Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Chance encounters

In "The Naked Sun" Isaac Asimov describes a world in which people never venture out and communicate electronically. While we are not there, you were are moving rapidly in that direction.

Asimov's fear was that people would never see the outside. What he didn't envision is that people would never have chance encounters with people they had not "friended".

Fifty years ago we might meet people on public transport on the way to work, or at theatres, movie and otherwise, and concerts, or in the shops. Today we telecommute, we get our entertainment streamed into our homes, and we shop online.  The opportunities to mix with people other than those we work with or have friended in social media are diminishing. That will likely make us more asocial if not anti-social.          

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