Retell
The second set of 50 pages in Alvin Toffler's Future Shock focus on how society has changed in the past few centuries. One of his main observations is that we have become a "Throw-Away" society. He says that we are used to the world having things replaced constantly, this is mostly because of lowering costs of items - it almost is cheaper, at the time of the book, to buy some items new rather than have the old ones repaired. A very prominent example of this whole feeling is when the author talks about his daughter, who looked for the drugstore and couldn't find it, saying it "must have been torn down". The author contrasts what he would have assumed, in his time, stores didn't close down that fast, it wasn't natural.
Respond
This second reading session I have done really shows how society has been the way it is for some time, or at least has been evolving to become this way. This reading was extremely interesting, although a bit disturbing in his ideas of how far our ideas of "throwing away" have gone.
Relate
I can relate this now to two things - the first is my previous reading, The Singularity is Near. Both books observe how fast society has changed, and the consequences that brings. I can also relate this to my life - I see this "Throw-Away" society every day, some things are just cheaper to keep buying rather than reusing. It's going to be extremely interesting to see how this book progresses.
Future Shock seems like an interesting read, I might look into it.
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