Just think about the days before phones came. Before there was a refrigerator.
Each village, town and city in the world had a unique character and charm. A new comer had to physically meet the local people in daily life. They needed milk and newspaper to be delivered. Cook breakfast, carry lunch and come home in the evening for early dinner and socialize with the locals. Be a Roman in Rome really applied. People kept in touch with letters.
Then came the phone and refrigerator. Both kept people at home and talk to people far away. Phone took away the need for letters which people treasured and read and re-read. People did not care to know their neighbors anymore. Just used the phone to talk to people far away.
Then came cable TV. Obesity began and diseases like heart attack, diabetes exploded due to inactivity and eating bad food. Then came international TV on cable. The people who came to a foreign country tuned out the place around them and watched only the images of the country they came from. The US stopped being a melting pot it was in the early 80s.
Satellite TV increased the availability of foreign TV and made it bad.
Then came internet and cheap or free international video calls. Final nail in the coffin of being Roman in Rome.
Today one can live anywhere in the world physically but live virtually anywhere in the world or for that matter anytime in the past. One could choose to live in 1960s and watch only video and read articles about that time frame in that place in the world. Social networking created huge generation gap.
So, I believe that we have many more virtual countries in every country and people are more distant than they ever were.
I am not so sure if this is progress.
Food for thought from a retired techie who has seen the changes and can guess what is coming.
Each village, town and city in the world had a unique character and charm. A new comer had to physically meet the local people in daily life. They needed milk and newspaper to be delivered. Cook breakfast, carry lunch and come home in the evening for early dinner and socialize with the locals. Be a Roman in Rome really applied. People kept in touch with letters.
Then came the phone and refrigerator. Both kept people at home and talk to people far away. Phone took away the need for letters which people treasured and read and re-read. People did not care to know their neighbors anymore. Just used the phone to talk to people far away.
Then came cable TV. Obesity began and diseases like heart attack, diabetes exploded due to inactivity and eating bad food. Then came international TV on cable. The people who came to a foreign country tuned out the place around them and watched only the images of the country they came from. The US stopped being a melting pot it was in the early 80s.
Satellite TV increased the availability of foreign TV and made it bad.
Then came internet and cheap or free international video calls. Final nail in the coffin of being Roman in Rome.
Today one can live anywhere in the world physically but live virtually anywhere in the world or for that matter anytime in the past. One could choose to live in 1960s and watch only video and read articles about that time frame in that place in the world. Social networking created huge generation gap.
So, I believe that we have many more virtual countries in every country and people are more distant than they ever were.
I am not so sure if this is progress.
Food for thought from a retired techie who has seen the changes and can guess what is coming.
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