Motherhood in the Singularity

The new iPod shuffle is out. It's the size and weight of a matchbook. It holds 240 songs and plays for two hours.

There's an invisibility cloak that's ... freakishly probable.

Teleportation isn't just probably, it's here. Small scale, but it's here.

I don't know if the singularity is upon us, but even if it isn't, the technological changes that are tearing across our society right now are wide-spread and radical: The impact that cell phones and the internet has had on the fabric of society is, IMHO, still not fully realized. YouTube and cell phone cameras are altering the fundemental ideas of journalism and information dispersal. As a sci-fi fan, I find this fascinating. As a mother, I find it terrifying.

Change isn't intrinsically bad, but it is, necessarily, unstable. I don't knwo what the world will look like in five years. No one does. (Anyone who tells you different is selling something.) How can I prepare my daughter for a world that might look radically different?

I mean, i have no idea how to deal with a social landscape that's made up of a network of IM, TXT messages, and cellphones. While I'm certain that the "Child Predators Caught on Tape" specials on the news are just fear mongering, the risk is still there. And that's just the changes in the past 16 years. I don't know what the world will look like in another 16. And I'm not sure I'm good enough to keep up with the changes in the technology.

But that's not what you're here for, is it? So here's a picture of May: