My generation (generation.com, not the millenials or gen X) was the first generation to grow up with personal computers, Internet, porn sites, and all things digital. This must be prefaced now, in that our generation understands common modern technology better than any other-from how to activate blue tooths, to syncing all your electronics to a cloud, to even figuring out what in the hell your IP address is. We are used to computers and all the advancements they bring about
A tangent on computers: The technology has revolutionized every field of research, art, and industry the world over. We have advanced scientific machines that can process infinitesimal amounts of data by specific computer programs; there are blogs and post sites to allow immediate documentation to occur in media and private sources; there are cameras and microphones for immediate, trans-global communication to occur; mobile devices that can create an augmented reality for amusements sake; computer generated images (CGI) that almost appear lifelike (and some not so much). In short-if you can imagine a field of interest, computers have augmented it in some serious manner or another, and people of my generation have come not just to respect that, but to expect that.
Our generation is one of progress at a digital speed. We expect every 18 months for our world to be changed and advanced. Admittedly, we have attention problems, but we also know better than anyone how to find out what we want to know. The world is literally at our fingertips and we take full advantage of that fact. We play with lasers, we video chat with our phones (capt. Kirk, eat your heart out), we manage all our information on a thick sheet of paper (basically), the longest average life spans in history (due to medicine technology), and a friggin host of millions of other things. Our generation is the one of science fiction, and basically the best that has ever lived. Ok, that may not be true. But we are still going to be most industrious generation in over a century.
Which brings me to the main of this post. My generation is now entering into the professional working force in full force. The late generation X has done their part as well in developing the technologies of today and tomorrow, lest we forget that Google, Microsoft, and Apple were all created by early Gen X'ers. But as my generation really takes center stage, we are faced with what many generations face-adversity from the older fellas.
To explain what I mean, I am going to give a short history. Technology and advancement is always considered to be new and dangerous until tested-this is how humans function. Now remember earlier how I said that there hasn't been a generation as industrious as mine in over a century? I was just trying to attempt a pun, as well as be partially serious. The generation that created the industrial revolution to spark were a generation that saw the world in a new light, understanding that there was a whole realm of progress they could take charge of and change the world with (they had the best intentions, but no knowledge of things like hazard safety or environmental concerns...concepts we advanced in the 20th century). They were frightening to their previous generation because they were game changers, they not only altered the realm of economics into a completely new route (capitalism I mean).
The mentality those industrialists brought remained for decades, until a new lifeblood of economic, as well as societal growth was refined. I speak of Mr. Rockefeller and his oil industry. The crude oil was fine for keeping machines going, and then he discovered how to burn it and make things go. Not only was mass transit a household possibility, it was economical, and the oil also had more applications-heat, lubrication, food, lighting, electricity...it was another game changer. Now that mentality has remained until the 1990's, the Rockefeller legacy of course is still one of the richest that ever existed in the history of the world. The oil barons were considered new money-they capitalized on a natural resource, something that had never successfully been done to a great degree (ore's were mined of course, but never to a rich vein and by one company/person either). They also remade the legal aspects of how companies functioned-they brought about conglomerates and international corporations that spanned the world. Companies were publicly traded because what they sold was immaterial, so they could sell immaterial stocks.
The 90's brought about the next major game changer-the personal computer, and the late Gen X. The computer was novel-it made office work and statistics and money management simple and affordable-professional level without the professional costs or wasted paper. But the computer itself only goes so far-the Internet was the ultimate in game changing. Now technology had presented a way to capitalize on information. It's taken over 20 years for it to become stable, consistent, and secure enough to really be efficient. In those 20 years, the next generation came about to use that technology- to create sites that you could make a brilliant amount of money in just cheap advertising alone. We changed the game again- now giants had to compete with people not needing them anymore. Mass marketing, mass communication, and self advertising were all possible without those conglomerates that Rockefeller helped to create.
Now these companies are mad that they aren't needed anymore. Look at how the world has hit an economic slump, the world needed a viable solution of bypassing companies that needed massive bailouts to keep their function alive, and the internet provided that solution-with intelligent entrepeneurs from a younger more creative generation who could see the full potential in the technologies of their time. We created sites, and technologies, to go around those large companies. Giant websites became fortune 500 companies, billionaires were created under the age of 30, let alone 40. Like everytime the game changes, the older generation is afraid of change, and try to stop the change from happening.
There are new bills out in Congress right now that are supposedly for the protection of the people-by policing the internet and preventing pirates from getting away with stealing. However, these bills have no teeth, they are only meant to control the content of what Americans are allowed to put on the internet-all because some large companies are mad that they won't be top dogs anymore. So it goes, and so it will always be. I don't want this post to be about the SOPA and PIPA bills being tossed around right now because I know they won't succeed, and neither will their inevitable successors. We of the generation the bills are specifically tailored to combat, know our technology too well and efficiently to be stopped by older generations who don't know the same tricks, or value the smaller things that people appreciate. Such as blogging, Youtube videos and the like-would all become policed and extremely restrictive towards content.
With that being said, welcome to the world of tomorrow. We, the Dot Commers, are coming to be in charge of this blue ball we call Earth, get used to it.
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