There are elements to life that have drastically changed for the better, to name one example how about not just being able to hear your local radio stations, but radio from anywhere in the world.
The fact that I can tune in live to… say BBC Radio 6, and be listening along to the exact same thing they’re listening to in a city like London, makes a measurable positive impact in my night-owl life. It emotionally makes me feel more connected to the outside world from where I am, and that’s one station out of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. I can explore the world.
Another example is that I can now understand (to the extent that each step makes sense to me) the physics theories and laboratory experiments that have changed our paradigm of reality itself, thanks to a whole bunch of science content creators on YouTube; it is incredible what can now be explained in relatively (ahem) simple language, and it is, by people doing the explaining as a labor of love.
People have found ways to express in mostly non-technical language what a couple of decades ago felt like abstract numerical gibberish wherever one looked. I find this spectacular. And inspiring.
These new tools that have been put in our hands are astonishingly powerful and profound. Yet of course, they can be both either used or abused. Here, I am focusing solely on the “used” side.