The blog of photographer Kim Ayres

We are cavemen living in a sci-fi world

We live in the future.

Despite the fact that we are not all driving around in hover cars and wearing silver suits, there are times when it suddenly hits me that we are living in a sci-fi world.

On occasion, usually when driving on the motorway for some reason, I’ve been struck by the fact that we are still basically cavemen. Assuming that the Creationists aren’t right, then human beings have been in their current form for a little over 100,000 years. So if you were to go back in time and pluck a baby from, say 75 thousand years ago, and raise them in today’s environment, then they would be like every other child; you would not be able to tell the difference.

And yet here we are, physically and mentally the same as our stone-age ancestors, only we are often moving about in vehicles that are larger than a rhinoceros and faster than a cheetah.

Today I was at Carphone Warehouse, updating my mobile phone, when I was suddenly hit by the weirdness of the fact that I can be almost anywhere in the world, and through this little metal box in my hand, talk to someone else who could be almost anywhere else in the world. Even a hundred years ago, if I had wanted to talk to someone only 20 miles away, it would have taken me half a day on horseback to be able to. Barely two decades back we would both have needed to be standing by a box attached to the wall to communicate by voice. Yet now, I can be walking along the street, climbing up a hill, or driving at 70mph in my rhinoceros (using a hands free kit, of course) and be able to chat merrily away to someone else involved in an equally unlikely activity.

I am even able to write this post on a wee lap-top box that has access to the knowledge of the world within seconds, and by putting it up on my blog-site, can be accessed by anyone else who cares to look for it, within seconds.

Because this technology is all around us, being used every day, we fail to see the utter incredibleness of it all.

It is magic.

It is science fiction.

And we are still cavemen.

6 comments

Belly said...

It boggles my mind on a regular basis. Though I love my blue rhinocerous.

Cheers!

Unknown said...

I love this post. I think about all of our technology and gadgets often and am truly, absolutely and blow-my-mind amazed at what technology can do these days.

I was cleaning the bookshelves this weekend and came across a book that I had recieved from a box of things from my Nana [my great-grandmother, whom I adored] after she had passed away. She came to America from Sweden right around the time of the inscription on the book was dated so I wonder when she aquired it.

It is called: The Standard Dictionary of Facts, and published in 1908, my Nana's inscription was from 1909.

The children and I looked through the book and kept coming up with 'new' facts that were not even in the book, let alone, concieved of being a reality.

Technology delights but also boggles my mind!!

Peace, TM

Kim Ayres said...

I know people of religious backgrounds who will talk of looking at nature and seeing the marvel of God - the idea being that once you stop taking everything you see for granted, you can notice the absolute incredibleness of the world.

I am not religious, but that does not mean that I cannot marvel at nature.

Sometimes, however, I marvel at what mankind is capable of. Technology is all around us, to the point that we can take it utterly for granted, and yet it is truly astonishing what we are capable of when we decide not to come up with ways of hurting, maiming and annihilating each other.

... j said...

Oh yeah, I've been saying "Welcome to the future" for a while now. But the scary thing is that with all these new gadgets, cars, eventual moon bases, etc... we still can't seem to eradicat that one thing that makes us habitaully human. That being ht eneed to kill one another for no real vaslid reason. -

At the same time, I think we are taking the next step in our evolution, and instead of natural selection taking tall order in teh great span of things, we are pushing ourselves to evolve, afterall, they've implanted a camera into a blind person's eye enabling him to see 20/400 (-6.00 or so), they've sequenced the human genome, and they've implanted a chip into a capuchin' brain where it can turn the light on and off with it's brainwaves.

It's only a matter of tiime untill we start altering our DNA, chosing our children's traits and implantig ourselves with accessories, eventually leading to a hybrid of man & machine - and perhaps after that, just machine.

But it is too bad that the planet's immune / natural defense system can't seem to take care of us, becasue we really are vile creatures, the scourge of the planet, it's own personal HIV, and truthfully the planet would be much better off without us.

BStrong said...

Is technology progress or is it the dumbing of the human race? All this technology is making things easier and more convenient. We don't really have to use our brain in the same capacity as we did 20-30 years ago, now we just google everything. We don't have to talk to people anymore; we can just instant messenger them. Who needs to go to the store anymore, just go to Amazon.com and buy on line. You want dinner, microwave it for 2 minutes.
We don't have to evolve when everything around us is keeping us from having to.

Great post
B.

Kim Ayres said...

I'm not a Luddite. I find technology fascinating, and it has the potential to make our lives better.

I just wish there could be a bit more in the way of cures for cancer, or environmentally friendly power sources, and a bit less in the way of bio-weaponry and Big-Brother style government surveillance

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