Comment The Techno-Victorians (Score 1) 407
This is an idea introduced to me by Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, that I've had some time to mull over.
Like the guy who said it said, with our society's increased focus on technology, and its increased impact on our economy, will come an increased generation of low-wage, low-tech workers displaced and estranged from a society that has quickly grown past it's need for them. So, in the mid-21st century, I see 10 percent of the country owning 99 percent of the high-tech stocks, and, in general, posessing personally around 90 percent of anything that could be called "cutting edge" or "high-tech," much like things are beginning to shape-up today. I see the rich, politico class of today slowly integrated, and ultimately, devoured, by an emerging techno-victorian age, that treats cautious geek-dom as the ultimate in social development. E3 and Comdex will be the debutante balls of tomorrow. The jocks of today will be replaced by gamekids. Football and baseball...Quake Seven and Tribes 14. Instead of fast italian cars, it will be more of a status symbol to have the fastest home computer, or the prettiest, tiniest wearable.
Of course, all the Technovictorians, sans hyphen, will live in carefully-guarded gated comunnities, as a ferverous luddite movement spreads amongst the low-tech plebians, addled by the religious right, which, in order to exert more power over the people, will add technophilia to its ever-growing list of sins.
Along this train of thought, I predict that by 2060, there will be martial law enforced in the increasingly lawless low-tech states.
No society I know of has ever been as polarized as the one I'm predicting. There's no telling exactly what will happen after the technological battle-lines are drawn.
But, if everything goes as planned, I will be your benevolent dictator-for-life, with my queen, Bjork, ruling beside me, as my job will no doubt be well phased-out by wireless networking and intelligent motherboards.
- Janiculan
Like the guy who said it said, with our society's increased focus on technology, and its increased impact on our economy, will come an increased generation of low-wage, low-tech workers displaced and estranged from a society that has quickly grown past it's need for them. So, in the mid-21st century, I see 10 percent of the country owning 99 percent of the high-tech stocks, and, in general, posessing personally around 90 percent of anything that could be called "cutting edge" or "high-tech," much like things are beginning to shape-up today. I see the rich, politico class of today slowly integrated, and ultimately, devoured, by an emerging techno-victorian age, that treats cautious geek-dom as the ultimate in social development. E3 and Comdex will be the debutante balls of tomorrow. The jocks of today will be replaced by gamekids. Football and baseball...Quake Seven and Tribes 14. Instead of fast italian cars, it will be more of a status symbol to have the fastest home computer, or the prettiest, tiniest wearable.
Of course, all the Technovictorians, sans hyphen, will live in carefully-guarded gated comunnities, as a ferverous luddite movement spreads amongst the low-tech plebians, addled by the religious right, which, in order to exert more power over the people, will add technophilia to its ever-growing list of sins.
Along this train of thought, I predict that by 2060, there will be martial law enforced in the increasingly lawless low-tech states.
No society I know of has ever been as polarized as the one I'm predicting. There's no telling exactly what will happen after the technological battle-lines are drawn.
But, if everything goes as planned, I will be your benevolent dictator-for-life, with my queen, Bjork, ruling beside me, as my job will no doubt be well phased-out by wireless networking and intelligent motherboards.
- Janiculan
