Yuyutsu,

I appreciate the poetic defence of older methods, but it raises an unavoidable question: At what point, exactly, did humanity lose its ability to reflect?

Was it the moment we moved past punch cards? The rise of the internet? Email? Smartphones? Or was it, perhaps coincidentally, around the time you reached the age where everything started feeling too fast?

It’s striking how often people draw the line of "meaningful civilisation" just after they’ve fully come of age - as if reflection and wisdom peaked the moment they got comfortable.

If there’s a lesson in what mhaze said, it’s not that modern tools are inherently corrosive - it’s that every generation romanticises the pace of its own formative years, and treats what comes after as decline.

That, too, is a form of nostalgia - not insight.

Dear John,

You need not worry - I will be gone from this earth long before you, so you can have it all for yourself and mess it up as much as you like.

I am really not interested in living in a world where I need to interact with machines instead of with real live people, I don't see the point of living in such an environment and prefer to be dead.

Humanity has not lost its ability to reflect at any particular point, nor in all areas of life simultaneously: it's more like the boiling-frog when the water is being heated slowly.

While in medicine we haven't yet reached that peak when the increase in ill-effects outweighs the increase in benefits, in the area of entertainment we reached it centuries ago, long before I was born.

No, I don't miss sitting for an hour open-mouthed on the dentist's chair while they drill into my tooth with a 300-revolutions/minute drill, thinking that today's drills are "too fast"...

My parents had a television when it was introduced, so you cannot claim that I wasn't used to it or that it was "too fast" for me. Yet being more discerning than others, I never got one myself once I moved out, and I still do not have it, nor feel any need for it. Typing this response, for example, is more technologically demanding than using a television, yet here I am.

I'm not nostalgic over punched cards, because computers are still helpful in medicine and what they do for medicine couldn't be achieved with punched cards: the fitness I had for running over hills with heavy bags full of punched cards to get to the university's shared computer, that I miss, not the cards. My whole point in mentioning them was to tell Mhaze that typing thoughts on a device wasn't "magical" 50 years ago.

While 50 years ago computers were used as scientific tools, today they are being used for so much more, much of it unwholesome, that much that I think we would overall be better off without them.

Yuyutsu,

That first line was revealing - not because of what it says about me, but because of what it says about your position.

For someone who’s often spoken with serene detachment about civilisation’s decline, it was striking to see that veil slip just enough to pin the blame on a “you” and imply that the world is being “messed up.” That’s not observation - that’s judgment. And it suggests this isn’t just a lament about cultural shifts, but a personal frustration that things no longer reflect your values.

That’s fair enough. I don’t begrudge your preferences. If you’ve chosen to opt out of certain technologies or modern comforts, that’s admirable in its consistency. But my point wasn’t about you personally using a television or having a punch card phase - it was about how we determine, objectively, when society crossed some threshold into meaninglessness or decline.

You say humanity hasn’t lost its ability to reflect “at any particular point,” yet still speak with certainty that it’s already happened, and happened so gradually that any clear measure of it is conveniently out of reach. That makes it very hard to assess your argument beyond “things feel worse now.”

If the rise of television was already too far for you, and the internet is clearly beyond redemption, then at what point was society doing it right? Because it seems like every technological leap after your formative years is suspect - and every leap before, silently accepted.

That’s the pattern I’m highlighting. And I don’t think it’s unique to you. I think we all do it. But once we see it, we have to ask: Is this really a critique of the modern world… or just a sign we’ve aged out of being its intended audience?

Coffee was first introduced to Europe around 1500. A century later a 'Café Culture' had arisen Vienna and quickly moved to many European cities. That culture had many people, mainly the young, sitting in cafes discussing events or just whiling away the time. And an anti-café culture arose which saw all this as detracting from purposeful activity and diverting the youth. Efforts were made to close established cafes and oppose new one.

The same thing happened a century or so later when drinking chocolate became the latest fad of the fashionable youth of Europe.

The forlorn cries of the old and the entrenched against anything new is as old as civilisation itself. Each new trend, new invention, new way of doing things is seen as the end of civilisation itself. It isn't and never was. (I can see that ancestors of Yuyutsu and ttbn decrying the introduction of cuneiform writing back in c.2900 BC as the end of personal communication and the end of civilisation).

That's not to say that this type of wailing ought to be discouraged. The anguished cries of the old that their world is changing and not for the better is part of the human culture. The Bible would be half its current size if the whinging of the prophets were removed.

But lets not confuse cries that the world is changing in ways that the old don't understand with observations that this makes things worse. The quality of life of the average 21st century human is immeasurably better than any other time. And it continues to get better. My only regret is that I won't be around to see how good it is for 22nd century folk.

I'm not terribly concerned about the closure of banks or the move to a cashless society. Banks close because the customers no longer need or use them. That some still do is really beside the point unless you also think that the some who want the branches to stay open foot the bill for doing so.

But there are concerns about the cashless society and they revolve around the unprecedented level of data it will give the authorities and pressures that will bring to order society as they see fit.

If everything (absolutely everything) is traded electronically then governments will have the opportunity to access that data and use it. GST is currently 10% on everything to ease the transaction if its done in cash. But if its done electronically, then each item could have a different GST level. And that would mean higher taxes on those things the authorities disapprove of. Whatismore, it will allow rationing at a level the totalitarians only dreamed of. Oh you've already had your allocated two slabs of beer this month so your credit card won't process any further purchases.

A cashless society will introduce two new things. (1) a tension between those who want to limit the amount of data the government can gather about our purchases as against those who want to use that data to steer our purchases in the right direction...for our own good, mind you. (“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” - Reagan.)

and
(2) massive black-market in things that the government seeks to ration - think of the tobacco wars on steroids.

Yuyutsu,

Has it ever occurred to you that the same technology you see as distracting or corrosive might, in the long run, actually bring about the very kind of spiritual life you value most?

If things keep heading in the direction they are, it’s not unthinkable that one day people may no longer need to work at all. And if survival becomes effortless, we could actually end up with more time for reflection than at any point in human history.

Not just scraps of reflection and meditation in rare moments - but a whole way of life centred around stillness, contemplation, even the kind of meditative existence that seems close to what you’ve often described.

A society of quiet gardens, uninterrupted thoughts, and voluntary simplicity, where everyone has the chance to explore meaning, not just monks or mystics. Isn’t that a version of life you’d find superior to the one we’ve ever known?

And yes, if some measure of struggle or friction is still needed for clarity - then so be it. One can choose to lift one’s own burden, just as you once chose the wireless and not the television. One robot instead of two. The balance, as always, remains yours to strike.

It’s possible, is it not, that the tools you now resist are the very ones preparing the world you’ve always longed for - not a descent into noise, but an ascent into stillness?

Meditate on this - reflect on it - and come back to me when you are ready...