empower himself in his works, more time was freed up. In the early agrarian societies it was the move from manual labour to guided labour by domesticated animals. Later it was the beginnings of mechanization, followed by industrialization. Today automation grows and grows and sooner than we think: robots will be in our home.
Each stage of these kind of developments are not only tremendous milestones in the growth of civilization but were catalysts for societal change. The growing efficiencies of early civilizations freed time for people to think: to grow in the arts, philosophy, science and so on. Industrialization stimulated rapid urbanization and the past two decades of technological advance have led to a new levels of interconnectedness, accessibility and overall globalization.
Things became faster, more accessible, more varied, more fun. In lieu of free time put to learning and the arts there is an addiction to entertainment. Everything needs to be here, now, and for me. We’re a lazy ands self-seeking generation. In a society where so much is done for the self and comes fairly easily, it’s no wonder that we grow up this way.
These ‘advancements’… there’s good… and there’s bad. It seems to me like the more advancements there is outside ourselves, the less advancement there is inside ourselves.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Hey, interesting post!
Somewhat related to roboethics -> my passion. Haha.. So I couldn’t help but comment.
“It seems to me like the more advancements there is outside ourselves, the less advancement there is inside ourselves.”
This is exactly what a philosopher named Martin Heidegger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) explored in the 2nd World War era, and called that we are lacking the sense of ‘dwelling’ ’cause you’re constantly moving from one thing to another without reflecting. Just thought it was interesting how you realized what Heidegger had pointed out.