Author here: I was putting these events together as a zeitgeist aligning with entering adulthood for people my age. I probably should have added a "then" in between the Y2K and election references. But I wan't trying to draw a sequential connection.
Thanks for the reply. From a zeitgeist point of view, though, the events of 9/11 seemed to wipe the map of everything else, including Matrix like tech fears. By 2002, tech was in a dotcom winter and the zeitgeist was all about the "global war on terror". The general vibe at the software company I worked at from 2000-2007 was basically "we're all just happy we still have a job". But heh, this is just opinion vs opinion, and am happy to agree to disagree.
I hear that. And I don't think it's in opposition to what I'm focusing on in this piece. Ultimately, the point is that The Matrix provided a relatively novel metaphor for the kind of world re-entry a young adult makes when they go off on their own, and that, for me, it was part of a group of events that solidified a certain paranoia and cynicism that I think is somewhat unique to late GenX/early Millenials.
I am nervously waiting to see what social media is the THING for my daughter's generation (she's 8). One of her friends just got an Apple Watch so it feels like everything is about to change for her and them...
I had to explain a phone booth to my daughter recently. It was being removed from a corner spot in front of a gas station – maybe the last one in our city!
Another example: Apple forgot about selling bicycles for the mind. They sell media kiosks now.
Not trying to pick on them in particular, but that was a vivid realization when I got the Vision Pro. I love it as a Mac upgrade. It should be a total independent Mac replacement. The new work horse high end. It says "Pro"! Give me 2x, 4x, 8x more computing power, no sandbox, and more system level creative/customization power. Raise the price!
I want to see my data. See serious math. Move through my files as a visual navigatable graph. Surround myself with my tools for every project. Then save that context. Contexts saved for dozens of projects, small or large, important or rabbit hole, that I can drop and pick up exactly where I left off. Tomorrow, next year, never, or after I die and the investigators are trying to figure out the secrets I was working on, why I was assassinated. You know - things the hackers would have done in Neuromancer!
Instead, the Apple Store people couldn't stop telling me about a cool app for looking at the stars. Neat! But I don't want lots of "cool" $2.99 throw away apps.
I want VR for the mind.
Instead, it's just a nice enormous Mac screen upgrade, which lets me sit in bed working and Hacker Newsing, ignoring the kiosk that gets Tim Cook up in the morning.
Yes, I think this is a good point – it certainly reflects how I find the things I value most. People I know or have come to "know" by following for years have always the best sources of information for me.
