I was reading an article with my students about 2017 being the safest year in aviation history. That’s right. 52 deaths in a 365 day calendar year. Half of those deaths came within the last week (what I call freak accidents) with what it seems to be a very bad plane model (forgot the name but I think it’s a Cessna). Nonetheless, no commercial airlines crashed. Is it because Air Traffic control and communication improved vastly? Oh, no? Ok, plane models got much better than? The horrendous 747-400 is finally retired in America, leaving behind a pretty horrendous crash report (and these planes should’ve been retired after the 80’s). Nonetheless, we have to say that technology, in general, has improved in this area.
Deadliest decade? 1970’s and 1980’s with over 100,000 deaths per decade (correct me if I’m wrong). Hmmm….so let’s think about that. Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination along with JFK (which happened a bit earlier); the horrendous Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge ransacking Phnom Pehn Cambodia, the introduction of cocaine in the Americans. It’s safe to say that it was a batshit crazy couple of decades, and it’s very important to acknowledge what has happened in the past. But it was a lack of communication that fueled wars, was it not?
However, the focus here is technology.
No social media. International calling? Ceased to exist, right? Landlines only. Took forever to send mail and packages. You name it….but because technology evolved so much, I can send a text message from where I’m sitting now to the other side of the world instantaneously. News outlets, such as all of them, are pleading that it’s the end of the world, yet they’re the ones who technically created the “beast.”
Let’s focus on the kaleidoscope. How nuts was it to look into lens of some object to the stars? Let’s look at the introduction of the Atari – the first “inventive” video game system in the 80’s (I think?). Let’s fast forward to the SNES and Sega Genesis. Oh, those were supposed to ruin the lives of many people, yet I was able to befriend the best basketball player in my elementary school by having him come over and play a game with me before our 3rd grade class.
What about the introduction to MSN messenger and AIM?! Who remembers that? Ok, Korea had Xanga and Thailand had Hi-Five. Yikes…that was into the dawn of the new millennium. Remember pagers? I mean people were complaining about those, Myspace, and now they’re pointing fingers at FB.
Yes, just recently in Thailand there was a suicide on FB live. Hell, there are beatings, killings, and all types of other things happening on FB live, YouTube, Twitter and so many other things….but it’s just exposing what human beings actually are. That’s what it comes down to.
I mean how can we say something, which will continue to evolve and disrupt the world, is actually destroying our lives? Can you say accountability? We’re now flying with in-flight entertainment systems before our eyes in some of the biggest aircraft to ever inhabit the sky; we can send messages and FaceTime with a human being who’s on the other side of the world; Air Traffic control, which I haven’t mentioned just yet, can redirect more than a dozen planes at one time and manoeuvre them around the city to avoid collision. If we look at the deadliest years in aviation history, to what’s happening right now with Bitcoin…..which age groups exactly are the ones pointing fingers? Those that saw the JAL flight go down in Japan? The ones that were around while the USA invaded a small country in southeast Asia because of something called “communists?” The only ones complaining about social media are those from a completely different time. On the other hand, young one’s are on their phones and just adapting to what’s in front of their eyes.
Gary Vee, “technology is exposing exactly who we are, not changing who we are. Everybody shows their best life on Instagram. But that’s what we always did…we just did it over some coffee with a friend. Mike Tyson’s punch out was suppose to ruin my life. The walkman. You name it.”
Who’s profiting from the penny ads on these “fake news” websites? Can I ask you a question? How much money was made by each click when there was a “tsunami triggered” just off the coast of Alaska? Do you know how much these “news” websites make by delivering “circle of concern” type news to make it seem like it’s the end-of-the-world.
Everything is not what it seems.
Embrace the change. Embrace the fact that this world is evolving into a magnificent planet….one that has evolved drastically in the last 4, 3, 2, 1, decade and a half. Yes, we need to clean up the plastic island mess, stop hoarding all the damn fish with these fishing companies in the pacific, polluting our coral, and clean up our greenhouse emissions – but it will take an overall gigantic effort from us. The individuals. You…who are reading this. It starts now.
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