17 February 1999 Copyright, 1999, Max K. Goff, all rights reserved
Tomorrow I journey to the east. First to Rome, then Bangalore via New Delhi, Singapore, then across the Pacific and home to New York. Steady as she goes, east for two full weeks until I come full circle. Speaking in each city, preaching, teaching, informing, evangelizing....spreading god's word. And that word is Java. That word is Jini. That word is community source, free software, open interfaces, hope for humanity -- that word is hope.It strikes me as a little ironic that a Technology Evangelist would preach hope, as it is the pursuit of technology that has brought us to the precipice of demise. That realization does not escape me, zealot though I may be. The hole in the ozone layer was caused by our pursuit of the ubiquitous ice cube. The death of coral reefs globally was very likely caused by pollution and global warming, much of which can be attributed to the pursuit of ubiquitous transportation, i.e. the automobile. Technology traps us. The dark shadow of the Magician archetype -- the Trickster -- gets us in the end, betraying a community that is blindly mired in infantilism, refusing to grow up. And yet there is hope. Ironically, the very technology that may yet prove to be our demise also provides hope. And that's god's word for any evangelist.
In 10 years, 1.5 billion people on our fair planet will be over the age of 60. More than 15% of the world population will be old. While I don't count myself in those numbers, I'm not far behind that particular group, at least not in years. And all of us, regardless of our age, will be impacted by this aging trend.
Given the differences in population growth between say the United States and Pakistan, it stands to reason that a higher percentage of older people will be found in the West, far greater than 20%. The social impact of those demographics should prove to be quite illuminating, especially to Western cultures were youth is traditionally venerated and aging shunned. Will one in five of us remain cultural outcasts? Or will retail, and therefore advertising and therefore cultural preferences also reflect those changes?
I remember the "youth movement" of the 1960s. "Don't trust anyone over 30," was one of the catch phrases, encapsulating the hubris of an otherwise misguided generation. But the Western cultural machinery nevertheless ground out youth oriented fodder like so many MacDonald's burgers served, and still does. Can such an infantile culture continue in light of a dramatic aging trend? Perhaps the ultimate perversion of technology yet awaits us -- for those who "have" the technological extension of youth: gene therapy, face lifts, liposuction, acid peels, cloned body parts. The ultimate drug for the ultimately addicted. And rather than face the inevitable, rather than embrace the wisdom inherent in aging, we hide behind the psychology of youth, never really embracing the potential that is ours.
Tomorrow I journey to the east. Business as usual, but notable due to the mileage and the direction. As Hermann Hesse, author of "Journey to the East," once wrote, "Between Bremen and Naples, between Vienna and Singapore I have seen many beautiful towns. Towns by the sea and towns high up on mountains and, as a pilgrim, I had a drink out of many a well, which later turned into the sweet poison of homesickness."
