We’re Eating Faster And Enjoying It Less

Technology feeds on itself.  Technology makes more technology possible.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2018	Great Views
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2017	Trump Supporters Will Always Find An Excuse
2016	More Posts
2015	A Last Request
2014	It Matters
2013	And You Are?
2012	Not Too Late
2011	Persistence
2009	Health Care?

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Nine Parts Mystery

Unless a civilization has some explanation for why things happen – even if its explanation is nine parts mystery to one part analysis – it cannot program lives effectively.  People, in carrying out the imperatives of their culture, need some reassurance that their behavior will produce results.  And this implies some answer to the perennial WHY.
—    Alvin Toffler
From:  “The Third Wave“
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On This Day In:
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2020	The Importance You Can Have
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2019	A Lifestyle
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2018	The Children Are Our Future
2017	And Three
2016	Nine Parts Mystery
2015	Little Or No Common Ground
2014	Just Between Me
2013	Beyond The Strings
2012	Saving The Union
2011	Still And Too Often

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Rising Integration

Marx, in the mid-nineteenth century, thought that whoever owned the tools and technology – the “means of production” – would control society.  He argued that, because work was inter-dependent, workers could disrupt production and seize the tool from their bosses.  Once they owned the tools, they would rule society.
Yet history played a trick on him.  For the very same inter-dependency gave even greater leverage to a new group – those who orchestrated or integrated the system.  In the end, it was neither the owners nor the workers who came to power.  In both capitalist and socialist nations, it was the integrators who rose to the top.
It was not ownership of the “means of production” that gave power.  It was control of the “means of integration”.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “The Third Wave“
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On This Day In:
2015	No Worries
2014	Devouring The Present
2013	But So Far…
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2012	Just Like Bubbles
2011	Caring and Driving
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2010	Unwise To Trust
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2009	As for me…
	Health Care Reform Now!!

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Closing The Gap?

We will only keep people from fleeing the countryside into urban favelas, villas miseries, shantytowns and squatter villages when the productivity gap is closed between what brute labor on the soil can accomplish and what advanced technology makes possible today – and will make possible tomorrow.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
…
The American middle class is shrinking and it’s technology that’s causing it.  It’s not all bad.  The gains in efficiency begotten by automation have been great for productivity.  And productivity means progress.  It always has.  Since the Industrial Revolution began around 1760, new technologies have been stealing jobs, and since 1760, people have responded by finding or inventing new jobs that contemporary technologies couldn’t do.
It’s a good system — in the long term, everyone benefits from technological progress, and while the workers losing their jobs in the interim might feel a bit miffed, people have always found a way to bounce back into an ever-adapting economy.  Besides, if machines can do something better than people can, it would be senseless to ignore such utility and hold back progress for fear of a few temporarily lost jobs.
Unfortunately for today’s average worker, finding or inventing a new job is harder than it once was.  When economists look back, they see that it was around 1999 when something changed.  Productivity kept going up, but where in the past median household income and employment per capita would have also hitched along, they instead diverged.  Median household income is on a steep decline, employment isn’t bouncing back strongly after the Great Recession, and a greater percentage of Americans now identify themselves as “lower class” than at any point in history.
—    Colin Wood
[From the article:  “The Uncertain Future Of Work“
Appearing in the magazine:  “Government Technology“, April 2014.
The article can be found online at:  http://www.govtech.com/products/Robots-Drones-and-the-Uncertain-Future-of-Work.html
And, no, I don’t believe technology is “causing” it (the shrinking of the American middle class).  Greed and an economic system which has corrupted the political system and which is debasing the educational system is the “cause”.  But, hey, I’m just a liberal democrat, so what do I know…  Right?    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
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2012	What Knowledge Is
2011	The Indefinite Accumulation Of Property

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Herding Cats

You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
[And Happy Birthday to my sister, Carmen!  It’s a special one, which will go unstated for the rest of the world!!  Inshallah, there will be many more to come…   Love, Kevin    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	Dust Under Your Fingertips
2021	Stopped Counting Decades Ago
	Just Enjoying The Sun
2020	To My Idealistic Sister
2019	Respect For My Sister
2018	I Trust Cows
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2017	Don’t Sink Now
2016	A Burning Passion To Teach Freedom
2015	Before Debit (And Credit) Cards
2014	Herding Cats
2013	Ooops!
2012	Understand A Great Truth
2011	Start Here…
2010	Random Acts of Vandalism On Easter Weekend…

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Wearing Down?

For the first time, we have an index of change.  If you’ve had many changes in your life within a short time, this places a great challenge on your body…  An enormous number of changes within a short period might overwhelm its coping mechanisms.
It is clear that there is a connection between the body’s defenses and the demands for change that society imposes.  We are in a continuous dynamic equilibrium…  Various ‘noxious’ elements, both internal and external, are always present, always seeking to explode into disease.  For example, certain viruses live in the body and cause disease only when the defenses of the body wear down.  There may well be generalized body defense systems that prove inadequate to cope with the flood of demands for change that come pulsing through the nervous and endocrine systems.
—    Commander Ransom J. Arthur
Former head of the U.S. Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit at San Diego
(quoted by:  Alvin Toffler in his book:   “Future Shock“)
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On This Day In:
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2021	Working On The Ordinary
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2020	Republican Senators Should Vote For Conviction Of #45
2019	Carry It
2018	Simple
2017	Knowledge Pays
2016	Brief Glimpses And Full Glances
2015	Pursuing Perspective
2014	Wearing Down?
2013	Labouring Under A Curse
2012	Listen To Yourself
2011	Career Tips (Part 1)
	No Captain Dunsel

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The Crux

The control of knowledge is the crux of tomorrow’s worldwide struggle for power in every human institution.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2022	Pass A Voting Rights Act For Democracy’s Sake
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2020	The Burden Of Faith
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2019	Are Your Dogs Barking?
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2018	And 40+ Years Later?
2017	He Is Alone
2016	Compensation
2015	Charlie Redux
2014	The Crux
2013	Erosion And Rechannelling
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2012	How Many Thought… (One I Know Of)
	Choices And Decisions
2011	Speed Spoils
	Simply Intended
2010	A Second 4 Hour Jog

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Daring Errors

It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2021	Misunderestimated
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2020	Doctor’s Orders
	Make That Seven Orders…
2019	Innocent
2018	Ripost
2017	Just Asking…
2016	And 4
	How Tall Do You Stand?
2015	More Prejudice
2014	Say What?
2013	Daring Errors
2012	Are You Comfortable?
	I Just Have To
	In Flux
2011	True New
2010	A Job Well Started Is A Job Half Done
	I See With My One Good Eye

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Theft

Perhaps the greatest cost of wave conflict in America will be paid by the millions of children currently compulsorily enrolled in schools that are attempting to prepare them – and not very successfully at that – for jobs that won’t exist.  Call that stealing the future.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2021	Dreaming Of You
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2020	He Ought To Be Unemployed
	May I Have A Little More, Please
2019	Cash Only, Please
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2018	House To Home
2017	Got Education?
2016	Necessary Company
2015	Reality Vs Imagination
2014	Penalty Period
2013	Theft
2012	Cranky Old Man
2011	A Man’s Got To Know His Limitations

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Children Will Judge

We cannot say whether the emerging world will be mostly “good” or mostly “evil” because the very definitions of these terms will change, and it is not we, but our children and their children who will do the judging, according to their own values.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
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2019	Day 2: All Things Considered
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2018	Ryan, McConnell & The Republican Controlled Congress
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2017	Serving Is Proving Harder Than Winning For #DumbDonald
2016	Come Again…
2015	At Five
2014	Touching The Past
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2013	Children Will Judge
2012	Liar, n.
2011	Freedom To Doubt

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Sociology Of The Future

Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt.  But if we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature, science fiction has immense value as a mind-stretching force for the creation of the habit of anticipation.  Our children should be studying Arthur C. Clarke, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Robert Sheckley, not because these writers can tell them about rocket ships and time machines but, more important, because they can lead young minds through an imaginative exploration of the jungle of political, social, psychological, and ethical issues that will confront these children as adults.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
[I would add they should be read because they are (were) great writers!    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
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Use Your Own

You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
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2010	Mind The Fire, Love
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Now Shaking

To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before.  We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots – religion, nation, community, family, or profession – are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust.  It is no longer resources that limit decisions, it is the decision that makes the resources.
—     Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2012	Absurdity, n.
2011	Minor Changes
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Learn To Learn

The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read.  It will be the person who does not know how to learn.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
[The question is how do we inculcate an inquisitive mind so it will keep wanting to learn.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2012	I Remind You
2011	Respect And Prestige
2010	Living Legends (Willie Nelson) and the Gettysburg Address

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Limited Capacity

Man has a limited biological capacity for change.  When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock.
—    Alvin Toffler
From his book:  “Future Shock“
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On This Day In:
2012	Two Ear Ticklers
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2011	To Avail The Nation

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