No, this isn't about "mirrors on the ceiling and pink champagne on ice". (Sorry, Eagles fans). This thread is about the current speed of information in our lives, what affects Y2K may have on it, and as a result, how the changes to this pace may affect us all.

Has technology enslaved us rather than emancipated us? Pagers, cell phones, faxes, e-mail, etc. We are living in a time when information flows so quickly, both from us and to us. I remember as a kid hearing about how some cars could go from zero to 60mph in 'x' seconds. The faster the better. After the oil crisis in the mid 1970's, we didn't hear much about this anymore. Today our information flow and the pace we keep seems so much quicker to me. What about the potential Y2K affects on the speed at which our information flows, and the cascading affects on the Global economy and global trade, and also the changes to the pace in our everyday lives, and that of society as a whole. There is also the whole subject of how people will deal with this change psychologically. Technologically speaking, we are speeding along in the fast lane now, compared to just a few short years ago, and living our lives accordingly.

When I think about this the word 'slower' keeps entering my thoughts. What do you think Y2K will do to the pace at which we live our lives?

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 21, 1999

Answers

Rob -

here in the DC metro area pagers and cellphones are all the rage - even kids have them - they've had to ban them from the highschools around here...sheesh! It never ceases to amaze me how few folks seem to see these things for what they really are - just an electronic leash...

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), February 21, 1999.

Hi Arlin: I almost fell on the floor the other day when I found out that soneone I know even brings his cell phone to the potty! That is what I would call a very long leash indeed - shackles, actually.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 21, 1999.

I, for one, will be happy if life slows down a little. I currently carry two pagers, have 3 email accts to check, 2 of them every two hours, and oh yeah, voice mail that pages me! I set in front of a puter 8-9 hours/day. Have adamantly refused the cell phone. I'm starting to know the names of the children of the people who work at the ticket counter for AA.

Whin I look back over my shoulder I can still see the 50 yr mark. So I have clear adult memories of the pre-electronic age. Things like 5 digit phone numbers. Documents that have to be physically delivered. You sent notes to friends on paper!

I recall as a child when we did NOT have a TeeVee. (I can just hear a certain element out there saying - ah Haa, now we know why he's so twisted). We listened to a radio or *talked* to each other.

Yeah, I could sure stand to slip back to a little slower time. BUT, I am afraid that is a very slipper slope. Once we start to slip we may well just slip to an age that is way too slow. My crystal ball is a little fuzzy but the vague images I can see are definetly moving slower.

Those of us here at the Bear Den are going to take what ever we get and make the best we can out of it.

-- Greybear, who hopes that what ever we *do* get goes well with rice and beans.

- Got Rappelling Ropes?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), February 21, 1999.

Greybear: I am glad that you mentioned TeeVee. In a short Y2K drill, we found that having no TeeVee wasn't a problem for the kids (or us) - primarily because we had games, puzzles, etc. For a long duration though I think it would be tougher for them and all of us - Pick just a couple things to do without like the TeeVee and VCR as an example and I'm sure you see how the pace of things can also be affected.

Got Gas-x and Beano?

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 21, 1999.

This tread, like others, makes me belive the majority of people here want some type of social disruption come 1/1/2000. Seems like a great deal of old hippies (things didn't work out in the 60's maybe the 00's), socialist (meek will inheret the earth), some liberatarians (the government will finally implode), etc... I want my electricity, hot showers and Safeway. Canceled my cell phone last year, still have a pager. My only wish for y2k is that every telemarketing system will crash forever, but other than that, life is good.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), February 21, 1999.

Bill: I share your hopes for the telemarketers. LOL. As far as people here wanting some type of social disruption, perhaps there are. Put me down for expecting social disruptions, which I think of as inevitable, and trying to thing through some of the ramifications.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 21, 1999.

I have had two telemarketing computers for the last 13 years. It has doubled my income. It allowed me to cancel the expensive yellow page ad. People who need my service respond to my message and leave their name and phone number.

To those who hate telemarketing computers and wished they would be outlawed, I say to them that the Constitution gives me freedom of speech, even through the use of a computer. If you don't like it, move to Russia, where they don't allow these freedoms! You will never get a computer call in Russia.

-- Freddie the Freeloader (freddie@aol.com), February 21, 1999.

That's the first positive thing I've heard about Russia in a while. Thanks Freddie. On my way, after catching some much needed Zzzzz's.

(offline, BFN, Rob)

-- Rob Michaels (sonfodust@net.com), February 21, 1999.

Even if multimedia ceased today, that is to say, no telephone, TV, pagers, cell phones, shopping malls, etc., life for millions would be terminated. You would no longer be brainwashed or manipulated by electronic intelligence. Silence, complete silence, the abyss to insanity. It would force you to communicate with another human being if you are with someone, or communicate with nature. How would you communicate, and how would your conversation go day in and day out without news from the outside world to converse with another human being that is in the same boat as you? I'm already at a loss for words.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 21, 1999.

This old git is sick and tired of junk e-mail, as you can tell from the fake address. For those who don't know, junk e-mail is called spam and your service provider doesn't like it any more than you do. Neither does the service provider of the spammer. You can usually complain by using the forward feature on your e-mail and typing as the address "abuse@---.---." Of course, you would put the name of the service provider where the dashes are, for instance, aol.com or usa.net, whatever. Service providers will terminate the accounts of the abusers. In addition, send a copy to your own ISP. My ISP has a spamicide program, which culls a lot of that crap before it gets to you. You might want to check and see if your ISP has such a program and download it.

As for the cell phone, I like Sweetie to keep it in case of an emergency breakdown on the long work commute. However, the cell phone isn't kept on constantly and nobody has the number. We don't want to be tracked down. I HATE extra things that demand attention, I've got enough on with Sweetie and the cats!

Don't get me started on telemarketers, especially the computerized pitches that tie up the damn phone until they switch themselves off in their own good time. Arrrrrggggghhhhh!

-- Grumpy Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 21, 1999.

Markets swing and consumers move with pendulum simplicity.

How far could a technology backlash go? Enough to pull out the shaking, Rube Goldburg computer industry that's propping up the Nasdaq perpetual motion machine? The same industry that offers no warranties, little value and will be blamed for y2k. After all, who wrote the programs? The same industry that even mentioning the name of the market leader makes people grimace and spit venom.

The same industry that promised increased productivity and release from the chains of mundane work but delivered virtual reality, virtual jobs, virtual worth, slavery to monitors, eyestrain, a nagging sore right hand and virtual lives filled with more data to crunch because we have the technology to do it.

Thanks, I needed that. I feel much better now after my virtual tantrum.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), February 22, 1999.

Bill, you got me precisely..a libertarian socialist hippie. And yeah, a lot of people around here would like to see y2k bring about positive changes to the planet, e.g. removal of destructive systems and practises. Y2k looks to me to have more potential for harm than good, but we can only hope. As for life being too "fast" these days, we can each chose not to succumb to personal dependence on gadgets. If you can't live without 'em then you've weighed their utility and found it to surpass any downside. As for feeling frantic and rushed, this is common and understandable, but we also have a degree of choice in this matter too...it is entirely possible to train one's mind to feel serene and easy-going, it's just a matter of (yogic?)practise.

-- humptydumpty (no.6@thevillage.com), February 22, 1999.

Exactly, humpty dumpty. I choose not to have a cell phone, even for long trips. I too grew up without a TV, and even after I was in college and married, we didn't have a TV for ages. When I had my own business, I did without an electronic cash register. We have a TV now, which I try to ignore, (husband addicted) and a VCR which we never use. I won't miss any of that junk, but I will miss my computer and refrigerator, if the power fails.

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), February 22, 1999.

Freddie::

It is precisely your belief that the phone call is protected speech (hint it ain't. the protected speech refered to by the Founding Fathers is the soap-box, political variety, but that is another story) that will cause me to obtain Ameritech's "Silence" (I think) product for my phone line. This blessed feature eliminates *69 blocked or Caller ID blocked calls before they get to your phone.

Chuck da Night Driver who TRIES to sleep in the daytime

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 22, 1999.

Well I like TV, too. It's not on every waking moment, but there are some good (funny or informative) shows. This "Amish" dream most seem to have here drives me nuts. You want to live that way GREAT. This judgemental attitude (stop driving cars, watching TV, cutting down trees, using microwaves to cook, fast food, etc...) creeps into this forum all the time. Sure we need to think about life without the machine, but the machine will return (with the above mentioned "evils") If you want to live like crazy Ted the Unibomber, live that way. Please don't wish it or dream it for the rest of us.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), February 22, 1999.

Well, I guess I'm just out of step with the rest of the world.....again. Or should I say, as usual.

I'm not looking forward to the "slower-paced" post Y2K world! Right now, I can prepare dinner in 10 mins... I envision having to work for HOURS to put food on the table in 2000.

Today I pop the laundry in the washer and blithly go off to do something I enjoy doing. I shudder at the thought of doing laundry by hand in cold, hauled water.

I can fly from one side of the Country to the other in about 6 hours...in relative comfort. I don't think I will enjoy jostling along in a wagon behind a smelly horse for 6 hours to get to the nearest city.

Silly me, I've made friends with my electric tools, electric appliances, microwave, refrigerator, cell phone, etc.

As for the loss of Government regulations, moral decay, taxation, politically correct garbage, injustice system and welfare in our society today.....hmmmmmmmmmm.........maybe post Y2K is looking pretty good after all!!!

-- Sheila (sross@bconnex.net), February 22, 1999.

It sure doesn't take much blasphemy to trigger the worshipers at the alter-of-progress doest it?

Bardou, you be good now. When the target is TOO easy it's not a real accomplishment to hit it :)

-- Greybear, who thinks wish police and dream police are TOO funny

- Got Batteries?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), February 22, 1999.

Just say No and slow your life down considerably.

Voice Mail is a marvelous invention. Return calls on your time, not in instantaneous cell/page time. There are appropriate uses for the technology, weve just gone out on a limb with it.

Actually the internet is the single most exciting creation with the potential for shackle breaking I know of. Back in the early 80s I saw the potential with online information services them. The Web, is exponential.

Why? Because there are few businesses that will let you live exactly where you want to, still be connected to the world, still be able to support yourself doing what you love most with e-commerce, all while sitting in your jammies at the puter. (Youre the one who has to make it so.)

Aint life grand?

I expect both major and minor disruptions, not a Y2K one size fits all, a topsy-turvy re-organization of some our lives, that many will find out what is important and what is not, then, I expect the internet to GROW, eventually.

Long live global freedom of choice. Eventually, sans nasty glitches.

Diane, still a 5 and gotta remember to meditate soon and chill

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 22, 1999.

My sweetie and I consider ourselves dinosaurs from a previous era. I have a 19th century job (pianist/accompanist), he tunes and repairs them. I was one of the last people I know to get an phone answering machine. No pager, no cel phone,...stopped cable television 6 years ago, but like my VCR now and again. I've enjoyed the process of separating need from want in the last 10 years of my life.

It really isn't necessary to go into hyperbole in criticizing those of us who prefer life a bit slower (Bill? was that you?). I'm not interested particularly in a cold water shack in Montana. And I've seen people run ragged in the rat race, to die prematurely. I like my refrigerator, and will miss my microwave if there are long term power problems. I do think individuals can pick and choose what kind of fast/slow life style they want. My simpler life is not a threat to anyone's complicated one.

Chill. Life's short.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), February 22, 1999.