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Andrew DeWitt

Learning in the Light of Faith - 0 views

magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2626

byu devotional learning light faith ross spencer future shock physics research science

shared by Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • When I was just out of graduate school, I attended my first meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. A highlight was a special event arranged by the conference organizers: the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had been invited to speak to us.
  • Hour after hour he wrote down the stories he found in books in the university library about people protesting the invention of things like machines to spin thread and to weave cloth, steam-powered trains, automobiles, airplanes, etc. All of these advances were perceived by the general public either to be physically dangerous or to be a threat to the livelihoods of workers in trades that were about to be destroyed by these advances.
  • when he started to write science fiction, he remembered all of this work he had done. So while his fellow writers were all rhapsodizing about the thrill of rockets and space travel (long before such things were possible), he wrote a story about how the local populace showed up at the launch site with torches and pitchforks in opposition to space travel. Years later, when rockets and travel outside of the earth’s atmosphere became possible, there were protests, and many of Mr. Asimov’s colleagues were astounded that he had predicted so far in advance that this would occur.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “Why,” Mr. Asimov then asked us, “among all of these talented and visionary writers, was I the only one who was able to predict that this resistance to change would occur?” He let us think about the question for an uncomfortably silent minute, then leaned into the microphone and said in an intense voice that I still vividly remember: “It’s because people are stupid!”
  • The lesson I take from my memory of this experience is that the proper attitude to have when confronted with the vast complexity both of the universe and of the ideas and activities of the people who live on this small planet orbiting an ordinary star far away from the center of things in our galaxy is profound humility.
    • Andrew DeWitt
      Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10
       
      This is how we ought to deal with future shock: "humility"
  • Andrew DeWitt on 19 Oct 10
     
    Great Devotional Talk by Ross Spencer.  Includes a great reference to "Future Shock".
Margaret Weddle

'Future Shock' team issues predictions for next 40 years - USATODAY.com - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...0-10-14-futureshock14_ST_N.htm

Future Shock predictions Alvin Toffler

shared by Margaret Weddle on 15 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • Margaret Weddle on 15 Oct 10
     
    USA Today article about the next predictions. Also a few notable fulfillments. Interesitng!
  • Margaret Weddle on 15 Oct 10
     
    The next Future Shock!
Gideon Burton

The digital age an age of stagnation? - 2 views

www.wired.com/...future-shock

future shock wired

shared by Gideon Burton on 22 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gideon Burton on 22 May 12
     
    When Will This Low-Innovation Internet Era End?
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  • Sean Watson on 23 May 12
     
    Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing this, Dr. Burton. Do you think it's because internet technologies are mainly looked at as entertainment sources and not utilized as educational, academic, and research empowering tools? Is there something about the facility of information that hampers one's creativity, kind of like the cat and mouse game of dating that heightens one's mojo? Or could it possibly just be the result of a nation that has become exhausted with the competitive level necessary to transform this into what it may become? Or finally, do you think it's just a matter of time like the economic historian, Paul David said?
  • Gideon Burton on 25 May 12
     
    I do think it is a matter of time. People fall into ruts, even with revolutionary technologies. But enough is happening to keep this sphere innovating on the large scale even if it appears same-old in the short term. Nice to hear from you, Sean.
  • Sean Watson on 26 May 12
     
    Very interesting! Nice to hear from you too, Dr. Burton.
Katherine Chipman

Fear! Living Under a Mushroom Cloud, a collection at the Museum at the Wisconsin Histor... - 0 views

www.wisconsinhistory.org/...fear.asp

atomic

shared by Katherine Chipman on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • America's post-World War II period is often portrayed as a time of affluence and contentment, but fear of atomic war and Communist infiltration also marked the era and affected the decisions Americans made about their lives and futures. Fear of atomic bomb attacks on the nation's cities helped motivate people to move to the relative safety of the suburbs. Some Americans built fallout shelters to protect their families while others, shocked by the prospect of nuclear annihilation at any moment, sought to live for the present.
  • Once the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, Americans realized a new era in history, one defined by the ability of humans to destroy their world.
  • Positive portrayals of atomic bomb blasts, along with toys and games that made light of atomic bomb destruction like those in the case below, may have helped diffuse some of the fear the American public felt about the bomb by desensitizing them to the devastation an atomic bomb could cause.
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  • While "atomic fiction" depicted possible fearful scenarios using atomic bombs and radiation, documentary sources illustrated the reality. Newspapers, magazines, books, and pamphlets described in vivid detail the effects of nuclear bombs on the Bikini Atoll, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, kept Americans abreast of the latest atomic developments and their destructive forces, and explained the devastating results if a bomb were to be dropped on the United States. All combined to reinforce the fear Americans had about anything atomic
  • Atomic Age fears provided science fiction writers with the inspiration for hundreds of stories, many of which conveyed political and moral messages as they shocked and entertained American readers and movie audiences. Three story types had emerged by the mid-1950s: the first dealt with atomic warfare; the second showed dinosaurs or fantastical beasts awakened or created by atomic blasts; and the third type depicted human deformities resulting from atomic experiments gone awry.
Ariel Szuch

Future Shock Re-assessed by Richard Slaughter - 2 views

www.metafuture.org/...futureshock.htm

future shock

shared by Ariel Szuch on 20 Nov 10 - Cached
Gideon Burton liked it
  • both individuals and societies needed to learn how to adapt to and manage the sources of over-rapid change.
  • Possibly the best section in the book is that on education. Here he advanced a powerful critique: ‘what passes for education today, even in our ‘best’ schools and colleges, is a hopeless anachronism.’ He then added: for all this rhetoric about the future, our schools face backwards towards a dying system, rather than forwards to an emerging new society. Their vastenergies are applied to cranking out Industrial Men - people tooled for survival in a system that will be dead before they are. (2) The thesis was then advanced that the prime objective of education should be to ‘increase the individual’s ‘cope-ability’ - the speed and economy with which he can adapt to continual change.’ (3) Central to this was ‘the habit of anticipation’. Assumptions, projections, images of futures would need to become part and parcel of every individual’s school experience.
LeeAnne Lowry

Karl Marx - 2 views

www.historyguide.org/...marx.html

digiciv revolution communism socialism

shared by LeeAnne Lowry on 05 Oct 10 - Cached
  • LeeAnne Lowry on 05 Oct 10
     
    It's truly shocking how influential Marx was and the things he did....
  • Katherine Chipman on 05 Oct 10
     
    Great find! The eulogy is especially interesting.
LeeAnne Lowry

Rapid Advances in Techonolgy - 0 views

www.idecorp.com/rapid.htm

digiciv techonology

shared by LeeAnne Lowry on 14 Oct 10 - Cached
  • LeeAnne Lowry on 14 Oct 10
     
    It's shocking how fast new technology replaces the old.
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