Seeing our culture with fresh eyes

In my job I follow many different interesting people via the new social media they use to communicate. I track a lot of blogs, Facebook (social networking site) groups, LinkedIn (professional networking site) groups, twitter feeds etc.

I also attend a lot of industry trade shows and we are very big in publishing. One of the more interesting publishers I follow (and a customer) is O'Reilly Media. The founder Tim is one of the more interesting and thought provoking speakers I've seen at these shows (many of which are their own) and I just saw this very interesting blog post on his blog called the O'Reilly Radar entitled "Seeing Our Culture With Fresh Eyes".

In it he makes several poignant observations about our culture and how it continues to change. Tim, having just finished a novel from 1910 called "Prester John" ruminates on the accepted racist attitude at the time and how things have changed. He then talks about the current state of our culture that are ongoing and wonders what will people 100 years from now think of where we are now in terms of waste and consumption.

I agree with what Tim is saying here. Whether we like it or not our society is changing and many of the things we accept and understand now will seem silly and outdated as time progresses. What are the things that are clearly wrong for the global society and how can we use the current economic situation to accelerate the common sense changes that will in 100 years see obvious.

You can read the entire article by clicking here. Beware he does quote another blog which uses some swear words.