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Friday, July 2, 2010

RTC - syndrome : "Resistance To Change"

"RTC- syndrome = Resistance To Change .... "Artsy syndrome" for short "
People are by nature resistant to change  . If you suggest something new people will be busy thinking of how they can contradict your statement before you finish speaking " It'll never work ...." . That's what happened when I told my workmates that I was going to invent a ''bilge pump powered longline fishing kontiki " ..... it's human nature and it happens whenever something new is introduced in photography as well .
When the Nikon D90 was first released people were saying "We don't need video in a DSLR" , today people are saying " Is the video quality in this camera as good as in the other model ? " - not necessarily the same people but I'll bet a reasonable percentage of the 'nay-sayers' have accepted it now .

That's a pattern that has probably repeated itself with every new introduction in photography .
Possibly from the time they introduced mechanical control of shutter speed  as opposed to people opening and closing the lens cap manually . Some even opposed auto-focus .... " It's not natural , all this new technology doing what we should be doing manually !" .... now people judge a camera by the speed of  its auto-focus . Auto modes , pattern metering , program mode ...... then digital came out - how many people "swore blind they'd never go digital " because all they were ever used to was film !
People initially oppose change and then once it is  'no longer change ' but 'normal' they embrace it and set their standards by it . 
Being resistant to change is another way of being 'narrow minded' - speaking against something without even thinking properly about it .

Unfortunately it gets worse with time .
"They don't play music any more like they did in my day " ...... sound familiar ? How is it that people's tastes change so much over time ? They don't ! Memory is  affected by "adrenalin" and "emotion" and when the human body is undergoing the changes of ''their generation " they are more affected by adrenalin and emotion than in later years so anything from ''their time'' [ music , inventions etc. ] is the best ! Anything after that is '' a little over the top for my taste '' because they have ''mellowed out'' and are less affected by adrenalin and emotion .... then their children go through the stage where ''their time'' is the best ever with the best music .... and the pattern repeats itself  .


It's a bit like the theory of relativity  ..... everything is relative to the observer - someone is walking at 5 km/hr - but they're on a train traveling at 100km/hr . To them personally they are moving at 5 km/hr but to an outside observer , if they are walking to the front of the train they are moving at 105 km/hr .
When I first got my drivers license and got my first car there were a lot of old 'fuddy duddies' on the road - those old fossils who couldn't seem to find the accelerator pedal and shouldn't even be allowed on the road !
There were only a few 'hooligans' who drove faster than I thought was 'reasonable' and also shouldn't be allowed on the road .
In the last 25 years things seem to have evened out a bit - there are slightly more hooligans and surprisingly less 'old fuddy duddies' than before - maybe people have learned a bit more common sense in this time ?
But I imagine that in another 25 years there will be tons of hooligans on the road ...! to me that is :(
As emotion and adrenalin subsides RTC - syndrome becomes more prevalent . new inventions start to become 'over the top' and totally unnecessary . If you grew up with manual flash , you eventually accepted "A" mode thyristor controlled flash , you eventually understood and accepted " TTL flash " but now TTL-BL or E-TTLII flash is a getting a bit 'out of hand' and ' unnecessary ' , it's  a little 'over the top ' having a flash system that also calculates the distance of the subject and what you have done with the ambient exposure in its output - we've been used to doing that for years and this is taking things a little too far now .... should you still be driving a car ??? 


Whether you're at the stage where there are only one or two hooligans on the road [normal RTC- syndrome] or are at the stage where everyone on the road is a hooligan [advanced RTC- syndrome] give a thought to your reaction the next time something new is introduced and ask yourself whether you have thought out your objections or are letting human nature get in the way of reasonableness .  
Technology is moving faster than ever so RTC-syndrome is affecting shorter 'generations' of people ..... try to keep up :) .






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