“We dream. It’s who we are. Down to our bones, our cells, that instinct to build, that drive to seek beyond what we know. It’s in our DNA. We crossed the oceans, we conquered the skies. And when there were no more frontiers on earth, we launched ourselves among the stars.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
The heavens beckoned a new generation of innovators and explorers, seeking to take humankind even further.
We can push out into the solar system, not just to visit but to say.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28jA2NVNFuc
(Inspiring speech at the beginning of the first episode of Mars, series of 2018 produced by NatGeo.)
A series celebrating the creative human drive with an optimistic message about innovation, exploration, and technological development.
A rare content lost in the middle of dystopian, catastrophic narratives, and pessimistic stories about technology.
And as says Balaji:
“if code scripts machines, media scripts human beings”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1411655484801622017
However, the large media production from Mainstream Media codes us for a catastrophic and pessimistic view of reality.
For each new technology that arises, the headlines are always highlighting some bad side effects, ignoring all the other amazing benefits.
For example, I remember searching for “home office” on Google Brazil (in 2020) and seeing news like that, just on the first page.
I really struggled to find some positive articles about the subject.
Just 20 years ago the digital economy did not even exist. Remote work was a utopian dream.
Today, a very large portion of the population has access to this model, and yet the related news is almost all negative.
“The harms of Homeoffice”, “New way of slavery”, “Digital burn down”, and go on.
Although it is evidently important to discuss these issues, focusing only on these problems makes society disconnect from the underlying opportunities provided by technology, and also completely lose perspective when compared today to past realities.
People who previously depended on physical jobs, long hours of commuting on scrapped public transportation, can now connect with customers or employers around the world, completely breaking the barrier of face-to-face work.
However, the excessive negative frame about this innovation scripts our brain to see a problem for every solution, generating anxiety and pessimism.
The current scarcity of media productions with technologic optimistic approaches is one of the main reasons for the lack of perception of the value of innovation in our society. Even generating an opposite effect: the demonization of such technologies.
Our Mainstream Media, seeking audience and, consequently, profit, focuses excessively on the negative side of each innovation that appears, contaminating society with an extremely debilitating virus.
After all, naturally, our limbic system and our attention are more easily captured by catastrophic news than by positive and optimistic news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDsNZJTWw0w
Creating productions highlighting the power of technology, and how much it impacts people's lives, especially the most socially vulnerable, is essential for a more prosperous future.
Without seeing that smartphones and the Internet are powerful weapons against poverty, injustice, and violation of human rights, we will not invest in these innovations and in future technologists and entrepreneurs in the future.
Without the awareness that scientific and technological development is the only definitive solution to environmental problems, we will continue to overestimate political power in solving these complex problems.
Without realizing that the genetic manipulation of plants was responsible for feeding humans in the population explosion of the last century, we have no chance of valuing our technologists, researchers, and entrepreneurs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6bHhCNj6Fg
Optimistic documentaries, futuristic films with a positive frame, articles about statistical data highlighting human progress, and all kinds of media that balance our perception of modern reality are essential in this century.
By the way, this is my role here at Peerbase.
Break the catastrophic and political-centric narrative of the mainstream media and share inspiring insights and data about our evolution as a human race.
