I have lost the ability to spell

[~]

Before this thread went furry, I was gonna crack a Macjoke...

[Tinker]

[Demon of Undoing]

I think there is a qualitative difference between a simple piece of technology vs what we may be looking at within our lifetimes. A life lived under the effects of a waking augmented reality , for instance , has to be dramatically different than that of , say , a farmer in Kanas ca 1940 who had a wall crank telephone. Or even us today.

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

Yup, I'm a transhumanist luddite.

Comes with the awareness that complex technological fixes to present problems always generate complex future problems often equal in scale to present problems.

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

And, if I may ask, what is the great advantage in being able to take your office suite with you to the crapper? Just seems like a source of more stress and finger nerve damage to me. This girl I visited over new year's had a crackberry, and she'd even get up several times a night to check her messages. I thought it was hilarious, in addition to being nefarious.

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

[Demon of Undoing]

I am big on using tools as tools and not glamorizing or getting caught up in them. None of my guns have engraving , my hand tools mostly come from salvaged boxes out of wrecks and kitchen drawers. I am also old enough to remember information being wedded to location and limited by happenstance much mote severely.

Yesterday , inside of five minutes , I found someone that could carry unusual sized cargo from and to an unusual place even though this is not my thing , for a complete stranger that basically got a wrong number and got me. Because of his social networking presence , someone I know got a job that would have never come his way. From my kitchen. In the old days I would have had to go to an office , look up information that doesn't get organized like that in a file cabinet , and everybody would have had to pay more/ missed an opportunity. Because I didn't have to do that , I didn't just hang up on a stranger like I normally would. Things ran demonstrably better.

And I think my general attitude is known well enough to head off any sort of accusation of optimism. Don't do me like that.

[Colonel Sun]

[Tor]

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

[Tor]

[Torchwood]

[Tinker]

[I am ST]

[Colonel Sun]

[Atmosphere]

Human beings are fundamentally the same now as they were in the Paleolithic, or elsewhere around the world. We're all more alike than we are different, with boringly common emotions and common desires. But the mental landscape can be very different. It's already been said on this thread that the brain is incredibly resilient and plastic. It reroutes its functions when a person enters a new world, or circumstances change. The brain is the thing that most adapts over a person's lifetime, because the ability to make survival decisions is so crucial when things around a person are changing.

If a person is losing their ability to spell, or recall, it could very well be because they've learned that they don't need to anymore. Technology can take up the slack, and the body redirects its energy to more immediately necessary tasks. (It could also be a degenerative disease, so like Marcus said, it's always good to get checked.)

While the internet is another tool, and we network the pathways in our minds around the things we learn, it isn't going to change us into something trans-human. It's actually a very human thing to adapt to new technology as it appears. When humans discovered that sharp sea-shells could cut things, the possibilities for decision-making opened up. When humans discovered that every one of your friends and family could be carried around with you in your pocket on Facebook, more possibilities for decision-making opened up. You can imagine more, and then develop more. That's very recognizably human.

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

[Atmosphere]