Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
In all respects the future will be awesome. For good and bad.
This is definitely true. And it raises an almost existential question that has bothered me for a decade or more.
The plasticity of the human brain is exceptional, but I'm not convinced that we can accommodate an accelerating rate of technological change without profound psychological distress. Even in today's world, older people are extremely susceptible to feelings of alienation and being lost in the modern world. It's hard to adapt to a world that is very, very different than the world you grew up in.
The children who are being born today may live in a certain type of world when they are 15, a very different type of world when they are 25, and a profoundly different world when they are 35. Changes that previously occurred over a period of 50 years may occur over a period of five years or less--far too fast for most people to effectively adapt to them.