Pair of Dimes and how we view the world

When Change happens there is what is called a Paradigm Shift. This shifting of Thought Patterns, is in the Psychological aspects of thinking: The World View of The Individual, and collectively, Society

When Telephones were invented, the nearest form of a similar communication method was the telegraph system. This required an operator or intermediary, to send and receive the communications for the sender and the receiver; With Telephones the operator or intermediary was taken out of the loop, and communications become direct between the receiver and operator, two way and with a sense of immediacy; this was a sea change in communications over long distances (10 miles) and change how society operated;

Simplistic to us today, who are 100 years from that society. Yet a similar effect was experienced in the early 80's when cellular phones (cell phones to us) and later in 1989, when the Internet was created and e-mails and later video communications were possible, which later in 2010, Cellular Phones and the Internet Computers were combined to bring us the Star Trek Communicator Uber device, the Smart Phone, and in 2012 to combine with Tablet Computers. Thus bringing a communications immediacy and familiarity that wipes out distances of time and space, language and social/cultural barriers, to enabling the interaction of Millions of people in real time, via Twitter, and other social media. Truly creating a World Wide Web of Humanity with Connectiveness that is unrivaled in human history.

In the space of 100 years our society has been altered by these technological innovations; the "Change" has had a profound effect upon our Psychological View of the World, and it brings with it a Real Sense of Altered States of Mind. Compared to the Past Sense or States of Mind, World Views, we have moved from being infants playing in the living room or garden, to teenagers, roaming the city, and experiencing the world as young adults. We are no longer citizens of a city state, tribe or nation, but World Citizens in every sense of that word except political, and that is only a matter of time.

When Bede wrote his History of the English, he was projecting his own bias on an unfounded societal unity, that didn't exist; but by inspiring one warlord, he gave "King" Alfred, and his descendants a changed perspective of England, and an Altered State of Mind, or World View, comparable to the changes from hunter gatherer, bronze to iron age societies. That change has lasted over 1000 years of History, and is in some minor ways continuing. 

Today, we are on the threshold of massive Technological Change, that will alter our world views again, and change the way society views the world, itself, and it's place in the universe. We can only say that our lives and the societies we live in, will be changed beyond recognition. Our descendants will look back in 25-30 years and see us, in the latter part of the 20th Century, and Early 21st Century, as we look back on the 19th Century. We cannot begin to predict the individual societal effects or collective effects this might have on social order. From my perspective of history, it will be comparable to the change from Feudal Serf to Free Man, from persons viewing the world through the lens of Religious Dogma to the Renaissance Man who begins seeing the World through the eyes of Scientific Discovery.

Paradigm Shifts, and Overview Effects are two sides of the same coin, and only more specifically, are coming at us continuously now. A day does not go by that something new is not trumpeted from the media that we carry with us as easily as we used to carry a handkerchief, 50 - 60 years ago. Opportunities for massed produced “improved” technology is constantly accelerating, and changing. Various developments that began 8, 3 and 1 year ago, are coming to a newsstand (computer or tablet screen), tech store (on the High Street / Main Street) in your city and cyber space, near you yesterday.

Back before of the 20^th Century, it was easy for our politicians and religious leaders to keep us in little boxes. We happily marched off to wars and died in droves, Cannon Fodder for the Elites. But with the availability of Mass Media (first in the form of telephone and radio), or perhaps better said, Mass Communication Devices, Information has become the leveler of society. We now have access to information libraries and up to date news, that two decades ago were the prerogatives of Heads of States. The only way they have of keeping us in their boxes, is to appeal to our prejudices and fears; keeping us ignorant is actually a benefit to them.

However it is a paradox that while ignorant, we are less useful to society as a whole to bring about progress. So a population that is ignorant, and ill educated, is unequipped for the future. They are like an animal that looses out to a more advanced species. They are going to stagnate and descend in the social order of nations, on the planet. The only other alternative, is for heavy repressive measures to keep the bulk of society under control, via the use of force. That didn't work within Europe in the Middle Ages, when the Church and the Elites tried to keep Science under control, and therefore society in status quo, when the printing press was changing the world. So too, we are seeing that too is not able to keep societies in check (Arab Spring, Syria and Libya) now that we have the WWW/Computers/Smart Phones and Social Media.

Societies as a whole, whether in the West, Middle East, Africa and Asia, are beginning to wake up to new Paradigm Shifts, and seeing the World differently, than the previous generations. They are not going to willing  return to the past, anymore than the English of Alfred's generation would go back to the social chaos of waring tribes.

What will be their future is a question many want to answer, but as in the past 50 years, only very hazy field of views are available. Like the effect of the Birth Control Pill on young women, and their choices, so too the creation of Robotic Artificial Intelligence, combined with new and better materials and technologies to enclose them, to mimic humans, will have a profound effect on humanity. No prediction seems too outlandish, from the first Space Traveler to Mars to Marriage between humans and robots, is promulgated in the media. That is just one change that is happening. What we do know, is that we will get a few things right in a general way, but in a specific way, we will be unable to predict the way that the individual will mold the future. No one would have predicted how computers would change society, back 50 years ago. Star Trek got some things right, in 1968, but only in general. The Communicator of Captain Kirk and later Captain Picard, are a far cry from the communicator of today, and more importantly, how we use them to communicate, and interact over vast distances.

In less than a generation, we will have a device, that will either fit near our ear, or embedded, that will connect us to a WWW cloud, with all the information of Mankind, and able to communicate with anyone on the planet in real time. Science Fiction you say, well, look at your Smart Phone, and it's capabilities, and extrapolate the capabilities of computers into it, in the form of a Blue Tooth ear and glasses, set in 5 to 10 years. Then take the information, that we have someone who can move an object connected to her nervous system, with her mind, and research into electro synaptic telepathy, with an X prize competition, the next step is only to move that into the real world within our brains.

As I have said before, The Future is here, have your boarding passes ready!!