~Coming: The great technological memory hole~
Worldwide, mankind is on the precipice of a great loss of accumulative knowledge. Brought on by fast-forward technological growth and, in particular, rapidly evolving manufacturing changes… in the design, materials, and (encoding) standards of newer data transfer/storage systems. Massive amounts of invaluable data that was stored on various, now obsolete, media will soon become irretrievable, forever. Formulas, designs, experimental research data of all natures… just slipping away... setting us back 50 years in some schools of knowledge. The base-level information that is becoming unavailable has implications for such varied areas of knowledge as nuclear physics/plasma science/quantum mechanics/aero-space science/electro-science/neuroscience/chemistry/medical-biological research/bionics/and more… even vast quantities of poetry and philosophical/religious materials are bound, soon, to be gone.
When it happens, it will likely be a very sudden realization that… “Oops, old Joe’s the only one who knows that combination/formula/ingredient (pick one)… and he’s dead!” And that (very important) machine/system/product he and seven hundred of his brilliant, (also-dead) co-workers designed/built is probably going to remain broken for a very long time. It seems they over-protected their classified “product knowledge”. Industry secrets… some irreplaceable ones, being buried along with the men who wrought them… This is bound to happen… maybe even by (ill?-)design… the last feeble laugh of a dying culture of technological geniuses that gave us every thing from automated manufacturing to “the bomb” to television, moon walks, microwave-popcorn, pac-man and ultimately cellular phones and ipads… closing the doors to some critical areas of scientific progress for future generations to come… Blame it on a few hundred, or some thousands of irresponsible nineteenth and twentieth century mega-maniac (mad) scientists; their knowing, and not sharing, or, perhaps, simply being careless with their fleeting universe of cumulative knowledge… in allowing their vast spheres of knowledge to slip-slip away into the nether land known as: the technological memory hole… forever…
Then, what happens when the “big one” breaks and nobody comes to fix it?
Notes...
~It is a fact that no one man has the knowledge to manufacture a simple CD/data storage disc. There are over 30 different technical (secret) processes involved in creating a CD... The core loss of any of that technological expertise could, in theory, threaten an entire industry.~
~If a seventeenth-century scientist could have ever awakened wearing a modern-day digital/liquid crystal wrist watch, He would have gone mad trying to figure out how it worked~
See: < The electronic age facing memory loss? > (copy,paste,search,etc.)
When it happens, it will likely be a very sudden realization that… “Oops, old Joe’s the only one who knows that combination/formula/ingredient (pick one)… and he’s dead!” And that (very important) machine/system/product he and seven hundred of his brilliant, (also-dead) co-workers designed/built is probably going to remain broken for a very long time. It seems they over-protected their classified “product knowledge”. Industry secrets… some irreplaceable ones, being buried along with the men who wrought them… This is bound to happen… maybe even by (ill?-)design… the last feeble laugh of a dying culture of technological geniuses that gave us every thing from automated manufacturing to “the bomb” to television, moon walks, microwave-popcorn, pac-man and ultimately cellular phones and ipads… closing the doors to some critical areas of scientific progress for future generations to come… Blame it on a few hundred, or some thousands of irresponsible nineteenth and twentieth century mega-maniac (mad) scientists; their knowing, and not sharing, or, perhaps, simply being careless with their fleeting universe of cumulative knowledge… in allowing their vast spheres of knowledge to slip-slip away into the nether land known as: the technological memory hole… forever…
Then, what happens when the “big one” breaks and nobody comes to fix it?
Notes...
~It is a fact that no one man has the knowledge to manufacture a simple CD/data storage disc. There are over 30 different technical (secret) processes involved in creating a CD... The core loss of any of that technological expertise could, in theory, threaten an entire industry.~
~If a seventeenth-century scientist could have ever awakened wearing a modern-day digital/liquid crystal wrist watch, He would have gone mad trying to figure out how it worked~
See: < The electronic age facing memory loss? > (copy,paste,search,etc.)
posted by Mitch Bowen | 8:38 PM
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