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I wish people would finally understand that technologists know what’s good for humanity far better than humans do.
This has been borne out a thousand times in recent years, and everyone should respect this increasingly big data.
When Google CEO Larry Page says that we need self-driving cars, so that we won’t have to build so many freeways and parking lots, he’s speaking for all of us.
So I worry when those with wooden minds and olden habits kvetch that those habits are being eroded by new technologies.
The latest to strike my eyes through a screen is that infants are apparently so obsessed with their iPads that they don’t have the motor skills to perform some formerly basic tasks.
The Telegraph reports that the British Association of Teachers and Lecturers believes that many young children merely have swiping skills. They don’t have the sort of dexterity enjoyed by their counterparts in previous eras.
Apparently, young kids can’t put pen to paper anymore. Worse, they have no clue what to do with building blocks.
Some might find it hard to understand these concerns.
No one can write these days. It’s as pointless an activity as trying to bring your two eyebrows together inside one elastic band. We live by the infinite text, not the ballpoint pen that runs out every five minutes.
And as for building blocks. Please, listen to Larry. If we don’t need to build more freeways and parking lots, there’ll be a lot less building in the future.
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Moreover, all the building will be done by robots.
We might have to teach them to wolf whistle at passers-by, but they’ll always turn up to work on time and will never, ever gripe about working conditions.
If humans control these robots at all, they’ll merely be pushing buttons and swiping screens. Yes, precisely what our teeny toddlers are doing right now.
It’s odd then that the Association of Teachers and Lecturers Conference called on parents to limit their children’s screen time. Speakers insisted that kids are so obsessed with iPads, iPhones, and video games that they have no clue, for example, how to socialize.
One speaker, Colin Kinney, a teacher from Northern Ireland, even said of kids: “They rely on instant support of the computer and are often unable to apply what they should have learned from their textbooks.”
Oh, teacher, leave those kids alone. In FutureWorld, they won’t have to apply learning.
You see, in FutureWorld, they won’t be working for the Man anymore. They’ll be working for the Machine.
