Life in a Post-information Age Era?

Abstract

What are we to make of the human-computer relationship of the past eight decades? What about the next half century? Technologies of all kinds have sway over our thinking, imposing on we humans an intellectual hegemony, and not just simply the weaker paradigm of thinking scientifically. Technological progress is a near God-like belief in large swaths of the world, even after accounting for such nastiness as computer chip toxins infiltrating our aquifers, nuclear plants exposing nearby communities to radiation in Russia and Japan, smart bombs killing civilians in regional wars, or fake news disseminated by bots. Computers made possible massive increases in economic prosperity, superior and safer travel in all forms, rapid and sophisticated development of medicines and new scientific information, enriched the lives of children with fun “screen time,” their parents too if we are to be candid, and made enormous amounts of information available to all of us “just in time.” Our Experience Economy would simply not function without information technologies, or our impatience to enjoy it.