The is something strangely comforting when considering the balances which hold the human race on the precipice of advancement, each time we extend our reach we account for our actions and put in place a means of regulation and control as a counterbalance to our increased lean away from the fulcrum.
For the most part these institutions and rules work as they should but conversely, there are periods when control is applied to something which has made no attempt at increase or progress. As time passes we are left with a situation akin to the Emperors new clothes, a vague sense that something is inherently wrong yet slightly indefinable. There becomes a transparency to the arguments for these measures which, while trying to shield us from the metaphorically naked truth underneath, claim in themselves, to be the supporters of decency and common good.
Human beings, as with all mammals, are a finite species; we are inbuilt
with defects and obsolesce which cannot and were never intended to last
forever. Almost every mammal on the planet is governed by the steady beat of
their hearts, at a gentle 28 beats per minute an elephants heart finally gives
out after 70 years or just over a billion heartbeats. A billion heartbeats
seems to be a standard across the board for the majority of mammals, all apart
from one; humans.
We have nearly tripled our capacity racking up nearly 3 billion
heartbeats over our 80 years life expectancy. With all this bonus time on our hands the expectation would be that we
had learned to relax and live life at a comfortable pace, allowing our hearts
an easy ride. But it would seem that our pace is increasing exponentially;
everything about modern human existence is built on the speed at which it can
be achieved, whether we’re talking bullet trains or smartphones.
I love information, I think it inherent in the human psyche, the want, need and permeation of information are the things that drive our species. In the Amazon delta or the Kenyan savannah information and communication can prevent one falling prey to hidden predators, in the information age it can mean the death of your income and ego if you do not use information to your advantage. And we now have so much access to so much information at any given moment that it is hard to imagine how much this has changed the world. From tribal fires to the Manzetti / Bell problem, communication and the exchange of information has been a constant human pursuit and investment of our time and technology.
