Pessimistic people like to think that nothing ever changes. It’s not so. Think about how we “chunk” or compress data into conversation. For the first time in recorded history we can speak in references. The closest we got before was allusion and slang, but never reference. Those didn’t happen until we had mass communication. For example: “It’s a ‘who’s on first,’ scenario.” That couldn’t be said from one person to another until we could be sure, and indeed rely upon the penetrance of an idea. Our conversations now do what lyrical poetry used to, every day, all the time. Two teenagers can speak in a way that would make Coleridge blush.

That is fucking incredible, and if you pessimists cannot look at the sheer VOLUME of of data communication in colloquial speech and marvel at how differently our brain now works, you clearly live under a rock.

No matter what we are communicating, we are now doing it in more sophisticated ways than has ever been done before, and it still isn’t good enough. That should inspire us, not frighten or bother us.