X-Message-Number: 32954
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 08:24:02 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>
Subject: Has there been technological progress since Mark Plus was bor...
References: <>

> Subject: Future Fatigue
> From: MARK PLUS <>
> 
> Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of "Future Shock"
> 
> http://bigthink.com/ideas/24533
> 
> I can see why Toffler's book might have impressed people in 1970
> for a week or two as something insightful, radical or edgy.
> 
> I don't see why it has that reputation now. I turn 51 next month,
> and nothing in my life has given me "future shock," mainly because
> of all the fraudulent promises of technological transformations
> I've heard since my childhood. (And you know what I refer to.)

Lets say you went back in time to 1960 and attempted to explain to
them the case of a couple of Florida teens who got in trouble for
sending nude photos of themselves taken on their cellphones to each
other via Facebook, and the ensuing controversy given that many
people don't believe that the teens in question had done anything
deeply wrong, let alone criminal.

How long would it take you to give the background to the person you
were talking to? How likely is it that they would believe your
description of the future?

Would they believe in the iPhone? Would they believe in the change in
sexual mores? How long would explaining the internet take?

Last week, the New York Times had a front page story describing a
reporter riding along in a car driven entirely by an AI going over
normal highways in California. The claim, which I believe, is that
such cars will be in commercial use within a couple of decades at
most.

I could go on for hours, but I have to get to the office.


Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		

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