Thoughts on Obama, technology, and our future

Beyond the enormous significance for race relations that Obama's win represents, it also holds huge significance for education in the US and probably elsewhere. US voters chose to reject ignorance and the anti-intellectual, boozy, Joe 6-pack ideal that Bush and Palin represented and go for the sober, study and work hard model presented by Obama. Children everywhere now have a worthy example to emulate, and they may even want to! It will be a good time for teachers and education for the next four years. It is a good time to invest in America.

Aesop's fable of the ant and the grasshopper comes to mind... voters chose the hard-working ant as they faced the economic winter quickly descending upon us all. I believe there will be an enormous surge in the US economy. But then, one has to factor in the reaction of Republicans who hold the reins of finance. Who knows...

The impact of YouTube, the Web and social networking has been incalculable. It's impossible to even imagine what the next election will be like. Who knows what uninvented technology will blow us this way and that? Sometimes I feel that we are all specks of dust floating in the air being buffeted by the first gusts of an enormous storm gathering on the horizon. Not a happy image, I admit, but it reflects my feeling that our lives are being driven by the power of our technologies rather than vice versa. We are becoming the Borg, one enormous interconnected organism. Where will it lead?

The other image that comes to mind is that of a heavy space-ship as it gathers speed on its way to breaking free of gravity. Let me point out that gravity refers not only to the force that keeps us earth-bound. It also means seriousness, as in the phrase gravity of purpose.

The role of the written word as the way to share information may be shrinking. Oral histories were gradually abandoned when writing was invented. As new technologies allow us to communicate directly with masses of people, many are now forgoing the essay, the informal e-mail, and even the SMS in favor of videos, skype teleconferences, and the ephemeral twitter. I ask you, how can one transmit a reasoned argument about anything on twitter?

The exponential rate of acceleration in the creation of new knowledge and new platforms for distributing that knowledge is mind-boggling. Obama won by leveraging technologies such as YouTube that didn't even exist during the last election. Chew on that little tidbit for awhile.

We live in interesting times. Let's hope not in the sense of the Chinese curse.