My first mobile phone ever was a Nokia 3310. My father bought it for me secondhand from a guy who was kind of a dealer for used phones, and I literally paid 1/10th of the original price. I’m not sure if it was already two or three years old, but to me, it was new.
I liked that phone and used it for a couple of years or so. It was insanely robust and reliable. I’ve never heard of a Nokia 3310 that suddenly stopped working without some sort of “external interference.”
Over the years, I’ve changed plenty of phones, most of them being Androids. Just recently, I switched to iOS, and I kind of like it, but iPhones aren’t perfect either. I guess no company will ever make the perfect phone because if they did, it’d ruin their future. No one would buy new ones since they’d be perfectly happy with the "perfect phone."
There are nostalgic folks saying that the good old days were better—times with no instant internet access or endless streams of information. But I’d argue against that. If the world had made the perfect phone, the perfect car, the perfect clothing, etc., we wouldn't be part of any evolution.
That would kind of halt evolution, and not just for machines, but for us too. Look at kids today. They’re way smarter than we were at their age and clearly much faster learners. And it’s not hard to see why… Tech is to blame for that.
Hypergrowth is upon us, no matter what the doom-and-gloom analysts say. Look at the wars going on right now… Israel is literally bombing terrorists individually using drones. We’ve come so far as a society, and we’re just getting started. The military-industrial complex is a beast, and most of the gadgets we get as consumers are mere toys compared to what they have.
Sure, the military-industrial complex is a monster, devouring money as it always has, but hypergrowth is still happening. Society is way more productive with less effort than it was two decades ago. Self-driving cars will probably be the norm in two decades, which is really something.
Back in the day, the working man carried most of the load, but now that man is more of a controller for the machines doing the work. Embracing the caveman mentality isn’t going to work out well for those stuck in that mindset.
As for the phone in the pic above, I had hoped to resurrect it, but unfortunately, it’s completely dead. I took it to a service guy, and he told me the mainboard was toast—beyond repair. I would’ve given it a shot if it could be fixed, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want to go back to those days...
I’m good with AI, with the potential the internet lays in front of us, and with what tech makes possible. Tech is a double-edged sword, and it’s up to us to use the right side. The real problem with the Orwellian future we’re heading toward isn’t tech itself, but the weak leaders signing off on bad laws, creating hard times for us.
Just my two cents...
Thanks for your attention,
Adrian