We've come a long way baby... or have we? You may be very surprised.

That's a yes AND no quest- ion be cause now we actually know the answer. 

You may be very surprised.

Alvin Toffler wrote Future Shock 51years ago. The book sold six million copies internationally and is still selling. The book's updated front page notes "Future Shock is the classic that changed our view of tomorrow... Its startling insights of accelerated change led a president to ask for a special report, inspired composers to write symphonies and rock music, gave a powerful new concept to social science and added a phrase to our language. Future Shock is the most important study of change and adaption in our time."

It's always difficult to define something that hadn't yet happened. Initially the book was seen as science fiction but without a 'Flash Gordon' protagonist. So what did Toffler see from his 1970 perspective? 

In what ways have we/have we not come a long way?

In 1950, super detective Dick Tracy had a wrist radio, he called it... but that was science fiction. Car phones... ridiculous!

In Tracy's time there was something called 'a telephone' that was connected to the wall with a too short cord and it didn't even tell you who was calling. And get this, you would never know if  anyone called because it didn't take messages. If you ever had to use one of those today, odds are you wouldn't know how. Is that ridiculous or what? Today, everyone has a wrist phone and/or Apple watch and/or cell phone and always knows who was calling, when they called and what they said. And as an added bonus, there is text, Twitter, Linkedin, Zoom, etc. 

Remember when a picture you might want of Aunt Milly and Uncle Fred acting silly? That required something we ancients called 'film' to put into 'a camera.' The 'film,' possibly in black and white, had to be sent to a developer in Chicago... or other exotic places, and in mere days or weeks, returned to you as a photograph on shiny paper. All photos were either pasted in an album or stuck in a bottom drawer to be viewed after your death by heirs getting rid of all that stuff? We never took pictures regularly because it cost money for film and processing. Young people never took pictures... ever. Now everyone, especially the young, takes pictures of everything for any or no reason, posts them on social media to be seen by anyone and everyone, and stores them by the thousands on our 'smart phones/cameras/computers or 'the cloud,' never to be erased except by technical 'glitches.' We were made for Instagram, Tic Tok and so many others.

Remember when the Wright brothers first flew that rickety airplane at Kitty Hawk? Well, someone watching then, in 1904, has also witnessed us putting a man on the moon just 65 years later. That's progress! Even going to the moon is so yesterday. We have already been virtually on Mars and are planning to live there. In real estate, it is location, location, location. We'll put the strip malls on Venus. And presently, a Tesla with a manikin representing David Bowie at the wheel is speeding past Mars into space forever. Really. 

The internet would not exist until January, 1983. No one then on earth could reach everyone else on earth... ever. Today, instant access to all everywhere is the norm. And we can say, or believe anything we want and everyone will know who and where we are. We can be caring, concerning, kind, love cats and/or we can terrorize, lie, cheat, bully... and everything in between. There is no privacy and all of our personal data is available to any hacker who wishes it.

Censors wouldn't let Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sleep in the same bed in their I Love Lucy classic television series. Today, we laugh at that because we can view virtually everything on our TVs. Lucky us.

Comedian George Carlin shocked so many because one of his comedy routines included the seven taboo words you couldn't say on the air. Curious? check out "Seven Dirty Words" on Wikipedia. Heck, (no, that's not one of the words) we've certainly broken that barrier by a long, long way.

We can own more guns... today in the US, we have 800 million firearms in 125  million households for a world record: more guns than people. No other country can brag that. And the number is growing exponentially with every school massacre or scare, real or imagined. True. But then, we've always had lots... 800 million is just the current number on our way to 1 billion-plus. That's progress I suppose. 

Today, one person... just one, could kill millions of people in a seconds. We, as a world, have gotten so proficient at killing and technology has created so many more tools and toxins that it doesn't take an Army. Latest proof of this vulnerability: During Super Bowl LV in Tampa this week, a hacker or foreign terrorists--we don't yet know--broke into Tampa's water supply computer just a mile away from the stadium, instructing the computer to add a lethal dose of sodium hydroxide to the water supply for its 3 billion-plus customers! Thankfully, safety controls involved caught and stopped this or... ? 

We can cure diseases, some of which weren't even known in 1970, and we can miraculously heal so many more in so many ways. It's still that the poor and different just don't get the full benefit of such remarkable advances or insurance they may not be able to afford.

We didn't used to fear global warming because we didn't accept it as a threat then, true even today by some of those who don't even believe the Earth is round. Looking backward, we have just experienced the hottest six years ever recorded on earth: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 and wonder if God is trying to tell us something. Just who does He think He is, anyway?

One little girl said it best: When asked by her parents why she prayed for the Earth,  she said "Because that's where I keep all my stuff."

The point is, the world around us is changing faster and even more dramatically than Toffler predicted, and it will continue to accelerate at hyper speed. We as a people are more divided than ever, accepting any premise and tale the internet pushes out that supports or appeals to what we choose to believe. The world of internet has no fact checkers per se but accepts the oxymoron 'alternate facts ' which says 'if you believe it, it's real,' without a blink.

So, we've come a long way baby... or have we?