Steve Jurveston blogs about Kurzweilian accelerating change and does his own research on how things were 100 years ago:
...In 1900, in the U.S., there were only 144 miles of paved road, and most Americans (94%+) were born at home, without a telephone, and never graduated high school. Most (86%+) did not have a bathtub at home or reliable access to electricity. Consider how much technology-driven change has compounded over the past century, and consider that an equivalent amount of progress will occur in one human generation, by 2020. It boggles the mind, until one dwells on genetics, nanotechnology, and their intersection...And poses some very big questions:
Exponential progress perpetually pierces the linear presumptions of our intuition. “Future Shock” is no longer on an inter-generational time-scale. How will society absorb an accelerating pace of externalized change? What does it mean for our education systems, career paths, and forecast horizons?
The best person I know to help answer these questions is Zack Lynch, but I'll make a little point. Making sense of and adapting to change is both a personal and shared discovery. When change is the one constant, and it isn't even a constant, technologies that help us cope with it will be as valuable as those that cause it. You see this in other markets where tools to help manage complexity (e.g. virtualization of IT) are at a premium today. I have little doubt that neurotechnology will play a major role in making us cognizant of change. Its almost a shameless plug to say that societal changes will be aided by social software. But consider how very early adopters, even if they thrive on change personally, are able to make collective sense of new technologies so quickly. It also helps that the characteristics of social media, impermanent and malleable by all, embrace change.
