If the end of the twentieth century can be characterized by futurism, the twenty-first can be defined by presentism.
Douglas RushkoffNew technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures - from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete.
Douglas RushkoffFacebook has never been merely a social platform. Rather, it exploits our social interactions the way a Tupperware party does. Facebook does not exist to help us make friends, but to turn our network of connections, brand preferences and activities over time - our 'social graphs' - into money for others.
Douglas RushkoffOur technologies become more complex while we become more simple. They learn about us while we come to know less and less about them. No one person can understand everything going on in an iPhone, much less pervasive systems.
Douglas RushkoffWe are moving away from myths and toward fantasy role-playing games, away from movies and toward videogames.
Douglas RushkoffOur society has reoriented itself to the present moment. Everything is live, real time, and always-on. Itโs not a mere speeding up, however much our lifestyles and technologies have accelerated the rate at which we attempt to do things. Itโs more of a diminishment of anything that isnโt happening right nowโand the onslaught of everything that supposedly is.
Douglas Rushkoff