The Last Great Golden Age

Gen-X may have witnessed one of the greatest technological leaps in human history but it's been at an expense...

Recently there have been multiple reports regarding a long string of evenly placed lights, traversing at great speed in a east to west direction across the night sky. It's an incredibly spectacular sight if you may have witnessed it. Initial reactions included proclamations of aliens, or Donald Trump's Space Force, but it was soon revealed that it was actually Elon Musk's Space-X Starlink Satellites.

First launch consisted of 60 satellites with plans for a total of 12,000. This will increase broadband abilities and internet access across the globe, but it comes at an expense.

The sky above will never appear the same again.

Astronomers are already sounding alarm bells regarding the difficulties that current satellites can cause when attempting to view the vastness of space, offering comparisons of static lines over a Monet painting.

It speaks to a greater issue. With each new technology or trend that offers to benefit mankind, it comes at our expense.

Generation X may very well be experiencing the last great golden age. Having known the world before such technological advancements they are privy to the dangers of what such things pose to issues like personal freedom and privacy. While they are willing to embrace the convenience of technology they are reticent to let go of their personal rights and freedoms in order to do so.

Later generations will never know a night view that is free of long strings of satellites that cross the sky as far as the eye can see. They will never know the ability to travel without having a tracking device or to save money without using a bank. They will never know unhindered nature or certain species of animals. They will never truly know freedom.

Today the rage is all about climate change. Rather than think that it might have something to do with an intricate global balance that we still barely comprehend, we instead watch as hypocritical celebrities chastise us for the part we play, while they board planes we cannot afford to fly in or drive away in cars we can't afford to buy.

In no small part the global sharing of information serves as a double edged blade - in as much as being able to share the information allows for a greater universal mind, there is no way of being able to discern fact from fiction. People are easily manipulated by propaganda more so now than ever before. Fake news and falsehoods are commonplace and easily devoured by a population that is becoming increasingly used to click bait entertainment.

While Generation X and the generations that came before knew of life before screens, Millennials have no understanding of what it was like before the advent of Google.

Convenience has changed the world but it is not necessarily for the best. By being able to access information in a few keystrokes people get lazier, they come to rely on the ability to know the answer to any question, without the need for memorization. This prevents them from actually learning or retaining the information because it is easily obtained again at any point later.

The trouble is, in the future if anyone should want to change the narrative they could just remove the information and it would easily be forgotten.

That is certainly not to downplay the polluting effects that humans have on their immediate environment. After all this time, fast food containers and other garbage flies out of vehicle windows on the roadways of the globe, even though it is no secret that it aught to be put into a waste receptacle.

In fact, younger generations will never know untouched wilderness. It is unlikely now that you can hike into the back country and not find a discarded coffee cup or some other waste product in places where you would not anticipate even seeing another person.

Same with oceans. Once teaming with sea life, many areas have been over fished and polluted and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster currently leaks thousands of tons of radioactive material into the sea on a daily basis, with no end in sight.

Meanwhile, plastics inhabit not just oceans and wildlife, but ourselves as well. Microscopic fragments of broken down products that will never disappear.

In the past, children knew of a world beyond a screen. Television was second fiddle to nature. More time was spent out of doors than inside the house stuck to the tube. Riding a bike, playing with friends and seeking adventure.

Today, we watch actors acting as though they are on adventure rather than looking for it ourselves.

It's easier and safer to watch someone else pretend to live than to do so.

Even entertainment falls victim. Wherein interesting and original films and story lines were often explored in the past, movies these days are often just terrible remakes of those same previously released movies and TV shows. It's as if there isn't room for new ideas.

A banana duct taped to a wall is considered art and sells for six figures after all, so there is little doubt that the bar has been set incredibly low.

So too with music. Which now seems as though it is beginning to swing ever closer to computer created and hologram fronted facsimiles of art gone by, rather than any semblance of talent.

Even the singers currently revered all sound the same once they are buried under autotune effects. Talent takes a backseat once everyone is similar, and perfect.

If you consider a computerized voice perfect in the first place.

In the past it was the imperfections of the performer that added the nuance to their performances giving them their own unique character. The differences between vocalists helped make bands sound individual from one another. Now you are lucky if you can guess who it may be.

Plus, if you heard these same so called artists without the autotune effects you might be quite surprised, seeing as the effects have taken precedent to expression.

Whereas previously, it was with wonder and awe, that you appreciated the depth of the artist's talent. They way they effortlessly broadcast their voice in such a manner or manipulated their instrument to coax the ethereal sounds forth. Today we appreciate an effect instead that allows the performer to appear effortless, rather than the presence of an actual talent to do so.

The emotive and often operatic vocal style of the Freddie Mercurys of the world are only offered lip service as influence to the performers of the day, as they mumble and grind their way through another autotuned nightmare.

Musicianship is rare and most popular music is even created without instruments. A computer providing the soundtrack while the performer repeats simple lines verbatim. It's cheap and it's easy.

Which is kind of the whole problem to begin with, in our search for easy we've accepted cheap at the expense of quality.

Quality art, quality life, quality environment, quality education...

You name it - if it was once something that you depended on being of quality manufacture then you can pretty much rest assured that it is now more cheaply made than it once was.

Nothing is built for longevity but rather to be replaced within a certain and short period of time.

That's not to make believe that things are terrible by any stretch of the imagination.

Just as Musk has launched the Starlink satellites that will help further spread the information to eventually result in yet greater technological advancements, Space X has managed to successfully redeploy rocket boosters multiple times, cutting the cost of the process immensely.

In fact, less than ten years ago we were thrilled by images from the Hubble telescope. Imagine what ten more years into the future will bring.

Electric cars, solar power, renewables of all shape and make, the future is sure to hold many incredible things.

The point is that we are losing the things that we immortalized in the past and at great expense. However, that expense is only being paid by Gen-X and the generations prior. The ones to follow don't know any different.

For them it has just always been.

They don't remember when computers were green. Back when computer class consisted of learning how to make an arrow fly up from the bottom of the screen and playing "King Tut" or "Oregon Trail". Before the internet.

They won't remember having to wait to see a television program instead of binge watching and mass consuming media whenever they want.

The horrible anticipation of waiting for the reply to a letter to travel through the postal system rather than video calling, facetime or even email.

The feeling of hearing a song that you knew was going to change the world.

The last musical genre that seemed to erupt with any sort of purpose was Grunge. It is rather appropriate that it was pontificated by feelings of angst. It's as though they knew what was coming when they told us that it felt like it had all been done already. As though they understood that it didn't matter how they dressed or what they looked like, because in the future everyone would look and sound the same.

We know more than we ever did but it's as though we are learning nothing.

While the agenda of the day is climate change, we are still throwing garbage out the window and lining up in idling cars at fast food drive thrus. Instead of turning off the vehicle and walking inside or putting our garbage in the trash.

It makes more sense to allow politicians to implement taxes than to actually affect any meaningful changes on our own.

Perhaps, because it's always been that way, at least in our lifetime.

Which begs the question...

Being the way things are now, what will the future bring?

For many, the future might be exciting, but for some it's quite sad and even terribly disconcerting; although we may be entering a new technological age, we may very well be doing so at the expense of the last great golden one.

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