In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Geopolitics. Starting with September 11th 2001. I started my research and learning of it when I was 16, in 10th grade, c. 2010.

radcen said:

In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Please state the era/decade when you were first old enough to be aware and go from there. What have you witnessed as an evolution that you find fascinating, mind-boggling. Could be social/political, technological, anything. "Evolution" for this thread just means moving from one place to another, could be positive, negative, or neutral.

For me, technology. We have smart phones that, if I understand correctly, have more power and technology than the Apollo spacecraft of the late 60s and early 70s. And it is improving at an ever increasing pace. That is mind-boggling to me.

I believe for the most part it has served us well. Contrary to what many people think, I believe it has actually brought people closer together via things like social media. It does have a down side, though. I also believe technology has made our lives (in the First World, at least) too easy. There are way too many people who cannot do simple tasks anymore, and for that I believe we lose something.

I was born in the early 1960s, btw, and first became "aware" in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my benchmark.

Click to expand...

I agree with that. Technology has advanced as fast as the speed of light compared to other innovations.

Trippy Trekker said:

Trippy Trekker milestones-

Mama grunted and pushed. Out came me. Our doctor smacked my ass. I screamed "Good morning Miami!" Two months later, Ike won reelection. The world kept spinning. I can remember........
A 13 day Cuban Missile Crisis; JFK shot. LBJ took over; The Vietnam War; Nixon and longhair; Peace & Love; men on the moon; Woodstock; Phiippe Petit on a high wire. Watergate forces Nixon to resign; how did that Georgia Peanut farmer become POTUS? George Willig, the Human Spiderman; Iran Revolution. Reagan; Iraq attacks Iran; Germany reunites; the U.S.S.R separates. Daddy Bush; DOS; Lotus, Excel, DataBase, Word Perfect, custom software, CompuServe, full on Internet; meet a stranger in a cyber chat room; Slick Willie, GW, 9-11, Coalition of the Willing. Yes... the whole world has entered the Information Era; Wall Street melts, TARP; a black man wins the Oval Office; an insane, publicity-seeking Developer-marketeer-Reality TV Star seeks and succeeds at becoming POTUS. The surreal merges with the twilight zone where TrumpWorld and Alternative Facts become the new norm. The Brave and the Hopeful soldier on!

Click to expand...

Very Cute

radcen said:

In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Please state the era/decade when you were first old enough to be aware and go from there. What have you witnessed as an evolution that you find fascinating, mind-boggling. Could be social/political, technological, anything. "Evolution" for this thread just means moving from one place to another, could be positive, negative, or neutral.

For me, technology. We have smart phones that, if I understand correctly, have more power and technology than the Apollo spacecraft of the late 60s and early 70s. And it is improving at an ever increasing pace. That is mind-boggling to me.

I believe for the most part it has served us well. Contrary to what many people think, I believe it has actually brought people closer together via things like social media. It does have a down side, though. I also believe technology has made our lives (in the First World, at least) too easy. There are way too many people who cannot do simple tasks anymore, and for that I believe we lose something.

I was born in the early 1960s, btw, and first became "aware" in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my benchmark.

Click to expand...

So many things have changed. I was born in '42, became aware of the world sometime around 1950 give or take. There was seeing the first contrail in the sky, thinking wow! That's a jet plane! There was having an actual telephone that would call someone across town and out of earshot. There was the first electronic calculator. No more dividing a three digit number into a five digit number by long division, like we had to learn to do. No more slide rules. Now, we take for granted having a device the size of a deck of cards that can communicate with anyone in the world, access more information than is in the library, and lead me to an address I've never been to before.

And we mostly use it to argue with strangers and look at cute cat videos. People haven't changed all that much.

Dittohead not! said:

So many things have changed. I was born in '42, became aware of the world sometime around 1950 give or take. There was seeing the first contrail in the sky, thinking wow! That's a jet plane! There was having an actual telephone that would call someone across town and out of earshot. There was the first electronic calculator. No more dividing a three digit number into a five digit number by long division, like we had to learn to do. No more slide rules. Now, we take for granted having a device the size of a deck of cards that can communicate with anyone in the world, access more information than is in the library, and lead me to an address I've never been to before.

And we mostly use it to argue with strangers and look at cute cat videos. People haven't changed all that much.

Click to expand...

We still had to learn that in the 70s.

radcen said:

We still had to learn that in the 70s.

Click to expand...

Yes, it did take some time for curriculum to catch up with the times. Besides, a good electronic calculator was expensive back then. Now, all you need is a phone app.

Goofy "features" on cars. Really short tires on really tall rims that cost way too much and perform no better at legal speeds. Headlamp glass housings that cost far more to replace when broken and no more "standard" replacement bulbs. Bumpers that suffer no damage from a 5 mph bump but cost over $1K to replace with a 6 mph bump.

radcen said:

In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Please state the era/decade when you were first old enough to be aware and go from there. What have you witnessed as an evolution that you find fascinating, mind-boggling. Could be social/political, technological, anything. "Evolution" for this thread just means moving from one place to another, could be positive, negative, or neutral.

For me, technology. We have smart phones that, if I understand correctly, have more power and technology than the Apollo spacecraft of the late 60s and early 70s. And it is improving at an ever increasing pace. That is mind-boggling to me.

I believe for the most part it has served us well. Contrary to what many people think, I believe it has actually brought people closer together via things like social media. It does have a down side, though. I also believe technology has made our lives (in the First World, at least) too easy. There are way too many people who cannot do simple tasks anymore, and for that I believe we lose something.

I was born in the early 1960s, btw, and first became "aware" in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my benchmark.

Click to expand...

No question the answer for me is technology related to the internet of things, including smart phones.

I was born in the '50's. My postal code when I was a kid was the city followed by a number. No zip code. My phone number was identified by the first letters of a word, and then the numbers.

ocean515 said:

No question the answer for me is technology related to the internet of things, including smart phones.

I was born in the '50's. My postal code when I was a kid was the city followed by a number. No zip code. My phone number was identified by the first letters of a word, and then the numbers.

Click to expand...

Plaza 88331.... my Miami, Florida phone # ..... 1956-64, then we moved to the University of Florida Campus in Gainesville.

Having had and messed with computers since the early 70's, and having worked in semiconductors design/drawing microchips, I guess it doesn't boggle my mind like it should. At root its just logical true/false, and a transistor allows that to be represented physically. That's all it is (basically, digitally). If you can represent a few words reliably, you can represent a quadrillion words just the same...the size/scale is hard but over time, its really just shrinking it so they can fit more in a smaller area. Its still all the digital equivalent of a bunch of ons and offs.

What boggles my mind is how incredibly peaceful and empowered I feel I am, and my family, in daily life. All of history seems to read like a horror story or greek tragedy, all the movie and TV recreations of just a few hundred years ago, seems like the stone age (wooden teeth, dying of infections, etc.). We can drive all over the country, fly all over the world, play video games with people around the world, get a computer and design stuff that you can then manufacture, eat in incredible restaurants from every cuisine, apparently if you have enough cash you can hitch a ride to outer space, and order nearly anything and get it shipped to your door in a few hours or at most usually a few days, and no one really bugs you statistically while you're doing all of this. It seems like a world removed from all of human history.

Amazon is probably the most notable single company IMO.

Mind boggling in a negative way - Fox news/conservative opinion media's popularity.

radcen said:

In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Please state the era/decade when you were first old enough to be aware and go from there. What have you witnessed as an evolution that you find fascinating, mind-boggling. Could be social/political, technological, anything. "Evolution" for this thread just means moving from one place to another, could be positive, negative, or neutral.

For me, technology. We have smart phones that, if I understand correctly, have more power and technology than the Apollo spacecraft of the late 60s and early 70s. And it is improving at an ever increasing pace. That is mind-boggling to me.

I believe for the most part it has served us well. Contrary to what many people think, I believe it has actually brought people closer together via things like social media. It does have a down side, though. I also believe technology has made our lives (in the First World, at least) too easy. There are way too many people who cannot do simple tasks anymore, and for that I believe we lose something.

I was born in the early 1960s, btw, and first became "aware" in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my benchmark.

Click to expand...

I was born in the late 1960's so... computers. My high school graduation gift was a typewriter for college. It was outdated in no time when I got to college.

No doubt, computers and 21st century technology, which continually reinvents itself on an almost annual basis.

On the scientific front, I'd say the discovery of DNA, leading to genetic manipulation and identification, leading to amazing research into cell-matched growth of new limbs, personalized organs, etc., and cures for myriad diseases.

Eventually I predict every person born will immediately have DNA cataloged in a massive data bank. Find a drop of blood at a crime scene and voila! A helpful computer spits out the name and vital stats of it's owner. What a time saver!

Of course, giving up those pesky personal privacy rights might be an issue to a few party-poopers, but hey. :lol:

Pretty much everything. It's been an amazing ride so far, I'll be fascinated to see what's next.


Some of it has been good, some bad, some meh... but holy cow things have changed a LOT since 1965 in almost every category of "change".


One thing that was surprising was the lack of progress of manned spaceflight since the 70s, which I didn't like... we had high expectations that stalled for three decades of indifference. Still, current progress is very promising with progress being made rapidly again, mainly by private companies, lead by SpaceX.

DiAnna said:

No doubt, computers and 21st century technology, which continually reinvents itself on an almost annual basis.

On the scientific front, I'd say the discovery of DNA, leading to genetic manipulation and identification, leading to amazing research into cell-matched growth of new limbs, personalized organs, etc., and cures for myriad diseases.

Eventually I predict every person born will immediately have DNA cataloged in a massive data bank. Find a drop of blood at a crime scene and voila! A helpful computer spits out the name and vital stats of it's owner. What a time saver!

Of course, giving up those pesky personal privacy rights might be an issue to a few party-poopers, but hey. :lol:

Click to expand...

I believe that you are correct in that prediction. And it both thrills me and scares me. It thrills me because I see this as a boon for the rights of wrongfully convicted people. This *should* cause wrongful convictions to go way down. It scares me because, *sigh*, we as humans seem incapable of keeping things pure and I'm sure somebody somewhere will corrupt it... which is precisely why we have rights to begin with.

I think the advent of the cell phone for me... When I was a teen (mid/late 70's) we used a thing called a "phone booth", also known as a "public phone" so did superman by the way,,,,

If I had to get hold of somebody,, I waited until i got home, or found a public phone. If my car broke down,, man I hoofed it until I could make a call..

Now today,, people can't leave home without that lifeline..

Put a teenager from today back in 1977, they would just curl up in the fetal position and cry..

P.S. I can still make change also..


djl

I always wanted to be in high tech, and so learned about lasers in college, (that being the hot topic in the 70's)
While I did not find much in lasers, I did get involved in quite a bit of communications high tech over the years.
The advances in communications have been enormous, what was the bleeding edge, best you could build in the 80's
would not even be considered acceptable today.
Microprocessors and data storage follow a close second, the advances have been incredible.

radcen said:

I believe that you are correct in that prediction. And it both thrills me and scares me. It thrills me because I see this as a boon for the rights of wrongfully convicted people. This *should* cause wrongful convictions to go way down. It scares me because, *sigh*, we as humans seem incapable of keeping things pure and I'm sure somebody somewhere will corrupt it... which is precisely why we have rights to begin with.

Click to expand...

I feel the same, but think about it... no more unidentified remains with grieving families not knowing whether their loved ones are dead; missing children, kidnapped children, could be tracked based on nothing more than a few skin cells left in their wake. At the point where such a data base is scientifically feasible, it may even be possible to check a person's DNA with a non-invasive hand-held device directly accessing that data base. The potential for massive benefit to society is awesome.

So, unfortunately, is the potential for massive corruption and misuse. *sigh*

radcen said:

In your lifetime, what evolution do you find the most fascinating?

Please state the era/decade when you were first old enough to be aware and go from there. What have you witnessed as an evolution that you find fascinating, mind-boggling. Could be social/political, technological, anything. "Evolution" for this thread just means moving from one place to another, could be positive, negative, or neutral.

For me, technology. We have smart phones that, if I understand correctly, have more power and technology than the Apollo spacecraft of the late 60s and early 70s. And it is improving at an ever increasing pace. That is mind-boggling to me.

I believe for the most part it has served us well. Contrary to what many people think, I believe it has actually brought people closer together via things like social media. It does have a down side, though. I also believe technology has made our lives (in the First World, at least) too easy. There are way too many people who cannot do simple tasks anymore, and for that I believe we lose something.

I was born in the early 1960s, btw, and first became "aware" in the late 60s/early 70s. That's my benchmark.

Click to expand...

Like you I was born at the tail end of the baby boom - 1961 for me - and, like you, I find the advances in computing technology to be stunning. To give a bench mark using storage technology, my first job out of college in 1983 I was sys admin for a datacenter that house then state of the art mini computers (DEC VAXen). We had disk drives that use 6 platter removable media, with each platter about the size of an LP record. Held a whopping 300 MB. While I'm typing this I'm looking at a postage stamp sized flash memory card that can hold 64 GB.

Putting that in perspective the 1983 technology drive could hold about 1.33 MB per square inch of recording surface. The flash disk holds about 64GB per square inch or about 50,000 times as much information per unit of surface for probably 1/1000th the cost.

I really wish I could say the space travel is what I find most fascinating but unfortunately we've done nothing with it since Apollo.