Change

I learned a little.

I did not change.

A foolish choice.

I learned nothing.

I changed.

A foolish choice.

I learned a little.

I changed a little

Consistent with my learning.

It was a good thing.

I learned a little how to learn a bit more.

The more I learned the more I new

How to learn.

My neighbor learned a little too,

And then the stranger down the street

He learned a little.

He wrote a book

As did my neighbor,

And I.

We shared.

We learned and then we changed.

We changed more because we knew more.

We learned slowly

Wrote slowly

Slowly we shared.

And slowly we changed.

Errors in knowledge,

Error of purpose,

And purposeful dis-information,

Cast into the information system

Brought destructive results

From time to time.

Language,

The written word,

The printing press,

Education,

Mathematics,

Methods,

Logic,

Science,

Technology,

Libraries,

Machines to do our hard work,

Game theory,

Wars,

Computers,

Semiconductor memory,

Information systems,

The internet,

Discerning methods,

Wireless communication

Cellular phones,

.

.

.

With each came increase in knowledge

And increase in dissemination of knowledge.

Our friends learned more.

The stranger learned more.

Our enemy learned more.

Our customer learned more.

Our supplier learned more.

The more we learned the more we changed.

The faster we learned, the faster we changed.

Still

Errors in knowledge,

Faulty sharing,

dis-information,

And error of purpose

Bring destructive results

From time to time.

We used our knowledge

Against both real and imaginary enemies

And they against us.

We used collaboration

To magnify competition

With our collaborators.

Future tools

Enable increase in collaboration,

2 thinkers collaborating

2 times faster.

Followed by 4 thinkers collaborating

4 times faster.

Followed by 8 thinkers collaborating

8 times faster.

Followed by 16 thinkers collaborating

16 times faster.

Followed by 32 thinkers collaborating

32 times faster.

64

128

256

512

1024

2048

4096

8192

16384

32768

...

And all the while the time between grows shorter.

Beyond our human capacity

Collaboration and knowledge

Continue to progress.

And then

Before our thought is complete

'tis obsolete.

Wars go on forever

But are waged and complete in an instant.

Without a shot being fired.

Business develops in a second

And obsoletes in a second.

Before I can decide on a car or a home,

It is off the market.

Perhaps one can eat an idea!

At some point one must stop progress from one idea to another

from one paradigm to another,

long enough to benefit from the last.

All this would seem

To require less human capital

Yet the demand for human capital

Appears to increase at increasing rate with every step.

The more we learn, the more we need to know!

And the more urgent seems the action.

-

And then perhaps

-

We completely know

And are completely known,

Each by the other.

With decreasing error.

Is change then no more?

Has life stopped?

Or has it just begun?

Billy R. Masten

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