In Cascio's article the topic of the Noosphere epoch caught my attention the most. To a certain degree it seems entirely true that the focus of our technological evolution will eventually turn into learning how to handle the significant amounts of knowledge that we have obtained. It is also my belief in Cascio's description of ADD as being a "continuous partial attention-deficit disorder" because technology has absolutely taken away one’s ability to focus on anything not technologically oriented.
The main topic that I think caught not only my attention but everyone’s attention is on drugs. Interestingly enough Cascio talks about Adderall and modafinil as being drugs that made him “smarter”. I agree that people think of these drugs as getting a faster computer or a better education but where I disagree is in the advantage. People become dependent on these drugs and can’t go back when in reality they could focus and be productive without them. It is societies typical mentality of trying to make everything easy instead of putting the time and work in.
I enjoyed reading this article because it touched on pertinent topics and also some hot topics in society as we speak. It is sad to think of a “You+” society but the fact of the matter is that seems to be the inevitable end point. An interesting topic is the fact that innovations such as agriculture and trade will never collapse but if web or technology in general did how would society react. I think society would go through a huge adjustment period and maybe even a short but harsh collapse.
I think that's really interesting that you brought up the issue of dependency in response to Cascio's beliefs on the issue of drugs that make us "more efficient." If human beings do become dependent on such drugs, which is extremely likely, we will in a sense lose ourselves in the process. This is what I believe Nicholas Carr's fear was, that our humanistic intelligence will be lost, and we will eventually depend on something artificial to live our lives for us.
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