Is It Really A Sickness (Blog #2)

Is it really a sickness?

(Blog #2)

            “We must begin to say ‘no’ to certain kinds of technology and to begin to control technological change because we’ve now reached the point that technology is so powerful and so rapid that it could destroy us unless we control it.”

           

            I think the first time I saw this movie I was probably around 10 or 11 years old.  I was staying at a friend’s house when I saw it.  My parents would never have allowed me to see such a movie at our home because they would have decided it being too scary for me to see.  In seeing these parts the second (and third) times, I once again found myself looking at a fairly good indicator of the future.

            Advances in technology keep happening.  Is it possible that in our earnest attempt to keep us with the changing times, we have been kidding ourselves?  I mean, are we trying so hard that in our failings we are ignoring that we have finally become more like the tortoise and less like the hare?  We are constantly reminded that we are slowing down while things and technology around us are speeding up.  Not just are things around us speeding up but people are hurrying passed us, too.

            After watching Future Shock, I looked around to see what others thought and was impressed to see that their views were very similar to my own.  “Future Shock is a sickness…it is a sickness that comes from too much change in too short a period of time…it’s the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.  Things happen so fast that we barely have the time to absorb them.  It’s the premature arrival of the future.  It can be pretty devastating for those unprepared.”  (Bill Gordon)

            In the film, I thought it of interest that the automaton figure’s faces were a metaphor for the fear of the unrecognizable, cold, and chaotic future society that Toffler thought we were all headed for.  The film gives no pointer on how to proceed, only simply that early 70s society must do something anything.  But without suggestions or any type of game plan, the result does nothing more than stir up paranoia.

            Toffler states that too much information would drown us – witness Google’s mechanism as an example of our ability to filter out only the information that we desire – the rise of a new field of study related to information gathering.

            I realize that the assignment was to critique the film through the above statement. I realize, too, that it was important to deduce the need to control technological change.  Technology is rapidly changing, of which I was reminded of twice today.

            First, when informing the head of the TLT here on campus that I was soon to get my own personal laptop and my need to come to her to get a rented laptop would cease.  She asked what kind and when I told her, she suggested that I take the time to ‘update the Windows updates’.  When I asked her why, she was quick to let me know that the updates tend to expire within days of their being put into the computer to begin with.  I didn’t know this.

            Secondly, and while reading an article entitled “Too Much Information, Not Enough Intelligence” produced by the National Defense magazine dated May, 2012, Sandra I. Erwin writes: 

                “Automated analysis tools for video feed are gradually entering the market”, says Wenzel (Vice-President of Advance Integration at Booz Allen Hamilton).  The National Football League has developed software to search video archives that some defense contractors are using as a model. 

                One of the more promising systems that could help military ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) operators manage data more efficiently is the DI2E, or Defense Intelligence Information Enterprise.  Wenzel goes on to say, “The entire Defense Department and Intelligence communities will be able to share information.  There is still too many stand alone legacy systems.”

                Regardless of advances in technology, he says, a larger conundrum for the military is figuring out how to manage information so commanders and troops in the field don’t become overwhelmed.  “They have to sort out how much information is enough.”

            It is apparent that even the military continue to struggle with the gathering of too much information and not knowing how to decipher it properly.  The fear is that the information that is  received tends to be updated by the time it has been forwarded on to the proper personnel. 

            It truly does pay to be on top of things and it helps to know that what we are getting works at the moment that we get it.  Too much information could cause things to get a little too cloudy and congested and may put us in precarious positions when it really needn’t.  I think it really does come down to knowing when too much is really enough.

                                                                                                                                        -JT