Tomorrow starts yet another year and, as always, we hope for a better one than the last, though truth be told, it wasn't a bad year at all.
This got me wondering about something. Is it in our nature to hope for the best and fear for the worst?
Are we just naturally hand wringers?
I've been noticing as of late that many/most of us seem a little apprehensive about new technology. From artificial intelligence, to R2R DACs, there seems a hesitancy to adopt the new for fear of making worse the tried and true.
My wife Terri reminded me that a trip in the wayback machine pointed to an old fear: the telephone. People were once terrified the phone would destroy the very fabric of society: no more person to person, no more hand written letters. The imagination soared with dystopian visions of sitting in a closet with our phones, cut off from all human contact.
The loss of both the horse and human elevator operators roused similar anxieties.
I wonder what it would take to reverse those fears. What would it look like to embrace the new and let go of the old?
Many of us are frightened the robots and AIs will take over and we won't have an Arnold Schwarzenegger to do battle with them.
Is that a realistic fear or just the fear of the day?
When I look back over my life there have certainly been ups and downs, but none as bad as my imagination.
Could 2025 be the year we embrace something new?
