We Didn't Start The Fire

It was always burning since the world's been turning.

Yesterday, I was goofing off with my little Poppy, my adorable grandchild, making silly faces and noises like only a doting grandparent can. Meanwhile, the Popster’s mom and my wife were yakking about something or other in the den, and one of them tossed out, “Oh, we can just order it on Amazon.” It was one of those offhand remarks that shouldn’t have stuck, but the weird wiring in my brain lit up like a Christmas tree. As I Poppy and I tested the limits of her bouncy swing, it hit me: this kid, this tiny bundle of giggles and wonder, is going to grow up in a world where the Internet isn’t just a thing - it’s the thing.

A world without it? Unimaginable to her. And that’s wild to me.

Most folks might shrug at that, but I couldn’t shake it. I’m old enough to remember the days when the Internet wasn’t even a twinkle in Al Gore’s eye - back when connecting meant the banshee scream of a 300 baud modem hooked to a landline, clawing its way onto AOL like some digital pioneer and us sitting in front of a green tinted CRT hoping to get a good latch and a stable connection. That’s when we started carving out our first online selves, fumbling through chat rooms and Geocities pages. Poppy’s generation? They’re born into a reality where that modem screech is as ancient as a dinosaur fossil. Millions of people—whole generations—came after that dial-up era, and they’ll never know the thrill of hearing “You’ve got mail!” as a major life event.

It’s funny how living through history feels so different from cracking open a textbook or listening to some professor drone on about it. There’s this thick, messy layer of context you can’t bottle up and ship off in words or pictures. It’s the smell of the air, the buzz of the moment—stuff that doesn’t translate. I’ve been around long enough to see some serious chapters unfold firsthand: racism in all its ugly shades, the shadow of communism, hot wars spitting bullets, the Cold War freezing us in suspense. I watched the Sexual Revolution rewrite the rules, Women’s Lib kick down doors, Disco strut its stuff, and Rap flip the script. I saw JFK’s funeral and Ole Miss desegregated. I watched TV go from fuzzy black-and-white boxes to color explosions, then balloon from 18-inch screens to 100-inch monsters. I’ve lived a life where my entertainment time was governed by network schedules – if you missed an episode, God help you because it might be weeks before you could manage to see a rerun.

I’ve fumbled with reel-to-reel tapes, LP’s and 45’s, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, and now I’m streaming playlists while my coffee brews. Phones? I’ve cranked them by hand, spun rotary dials, lugged around those clunky first mobiles, and now I’ve got a pocket-sized supercomputer that’s part phone, part jukebox, part everything. Hell, my refrigerator, my washer and dryer, our phones, computers, two robot vacuums, watches, and entertainment systems, HVAC systems – even my pool pump and heater - are all wirelessly connected to, and controlled through, the Internet – and a five Gigabit Google Fiber connection assures everybody stays connected.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve stumbled into Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire,” dodging sparks and taking notes. And then there’s the kicker: I’ll get some high school or college kid - bless their little pea-pickin’ hearts - trying to school me on what those “ancient” days were like. They’re so sure of themselves, but they usually miss the mark by a mile. They weren’t there. They didn’t feel the static of a broadcast signal fading out or the weight of a rotary phone in their hands. They read about it, sure, but that’s like describing a sunset to someone who’s never seen the sky. Me? I’ve lived it - every pixel, every dial tone, every revolution—and I’ve got the wrinkles to prove it.

There have been a handful of discoveries that have propelled humankind forward – fire, domestication of animals, the wheel, agriculture, modern medicine, the Industrial Revolution, and now there is AI.

But none of this has meaning without context. Context is what kills misinformation and disinformation.

That is why I think, even though we have more information at our fingertips than ever, society seems to be getting dumber than ever.

My hope is that AI is a mechanism by which we can immerse the inquisitive into a world where not only do they get the words, but the metaphorical music as well – that they get to feel what it was really like rather than being told by someone who did not experience it.

If we can do that, humans of Poppy’s generation have a shot at a truly remarkable age.