Listen to the radio and you'll find yet another remake of a classic song.Go to the multiplex and you'll find yet another remake of a classic film.
Go online and you'll find yet another remake of someone else's opinion or idea.
Arguably, this hyper-connected world is killing our ingenuity and originality as any idea, approach, opinion, or strategy can be simply lifted from elsewhere. Now trust me, I'm a huge proponent of learning from others, but where do you draw the line between guidance, and regurgitation? After all, why bother to learn anything when you can drop it into a search?
Even the simple act of performing a web search means that billions of people will be pulling from the same repository of information. Wikipedia has revolutionized the way that we access facts, but it has also devolutionized the way that we problem solve, research, and deductively reason.
The same can be said for music. Turn on the radio and 90% of what you'll hear you will be remade songs from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Technology has revolutionized the way that we RE-create music, but it has also devolutionized the way that music is created.
So this begs the question...who's to blame? Do we blame technology? Or do we blame ourselves?
First off, yes. Technology makes everything in our lives easier. But given that we are (apparently) inherently lazy creatures, we certainly have no problems indulging ourselves.
I also think it comes down to the fact that because there is so much information passing by us at any given moment, we are actively and passively influenced by all of it... So like a web search, our brains just go for the most immediately accessible, relevant solution that we can get our grubby little neurons on.
Whether Music, TV, Film, Politics, you name it--We simply can't avoid performing someone else's song. That, and in the information age there's the unspoken notion that "'tis better to contribute nonsense than to contribute nothing at all".
Remember when technology use to make our lives functionally better? It seems that now days technology makes our lives conveniently better. Problem is, the way that we think seems to have followed suit in that instead of seeking functional knowledge to create something new that's of value, we seek convenient knowledge because it's easy to replicate.
What are your thoughts?