Looking Back Before Looking Forward

Looking Back Before Looking Forward

Contemplating potential societal changes the current technological revolution might create, it’s helpful to illuminate how dramatically the industrial revolution disrupted western society and culture. Consider the following:

Prior to the mid-1700s the family constituted the basic economic structure of society for Northern Europeans and American Colonialists. Families consisted mostly of a married couple, their children and oftentimes a hired teenage servant working for room, board and wages. Nearly all persons lived in rural areas and farming was of paramount importance as malnutrition and starvation were constant threats. A combination of disease and insufficient food resulted in an estimated 30 percent mortality rate for infants thru age fifteen. Independent living was nearly impossible to achieve for ordinary people due to the laborious nature of farming and other economic occupations, forcing nearly everyone to live within the confines of a household. Food costs represented 70-80 percent of household income for most families, leaving little if any discretionary income.

Where Is Technology Taking Us?

Where Is Technology Taking Us?

If one were to try and identify the most pivotal phenomenon of our times, it would be hard to challenge the spectrum of technological change. Nearly every field of endeavor has been altered by technology and more rapidly than at any time in history. In comparison to the industrial revolution, which took about 150 years to dramatically upend agricultural society, the information age has taken a mere generation to reshape how we work and live. Moreover, changes now occur so quickly that even rather recent innovations such as compact disks and fax machines are now obsolete. Almost daily, advances in such areas as artificial intelligence, gene editing and 3D printing revise major aspects of our existence. If the past is prologue, we are likely to see an acceleration of technological change in coming decades. These transformations during this information age, like the industrial revolution, have generally gone unquestioned as progress for mankind. Yet, while these changes have made our lives and work easier, more efficient and perhaps materially better, is there also something lacking in this progress, perhaps intangible tradeoffs that are presently opaque but might be eventually revealed only upon reflection of what are lives epitomize?

Hypocrisy, Hollywood, and Real Advocacy

Hypocrisy, Hollywood, and Real Advocacy

Hypocrisy has a definition: “claiming to have moral standards to which one’s behavior does not conform.” Hypocrisy also has an example: “Hollywood.” The Harvey Weinstein scandal is not just a study in sexual abuse by a Hollywood mogul, but also about the hypocrisy within the film and tv industry. Much of Hollywood has held itself out as being more aware, more engaged, more sensitive to major social concerns, but most of Hollywood has not comported with these concerns either in their depictions on screen or on tv, or in their relationships behind the scenes. Sexism, racism, pedophilia, and many other evils are rampant in Hollywood. But Hollywood seems to be more engaged in acting the part of advocate than actually fighting against these evils.

Western Civilization Today: Orwell or Voltaire?

Western Civilization Today: Orwell or Voltaire?

Will our civilization, the noblest and mightiest mankind has ever seen, uphold the heritage of Jefferson and Locke, Milton and Voltaire, the unfettered contest for truth? Or are we headed for something out of Orwell, where certain words and ideas are banned in ostensible service of the common good? This was the haunting question when free-speech defenders from three countries teamed up to oppose thought control and advocate genuinely open dialogue in the public square, last week at a 58-nation conference in Warsaw, Poland…

Medicaid is the Key to Obamacare’s Fate

Medicaid is the Key to Obamacare’s Fate

Health insurance captivates us like few other issues because it affects us personally and distinctively. In more recent times it has come to reflect our political disposition regarding individual and collective responsibility. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal and replacement presently hangs on a legislative precipice, the philosophical dimensions of this debate concerning the role of the individual and the state should merit greater attention. Instead, the ACA’s destiny now appears to rest on the resolution of Medicaid and the division between federal and state governments.