Twit

xTian’s last post and my visceral reaction to it reminded me of a Douglas Adams quote I once read:

“1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.”

I assumed the benchmark of 30 was a generalization. For people in my hillbilly high school, the cut-off age was around 18. For people like xTian and Evil who work on the interweb, the age is probably something older than 30. Interestingly, Twitter hit the scene just after my 30th birthday while Facebook became open to the public in September 2006, just before my 30th. I’m on Facebook every day, and I think Twitter is against the natural order of things.

Was Adams onto something? Are we all in for a downward spiral of condemning more and more new-new-things? Our grandparents pioneered air travel, space exploration, and nuclear weaponry. But you still don't want to get in line behind one of them at the ATM.

I'm just glad Dippin' Dots were invented before my 30th birthday.