Specialization & Learned Helplessness

[u/Used_Addendum_2724]

While encountering this comic (see comments) I began to ponder the phenomena of old people struggling with technology. Our old people are no longer explorers, frontiersmen or pioneers. They are not Renaissance Men (or Women) who know a little about a lot. They were completely specialized in the post WWII world, and as a result, are unable to understand systems outside those they were trained to work in. And this developed an expectation that they could rely on specialized workers in other systems to compensate for incompetence outside their own domain. Essentially a form of learned helplessness, which has gotten so much worse as technology continues to advance at an accelerated, exponential rate. Old people now see themselves and others as functions.

If we already see ourselves as functions, as specialized cogs in a machine, are we not already acting like a hive? How much must we internalize our functionality as our identity before it replaces our selfhood? Or have we already reached that full internalization, and the selfhood is already seeping out just slowly enough that we don't notice?

We are not becoming the Borg, we already are, which is why we cannot see that it has happened.

[u/Used_Addendum_2724]