jasonbutler42

The deeper I go into the rabbit hole of social media, the more tools and potential I see. I see more and more “perfect score” sites – sites that are next to impossible to improve upon. Twitter, for all of it’s reliability faults (something that they are actively addressing by possibly moving off Ruby on Rails) does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Flickr, YouTube, the indomitable Google – small, discrete functionality that can be strung together to create some massively impressive applications.

I just signed up for Google Health to see if it’s as awesome as I hope. So much time is wasted on recollecting data that already exists. I want a centralized data source to which I can grant access – permanently or temporarily. There are, of course, trust issues. Google’s still a corporation and they aren’t held to HIPAA standards like medical facilities. But if the trust issue could be overcome, I would gladly let a third party handle things for me as I begin to build my metacortex.

I see so much potential in the disruptive technologies that are springing up. It’s as if technology is progressing at an ever increasing speed. Is this what it felt like during the industrial revolution, when newer machines allowed for even newer machines that allowed for ever more newer machines? I feel like the next 20 years is going to change everything we’ve ever known! Cybernetics, nanotech, biochemistry, custom genetics – just four of the fields that are feeding off each other and growing faster and faster! The future is here!

Now here’s the question: does every generation feel this way? Optimistic that future is limited only by clock cycles and since clock cycles are still following Moore’s Law it’s only a matter of time? I can see so much of StarTrek happening, everything from teleportation to food replicators to and end to any and all poverty. I see an end to human civilization as it’s ever been known, whether that’s good or bad is debateable, but I’m convinced that it’s going to happen. But am I being naive? Do the young in every generation feel like the end of the world is out there, waiting to be grasped, and racing towards it?

Obviously, the  future isn’t for everyone. I’ve tried explaining Twitter and RSS to people and keep getting blank stares. “You can get all the information you want, when you want it.” <blank stare> So maybe it’s being an information junkie that makes me see a bright horizon. I hope it’s not just me.