Creating: Now vs. 30 Years Ago

I believe it was easier to create, rather than consume, 20 to 30 years ago, than it is now. This is a major problem, for a few reasons.

The biggest issue with this is that is teaches new generations that computers are machines for consumption, not creating. Why is this bad? It’s not only bad, it’s harmful, because an entire generation can be taught there’s a distinct differentiation between two tasks on the machine: work and play. There are non-creative activities at work, and non-creative activities at play, even though both can benefit from incredibly enjoyable activities that involve the creation of something new.

What does creativity matter, anyway?

Creativity is the driving force behind human progress. Every time a new idea is born, that’s creative. Whenever someone comes up with some new way to do something that’s more efficient, that’s creative (so at play, one can experience work-like effects -- the distinction becomes a bit blurrier).

The point is, creativity matters because it’s how we mentally adapt and evolve as a species. It’s necessary to survival.

What does this have to do with 30 years ago?

30 years ago, creativity on computers in particular was being heavily encouraged. As computers have become the primary tools of creators, from musicians, to illustrators, to writers, it seems as though more people would be involved in creative acts.

There’s a problem or two, though.

First and foremost, it’s become objectively harder to create on modern machines, than it was on older machines. Older machines were esoteric and mysterious, yes. They did require a modicum of gumption, yes. But! They encouraged creation. After all, there wasn’t a whole lot of content to consume -- aside from games and bulletin board systems, there wasn’t the plethora, the waves, the interminable stream of content that there is today. You had to make your own fun.

This made Ultima. This made Doom, This made Quake. This vacuum of consumable material made for prime conditions for creativity and new ideas.

More than that, besides the lack of stuff to do on these old machines, there was an environment that encouraged discovery and experimentation. BASIC was the norm. Assembly was not far behind. And manuals existed! The user was thought of as a programmer, as an operator of this wild newfangled machine. Not just a consumer, but a creator.

I think what bothers me most about the philosophy of the new generation of machines is that they prioritize work over play or vice versa, and one comes at the expense of the other (tablets, for example, are purely entertainment-based, for the most part).

What I’m getting at is that, if you’re very lucky and very savvy, you can have a job, work, that feels like play, like a creative act. This is the dream, right? 

I think that in the future, when automation has eaten up enough jobs, and Universal Basic Income has become the norm to replace the wages of a world gone by, humanity will be primarily engaged in one of two endeavors, consumptive or creative. Which one, depends on where we go from here.