I am not implying that we jettison industry, I am simply saying that we jettison Industrial Age thinking -- a world of difference between the two.

Nor do I disagree that we can get lost in the hyper age hyperbole and forget about third-world areas, even in America. Where I do take exception is with the notion that we shouldn't use "hyper age" or some such term to describe the age we live in. Doing so helps us understand that the old ways of doing things no longer cuts the mustard.

Somehow we need to get people and powers to realize that we can no longer function as we have ... people are dying of starvation, the earth is polluted beyond our imagination, regions are dying (yes, even Portland, which happens to be a good illustration of using the catchall terms without applying their meaning), people are without jobs, and education is failing our youth and their and our future.

If manufacturing is to come back in the good old USA, and I agree it is flourishing in China, etc., then we are going to have to rethink things like unions, living wages, and benefits -- all remnants of the Industrial Age -- to make it profitable to do so.

I must hasten to add, that I am not really talking about nanotechnology and her ilk here, I am talking about the why's and way's we function. I do not expect any advance in technology to create social utopias (which, by the way, is not my intent either). It is the social consciousness of people, not their technology, that ultimately makes life worth living. In fact, in my view, it is technology running rampant without a social-consciousness, that is part of the problem, as is P & L without a social-consciousness. Please note, I am not against profit. I am, hover, against profit that flows out of plain old greed. How much is enough? Do we have the right to make a large profit at the expense of another? Is it possible to reinvent business with the idea, "A good, needed product for a fair price that incorporates a fair profit?" This was actually the business model not all that long ago. Now it's about convincing people that they need such and such a product. Consider drug companies that create syndromes to sell new prescription drugs (AMA Journal covered this not all that long ago).

This, of course, means that we have to change our own expectations. We can no longer have it both ways, "I own such and such a stock and I want to cash in big with it, but I don't want to pay the higher costs that come in shareholder driven markets."

What I am asking for is for people to examine their social-consciousness and find ways to make life worth living in an age that while moving faster and faster, deprives people of their basic needs.

I like the hyper-age motif because it makes us think about what is driving us, what is making us move faster and faster, so fast that we leave contexts behind, and our future becomes endangered? My working definition for "hyper" is "excessive," as in "excessively stimulated." There is no doubt that this describes our age. The question remains, can we slow it down, or at least make it manageable? Are we going to allow the excessiveness of the age to steal our well-being?

If we aren't, we can't bury our heads in sand like a frightened ostrich. We need to face it head-on, recognizing it for what and why it is.

Lastly, perhaps if we had listened to Alvin Toffer all those years ago, we might not be in the state we are in now.

Let's keep the dialogue flowing. I am enjoying it.

F