Tempo

This blog is written by an old fogey ... by necessity ... for young people may well not notice nor care about the increasing tempo of everyday life.  Much how Charlie Chaplin noted the frenetic pace of activity 75 years ago in his movie Modern Times, I too am feeling that the clock has been sped up dramatically.  Whereas Chaplin's culprit was mechanization, my bogyman is computerization.  (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)  As an example of this time compression, there is something called Rapid Rescore that allows real estate agents to use modern technology to upgrade potential buyers' credit ratings (temporarily) so that they can qualify for a mortgage on a home they probably can't afford (see: Rapid Rescore).  This was one of the basic bricks in the outhouse that brought the sub-prime mortgage miasma onto our economy ... but, even more suprisingly, it still exists!  Yikes!

Also, now day traders (mostly hedge funds) use ultra-fast computers to uncover price movements in the stock markets, commodity markets, and currency pits that foretell other price changes and, in milliseconds, take advantage of this information to make a small profit (see: High Frequency Trading).  But adding up hundreds and thousands of small profits makes (sometimes) big profits.  These traders have been using faster and faster computers to win out over the others doing the same thing.  And now the NASDAQ stock exchange is allowing certain traders to move their computers into the same building as its computers that resolve NASDAQ trades. This shorter and therefore much faster speed-of-light communications cuts even more time off these trading delays.  (We're now talking microseconds, if not nanoseconds, of competitive advantage.)

Is this fair?  Probably not ... but that is not the thrust of this narrative.  What I am trying to point out is that the tempo of everyday life is increasing to the point where much of the important things and, yes, even the aesthetic nuances of life are lost.  Even fast thinkers and/or glib talkers seem to have an edge in the media or politics ... how about Rush Limbaugh, Ron Blagojevich, David Letterman, John Stewart, Newt Gingrich, James Carville, etc.?  This suggests that the overdrive living pace today is affecting people's media preferences and performances.  And this faster tempo is often driven by the technologies we surround ourselves with ... Twitter, FaceBook, et alia.  Do I really need to know that cousin Clyde just saw Clint Eastwood walking through LAX ... or that sister Susan's gerbil just had gerbilettes?  Not really. 

And so this increased speed is also cluttering up our lives with data noise which I think is crowding out the more meaningful information that everyone should know.  Have you ever watched any episodes of "Jay [Leno] Walking"?  The factual stupidity of the average American is dumbfounding ... and yet we encourage everyone to get out and vote.  Are we nuts?

Yes, there is no holding back this tide of technology.  But just realizing what is happening to us is a small step forward.  And I hope that this critique might encourage others to understand better these fast-paced circumstances ... and take a little more time to think through your reactions ... particularly in response to more methodical minds and vocalizers (such as Mitt Romney.)  Remember, the laconic Will Rogers was a superstar even during the Roaring Twenties.