Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2
Options
Comments
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59004
Very much so S and compared to someone say born in 1900 growing up and having kids of their own and living until they were 80, the changes we have seen are absolutely tiny by comparison to what they saw.You really notice this when you have kids. The technological and social change in our own lifetimes has been utterly staggering.
When they were born cars were a primitive plaything of the very rich, powered flight hadn't happened yet, radio was in its infancy, the telephone was a very rare sight, electricity was limited to urban areas, the vast majority of music was live. The European empires were still in full flow, large chunks of the world were unmapped and mass media was the realm of the newspaper and big news could be weeks old.
If a person made it to 100 years of age imagine the massive shifts they witnessed. They would have seen biplanes leading to the jet, Concorde, space flight and package tours to Benidorm. They'd have seen radio, then TV, then the internet and films go from silent and black and white to the talkies and widescreen colour in dolby surroundsound. From pure analogue lives to personal computers and mobile phones. From gas and oil light to a bright bulb in every room. The rise of the welfare state, the push for gender and racial equality. The biggest shifts in art, music and literature and architecture in history. The fall of empires. The rise and fall of communism and fascism, two world wars, from mass death from gunpowder to atomic bombs, the model T through Beetles, Minis and Toyota Corrollas with airbags and ABS and aircon. Fuzzy photos of the moon to men walking on it. From Newtonian physics to general relativity. Mass vaccinations, antibiotics and massive leaps in disease prevention and treatments. Average life expectancy go up by twenty years and childhood mortality falling off a cliff. A huge rise in living standards. The list is endless.
A centenarian in the year 2000 living in the West would have seen fundamental changes never before seen in any period of human history.
I collected old watches for donkey's years and one reason was in one way because they echoed those huge changes of the 20th century in a very personal and human scale way. Hell the wristwatch for men was barely invented in 1900. It's almost entirely a 20th century thing. Take these two.
Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
0 -
-
Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 76,371 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 75671
I collected old watches for donkey's years and one reason was in one way because they echoed those huge changes of the 20th century in a very personal and human scale way. Hell the wristwatch for men was barely invented in 1900. It's almost entirely a 20th century thing. Take these two.
Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.
And they both have bits that glow in the dark.
0 -
-
And yet, for all the innovation in the modern watch, given the choice on which to wear, I'd take the older one every time...Both from the same brand, one from 1916, one from 1988. Well within an average lifespan. They both tell the time, but in massively different ways. One is all clockwork that can trace itself back to the 12th century, the other is a marvel of electronic and computer miniaturisation using tech and science and manufacturing developed through the 20th century and impossible before it. One can be made accurate to under a minute per month, the other is accurate to under a minute per five years. One has a case made from silver a metal in use since antiquity, the other is made from titanium which wasn't even isolated properly until 1916 IIRC and couldn't be usefully made into anything before the 1950's.
That said, I haven't worn a wristwatch since 1999 when the "fake" Breitling Chronograph my mother picked up from a "street vendor" in New York was stolen from behind a bar I was working in. It was only when my cousin asked a friendly jeweller to change the bracelet on the one she bought for him to a strap that it transpired the watches had been genuine (if blatantly stolen) Breitling Chrono Sharks
0 -
Advertisement
-
Advertisement