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

radcen

radcen

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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.
 
I found the evolution of the Gameboy Advance to the Nintendo DS to be quite fascinating. :)
 
I'm on the border of GenX/Millenials. I was born in the 80s and raised in the 90s/00s.

I'm thrilled how far we've come on gay rights and marijuana decriminalization. Two issues that are a no brainer to me. Let two consenting adults smoke a joint and marry each other if that makes them happy.

I also was the last generation to use landlines as a primary telephone.


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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...

"fascinating/mind boggling"= surprising in my books so....

I gotta go with the break down of nation-states, which was done by the elite on purpose because they thought it would further the fulfillment of their greed.

I never saw that coming, I was never pessimistic enough to understand how much the elite suck, how much damage to civilization they were willing to do to skim more wealth off the collective, which is to say plunder for self enrichment.

Born during JFK Potus years.
 
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i was born in the 1970s. i find it amazing that i carry a device the size of my high school calculator (which i still have and use daily) which can access the modern equivalent of the Ancient Library of Alexandria as well as allowing me to instantly communicate with pretty much anyone. that is just flat out awesome.
 
I find the evolution of technology, particularly computing, to be the most fascinating because of both it's advancement in modernizing society and also its potential for a negative impact.
 
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The Computer, Space Exploration, The Cell Phone and The Internet
 
I paid 16k USD for a four wheeled device that flat out out performs, in every possible way imaginable, the best, fastest, most expensive vehicle anyone from merely 60 years ago could obtain. Heck, unless you were a race car driver, or OBSENELY rich, my civic out performs anything from even 35 years ago, in all areas.
 
Beer.

Growing up in the 70's there wasn't anything close to the selection of beer we have now. There were all the major brands but craft beer was kind of a joke (think "Billy Beer"). However, at some point in the 80's folks started talking about "Anchor Steam" beer. It wasn't exactly a new beer but it won some award and all of a sudden people started looking for a beer that wasn't Budweiser or Miller (or Coors if you lived west of the Mississippi). There were some hits and misses along the way (Zima) but by the 90's you were starting to see more craft beer on the shelves. Sam Adams started dumping money into advertising and suddenly the market exploded. Now there are microbreweries everywhere and a number of places are producing really, really good beer.
 
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...

Two things.
The shift from absolutist ethics to relativism.
The evolution of the structure of international security.
 
I was born in the 70s and, yeah, technology like my smart phone is amazing and something I didn't anticipate. I figured we would have robot maids and flying cars by now but not smart phones.

I also find the differences in childrearing interesting. When I was a kid we would just play all day, going on all sort of hazardous adventures. We knew it was time to go home when the street lights came on. Your parents didn't know where you were half the time. Maybe kids would wear seatbelt in the car, maybe not. Maybe they would just take a nap on the floorboard of the car on a road trip.

Parents are much more aware of where their kids are all the time now. My 11-year old has a smart phone that lets me track where he is. I know where my kids are all the time and you better believe the car doesn't move until all belts are buckled.
 
The first most evolution that comes to my mind is the American mindset over the past 50+ years.

For better or worse.
 
RetiredUSN said:
The first most evolution that comes to my mind is the American mindset over the past 50+ years.

For better or worse.
Click to expand...
I would say the loss of observation and recognition of truth and common sense. People today have no idea how to do any menial tasks. Sharpen a hand saw? Even a chainsaw? Use a shovel correctly or a pick. Use a micrometer. Know which way is loosening a bolt or nut. Then there is the recognition of personality and liars.
 
BrewerBob said:
I was born in the 70s and, yeah, technology like my smart phone is amazing and something I didn't anticipate. I figured we would have robot maids and flying cars by now but not smart phones.

I also find the differences in childrearing interesting. When I was a kid we would just play all day, going on all sort of hazardous adventures. We knew it was time to go home when the street lights came on. Your parents didn't know where you were half the time. Maybe kids would wear seatbelt in the car, maybe not. Maybe they would just take a nap on the floorboard of the car on a road trip.

Parents are much more aware of where their kids are all the time now. My 11-year old has a smart phone that lets me track where he is. I know where my kids are all the time and you better believe the car doesn't move until all belts are buckled.
Click to expand...
Yep. I see parents walk 2 feet behind their kid on a bike on a sidewalk, and I shake my head. That's too much of an overreaction, IMO.

I also remember long trips with no seat belts and sleeping in the back of the station wagon covered in piles of blankets.

The worst? At 3-4 yrs old, I would STAND on the front seat between my parents as we drove down the road. Nothing happened, but if it had I would have been a literal projectile as I headed through the windshield. Ugh, scary to think about.
 
Taxman said:
I would say the loss of observation and recognition of truth and common sense. People today have no idea how to do any menial tasks. Sharpen a hand saw? Even a chainsaw? Use a shovel correctly or a pick. Use a micrometer. Know which way is loosening a bolt or nut. Then there is the recognition of personality and liars.
Click to expand...

Righty-tighty/left-loosy... unless it's a lug nut on some Mopar vehicles. :2razz:
 
radcen said:
Righty-tighty/left-loosy... unless it's a lug nut on some Mopar vehicles. :2razz:
Click to expand...
What about Packards or De Sotos Uh even Studebakers.
 
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 ahead of you a bit, and for me the turning point was the 1960's. That is the first time a large part of a generation turned its back and rejected on the values and point of view of its elders and dropped out, zoned out, tuned out while demonstrating and protesting for something different, something they had no clue what they wanted, but they just knew they wanted something they didn't have. That plus the development of the drug culture and the tragedy that was the Vietnam War profoundly changed us as a nation. And not for the better. It was when progressivism became rooted in the societal structure and became to proliferate. In the next decades it would take over the media, education, and many of the social institutions, even infiltrating much of the Church.
 
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'm a dinosaur. Communication and computer memory compaction go hand in hand and are the most profound and International evolution I can think of. I am a septagenarian and have seen most everything, good and bad.
/
 
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...

WHen I became a computer operator, the first computer I word on was an IBM S/360. It had 8 meg of memory, and was 25 feet long and about 6 feet wide.

Now, we can stream movies to phones that have more processing power than that.
 
I'd say the phone. We had an old heavy rotary phone on the wall in the hallway when I was a kid. We'd wrap that thing around the corner and stretch it out as far as we could get it in order to get a little privacy. Then we had the push button phone ... then a a cordless phone (which was absolutely fantastic). I think we got an answering machine somewhere in there that came with a cassette to record your message. Then an updated answering machine with one of those mini cassettes. Caller I.D. and pagers came next, I believe. Then cell phones -- my first cell phone was when I started teaching in 2004 -- a flip phone. At school we used Palm Pilots to do testing and I think maybe you could call people from them too.... Then I got a Blackberry (the one with the little roller ball to move your cursor around). Texting used to be on the phone keypad so if you wanted a "c" you had to hit the 2 three times. I got really fast at that. Then the smart phones came along and you didn't have to that anymore.

I was talking to an early 20-something the other day. I was telling her what computer class was like in high school when I was there. I don't know when computer mice were invented, but we didn't have them. We had to learn all of the F buttons at the top of the keyboard. Control-F brought down your "file" menu -- that's the only one I remember. She was kinda fascinated.
 
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...

You're same age as I am then. My biggest "Holy ****!" moment was smart phones. I say this because all those years in the late 60's and early 70's when I lived with my transistor radio, listening to broadcasts of music, baseball, hockey, etc. while up in a tree or hanging out with my buddies, I dreamed of having some video to go along with those broadcasts, And, now---we have exactly that.
 
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!
 
radcen said:
Is that good or bad? I see it as both.
Click to expand...

Well, it means that anything goes and the only justification is that those wielding power want it so.
 
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