Life in the Fast Lane | Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.

Since the beginning of the "Industrial Revolution" life choices have been changing gradually but significantly every ten or twenty years.

These changes are obvious to most people over the age of thirty. They can easily see how young children and teenagers are making decisions and choices based on a different set of criteria than they did when they were younger.

These changes are even more obvious to senior citizens who are age 60 or older. These individuals have seen how human behavior and decision making is totally different now compared to when they were children, and when they were young adults, and when they were middle age adults.

There are a lot of different reasons for these changes but the four most important factors are as follows:

Advances in Technology: Technology is enhancing quality, lowering costs, increasing the speed of delivery, and people are gradually being replaced by machines. This is good when the changes are positive and quality is really improved. However, it is bad when product performance is only improved for a short period of time, and the product actually wears out faster.
More Frequent Family Relocations: Families no longer live in the same geographical area for an extended period of time. People are now very mobile. Today it is much less common to find a family living in the same exact place that they lived in twenty years ago. This mobility has resulted in frequent changes in employment, long-distance family relationships, and fewer close personal friendships.
Lack of Long-Term Personal Commitments: The above constantly changing social environment has resulted in fewer and fewer friendships that last a lifetime. It has also resulted in a significant increase in the divorce rate and a reduction in the number of marriages. This means there are more children who are being raised by one parent, or who are being cared for by their close relatives, or who have become wards of the state. When these children grow up they are less likely to remain in a long-term family relationship and this erodes the long-term stability of a nation.
Lack of Traceability: It is becoming more difficult to trace problems back to their original source. This lack of traceability is increased by the constantly changing employment demographics within a company. Some employees don't care about the quality of their work because they know they will probably be working for a different company before their mistakes are discovered by the final consumer. And some employees intentionally do things they shouldn't for a variety of different reasons. The end result is that products today have a higher chance of wearing out than similar products that were made twenty or thirty years ago. This lack of traceability is also partially responsible for the increase in "cyber crimes."

The combined impact of the above changes has been a gradual erosion in the moral and ethical standards of an ever increasing number of people. When a significant number of people decide they are going to do "whatever seems right in their own eyes" then the nation they live in becomes less stable and more unpredictable, and lawlessness and crime begin to escalate out-of-control.

May I humbly suggest that you consider preparing for a future that may be drastically different from the society in which you now live.

Respectfully,
Grandpappy.

Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com