Saddle Sore: Evolution at warp speed

My grandson and I were out the other evening, checking on the irrigation water in one of our hayfields, sloshing around in our rubber boots. “Loan me your shovel,” he says, pointing to the one with the longer handle. Without another word, he heads to the lone apple tree growing at the ditch along the top of the field and knocks down a nice-looking apple. “Want one,” as he crunches into the audible juiciness of a wild apple, some of it running down his chin. 

Standing there, it struck me: This is the same basic work humans have done since the dawn of agriculture. Pretty basic we were, using rudimentary tools, in an agricultural endeavor that began sometime around 8,000 years ago in, say, Mesopotamia. The cold of the water through our boots; the feel of wet, muddy soil under our feet; rippling water in the ditch as it flows along, naturally following gravity without choice; the fragrance of budding green grass bursting with moisture; the piercing, dagger-like blue of the sky above, blessing the rows of trees along ancient drainages. Even before Johnny Appleseed scattered his vision on the earth.

And then my cell phone rang. What?

Come with me while we blast through technological advances at warp speed, although some took a long time to come by. The big one was our ability to communicate through speech, foregoing the grunts and groans of early “talking,” about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Somewhere approximately 30,000 years past, the ability to fix knowledge outside the body developed with drawing stories, rituals, maps of the stars, hunting scenes, petroglyphs, and pictographs. 

Then, around 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, writing was developed, such as hieroglyphics and cuneiform, and then, about 2,500 years ago, the alphabet was invented, lowering the barrier to literacy. Big step — manuscripts, scrolls, and hand-copied books could be stored and kept for future use.

Now, let’s stop at Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press, which enabled explosive democratization of information — literacy spread and so did religious and political upheaval. That was a huge step forward in communication. And, it only took us from scratch until the middle of the 1400s (ballpark 80,000 years) to get that far. But have you noticed, we keep going faster and faster, full speed ahead?

Mass media entered our lives around 1900, and we got newspapers, radios, television, the telegraph, and suddenly we could reach entire populations at once. Ideas could spread much more quickly. Then, we’re getting used to that, and the digital age hit us. Think about us — in about 1976, Aspen and Aspen Trash Service, Inc. had the only two large computer systems in the city (Data General). If the city computer was down, they borrowed Aspen Trash systems to get around the corner — and vice-versa. Cap’s Auto wasn’t far behind. Information wasn’t just broadcast — it now could be networked. And it wasn’t long: I was working for a Fortune 500 company with a mainframe in Houston. If I called for after-hours help, the guy in Houston would ask me to get Hunter Thompson’s autograph, our neighbor just up the Woody Creek Road. That was Aspen for you.

We lived through the Y2K panic and moved on to social media and smartphones around 2000. Anyone can share instantly with a global audience. The volume of information is unprecedented — but so is noise, misinformation, and fragmentation. Today, a person without a smartphone in front of his/her face is an oddity, a throwback to days gone by. 

It wasn’t so long ago that AI, at least in agricultural circles, stood for artificial insemination. It still rings my bell whenever someone mentions AI. Forget artificial insemination, although we’re still doing it to improve herd health and production, but the new acronym of AI (artificial intelligence) means that information is no longer just stored and shared — it’s generated, filtered, and remixed in real time. The question becomes: Who controls the flow of truth?

There’s something grounding about standing in the middle of a hayfield with my grandson, doing work much the same as it was done millennia ago. But I wonder: When his turn comes, will he still find that grounding — or will warp speed carry him somewhere else entirely?

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.