Here’s What’s Wrong With Our Remix Culture. It’s Transforming Us All into Digital Zombies.
What if we lose our ability to be smart about the future?
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Friday, April 25, 1969. The day I was born.
As a teenager, I was proud of being born in the 1960s — the flickering embers of the 1960s, but still the sixties.
I don’t have a good explanation for my pride in this fact. But I guess it has something to do with feeling older, wiser, and better than my friends who were born in the 70s.
It’s the opposite of buying a car at year’s end, say December 22nd. Ten days later, on New Year’s Day, the car seems one year old already. But if you are born in December? That feels different. That makes you older in a good sense — instant maturity and wisdom,
And the special feeling of being born in the sixties never disappeared.
In My Life
Being born in 1969 feels like something magical. The first human set foot on the moon. The Internet was invented (at least a predecessor version of it). The Beatles recorded their final album with the iconic cover art — showing the four Beatles walking across a zebra crossing on Abbey Road.
Defining moments in history — moments that made our world — and I was around to “see” (without realizing) them.
I am often reminded of these magical memories and feelings in today’s world. I find the discussions about the revival of crewed lunar missions fascinating. A friend told me about plans to develop a new streaming TV show, Butch & Sundance, hugely inspired by the classic 1969 western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
These are just two examples. I am reliving more and more memories from my early childhood.
One of today’s top-selling video games is based on the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, first published in 1974. And what to think about the hype around the upcoming science fiction movie Dune: Part II, based on Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel from the sixties. My father was a huge fan of the first Dune novels, Dune (1965), Dune Messiah (1969), and Children of Dune (1976).
